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Why Fame Can t%^> Spoil Frdd Aslaire
"Well, just this once," says Fred as he makes a valiant attempt to combine stardom with a real private life
FOR three days the mousy, shabbily-dressed girl had waited in front of 875 Park Avenue, New York City, for Fred Astaire to appear. He was her last hope. Since the show she was dancing in had closed, she hadn't earned a cent. Perhaps he could help her get a job as a dancer. Save her from starvation.
But somehow, Fred had always slipped in and out unnoticed. The doorman and attendants, touched by her shabbiness, didn't have the heart to chase her away. When they suggested they announce her to Mr. Astaire, she begged them not to. "He doesn't know in,e from Adam," she said. "He'd never be willing to see me."
Finally, one of the men told Astaire about her.
In two minutes he was downstairs, talking to the girl.
He took her chin in the palm of his hand, and said, "Don't be discouraged. It will be all right. You go to see Florenz Ziegfeld tomorrow. Tell him I sent you. And if there is anything else I can do, just let me know."
He talked to her as kindly as if she were his own sister.
You never knew that about Fred Astaire, did you? And you never knew that he was generous to a fault, and could refuse no plea for help. But Fred Astaire feels that his private life is his own affair.
Perhaps you are one of the people who resent this attitude. You think Fred's gone high-hat. And you can't understand his threatening to walk out on RKO-Radio.
If you want to, go on being peeved at Fred, and thinking
Hollywood, with its gold and glory, has changed a host of grand people; but the hurrah hasn't touched Fred. He still has both feet on solid ground
By Mary Jacobs
he's affected. But before you pass final judgment upon our grinning, fleet-footed comedian, I want you to get a glimpse of the unknown side of Fred Astaire, the side he refuses to reveal. I had to visit dozens of people to get the stories I'm going to tell you. Neighbors of his childhood days at Weehawken, New Jersey; actors who knew him on the long climb up; employees at 875 Park Avenue, where he lived for three years prior to his marriage; relatives, producers and friends.
All agree on two things: That the underlying keynotes of his character are, and always have been, his generosity and shyness. When he was ten years old, and in the fifth grade at the Hamilton School at Weehawken, he was always quiet and well-mannered, his teacher, Miss Eva Brundage, remembers. She and the principal, Miss Cora Fiske, recall, too, that Fred always had to be coaxed to appear in school plays. That it was his sister, Adele, who had the nerve and push, who was the leader of the duo. To this day his childhood neighbors remember how badly Fred felt when he was chosen to appear with Adele, in a school version of "Cyrano de Bergerac." Adele was taller than he, so she was given the male lead, while Fred, protesting every inch of the way, was dressed in female finery, and made to play Roxanne!
Always, Fred feared that he would be considered a sissy, because his mother insisted he practice dancing, and study French, when he wanted nothing better than to be permitted to play his beloved baseball with his chums
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