Download The Astaires: Fred & Adele AudioBook Free
Before "Fred and Ginger" there is "Fred and Adele", a show-business partnership and cultural sensation like no other. In our celebrity-saturated age, it's hard to grasp just what a genuine phenomenon these two siblings from Omaha were. In the height of their success in the mid-1920s, the Astaires seemed to establish the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin's music in movement, a fascinating match who wove spellbinding rhythms in track and dance. On this e book, the first extensive study of their theatrical career along, Kathleen Riley traces the Astaires' climb to fame from humble midwestern origins and early days as child performers on small-time vaudeville levels (where Fred, fatefully, first donned top hat and tails) with their 1917 debut on Broadway to star billings on both sides of the Atlantic. They became ambassadors of an art form they helped to revolutionize, adored by viewers, feted by royalty, and courted socially by elites all over they went. Right away, Adele was the more natural performer, spontaneous, funny, and self-possessed, while Fred was required to hone his trademark timing and elegance through endless hours of rehearsal, a disciplined regimen that Adele loathed. In the long run, Fred's dancing know-how surpassed his sister's, and their pathways diverged: Adele hitched into English aristocracy, and Fred going for Hollywood. The Astaires examines in depth the extraordinary tale of this great brother-sister team, with full focus on its historical and theatrical framework. It isn't merely an account of the first part of Fred's long and illustrious career but one using its own significance. Created at the close of the 1800s, Fred and Adele grew up together with the new century, so when they reached superstardom during the interwar years, they shone as an affirmation of life and expectation amid a prevailing crisis of beliefs and identity.
