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FRED ASTAIRE
by the time he made The Gay Divorcee in 1934, Astaire was in his mid-thirties. He brought years of ballet, ballroom and acrobatic training to his love of tap-dancing. Countless hours of work were behind the aristocratic ease with which Astaire appeared
to dance.
GINGER ROGERS
began her career in vaudeville before making her mark in the 1929 Broadway musical Top Speed. After dyeing her hair, she played a string of streetwise blondes, including Anytime Annie in 42nd Street. Her partnership with Fred
Ruby Keeler
Astaire lasted from 1933 to 1949, and they became the most beloved dance duo in history.
JAMES CAGNEY
although renowned for his tough guy image, Cagney
was a versatile performer who appeared in several screen musicals. While he
was making classic gangster movies in the 30s, he played the lead in one of the best musicals of the decade, Footlight Parade, and 10 years later he tapped superbly in Yankee Doodle Dandy.
RUBY KEELER
renowned for the Busby Berkeley musicals she made
in the 1930s, especially 42nd Street in which she is famously told: ‘You’ve got to give, give, give... You’re going out a youngster but you’ve got to come back as a star.’
ANN MILLER
vivacious and long-legged (it is claimed she achieved 500 taps per minute at her peak), her long career lasted from the 1930s into the 1980s. One of her highlights on film was her solo number ‘Shaking
the Blues Away’ in Easter Parade (1948).
DONALD O’CONNOR
nimble and likeable, O’Connor sang, danced and clowned his way through Call Me Madam, There’s No Business Like
Show Business and Anything Goes in the 1950s. He is best remembered, however, as Cosmo in Singin’ in the Rain. He was still performing in the 1990s, opening the Connaught Room in London in 1994 with his cabaret act.
Bill Robinson
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