Quote #18

When I was in the Soviet Union recently I was being interviewed by a newspaperman and he said, 'Which dancers influenced you the most?' and I said, 'Oh, well, Fred Astaire.' He looked very surprised and shocked and I said, 'What's the matter?' He said, 'Well, Mr. Balanchine just said the same thing.'

More from Fred Astaire

  1. He was not just the best ballroom dancer, or tap dancer, he was simply the greatest, most imaginative, dancer of our time
  2. The history of dance on film begins with Astaire
  3. He's a genius...a classical dancer like I never saw in my life
  4. Except for times Fred worked with real professional dancers like Cyd Charisse, it was a twenty five year war
  5. What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an ab…
  6. There is no setup in Hollywood that compares with an Astaire picture
  7. He is the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times... you see a little bit of Astaire in everybody's danc…
  8. As a dancer he stands alone, and no singer knows his way around a song like Fred Astaire

All Fred Astaire quotes