Fred Astaire's Solo and Partnered Dances

This is a comprehensive guide to over one hundred and fifty of Fred Astaire's solo and partnered dances compiled from his thirty-one Hollywood musical comedy films produced between 1933 and 1968, his four television specials and his television appearances on The Hollywood Palace and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre which cover the period from 1958 to 1968. Further information on the dance routines may be obtained, where available, by clicking on the film links.

While Fred Astaire remains the most prolific and influential dancer in cinema history, his corpus is also valued for its inventiveness, virtuosity and precision of execution, indeed a hallmark of Astaire was his determination never to repeat himself. In the field of motion-picture dance, only Gene Kelly is considered to have created work of comparable quality and importance, and even he was unable to match the sheer volume of Astaire's output.

Roberta (1935) was the last film where the taps were all recorded live, after this virtually all of Fred Astaire's taps were re-recorded by him in post production, and while this was common practice in Hollywood musicals of the time - for example Ginger Rogers' taps on the Astaire-Rogers pictures were post-recorded by Astaire's collaborator Hermes Pan - it was unusual for a major star to undertake such a tedious and time-consuming task. It was the act of a perfectionist who was by no means a workaholic - between films he would seldom dance, devoting himself instead to his family and favourite pastimes of horseracing and golf.

Clips showing Astaire's filmed dances are rarely shown in public today, although they have featured in films such as The Green Mile and, more controversially, in 1997 Dirt Devil commercials. Astaire always retained the sole rights to film clips of his dances and after his death, these rights - which are essentially rights of publicity - passed to his widow Robyn Smith Astaire - who charges a fee schedule for the airing of these clips that some program producers consider uneconomic. Mrs. Astaire has contended that the license fees are moderate and are used to help fund litigation to defend against copyright infringement of her late husband's estate.

...
Wikipedia