Fred Astaire : Was he racist?

Was he racist?

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/01/30/ASTAIRE-2.html


Im the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega

Re: Was he racist?

No, he was not a racist. A lot of performers appeared in blackface in the old days, but a lot of those certain performers were not racist. When people think of blackface they usually associate it with Al Jolson [no, Jolson wasn't racist either], but they forget about Astaire, Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and George Murphy, all of whom played in blackface at some point, and all of whom had no racist feelings.

An Astaire biographer, Peter Levinson, claims that Astaire refused to help an all-black dance school, but that biography was full of careless errors. That story also goes against the many other claims of non-racist behavior on the part of Astaire. He was also close friends with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and it is Robinson who Astaire is made up as in that photo.

Re: Was he racist?

This is a difficult issue. Blackface was very common back in the early part of Astaire's career. Blacks certainly didn't like it, but a lot of whites, especially those from areas without much African American population, did not perceive it as problematical until later on. I remember my mother telling me she did a number in blackface in high school with a friend, while growing up in New Hampshire. Later, of course, she realized how racist it was, but she didn't at the time. So, you could say it was racist and hurtful but usually not intentionally racist or hurtful. And it's not as though Astaire made a habit of it later on in his career.

Regarding whether or not Astaire was racist aside from the use of blackface, that' 16d0 s another difficult question. Onscreen segregation was definitely a thing, thanks to the South being such a huge part of the film audience, and it wasn't that much easier for a white performer to oppose it than for a black performer, even though the white performers' status was higher. So, just because Astaire didn't appear much with black performers, that doesn't say very much at all about his personal attitudes toward them. His opportunities for such professional encounters onscreen would have been very limited.

There's a famous example about the Nicholas Brothers and the 1948 film, The Pirate. Gene Kelly, who greatly admired the brothers, fought tooth and nail to get them on the film *and* dance with them in a dance sequence where the three of them were not only touching, but practically crawling all over each other. It was the very first scene of its kind between blacks and whites.

Now, obviously, Kelly couldn't have been adverse to performing with black people under such a circumstance. That said, it didn't necessarily do the Nicholas Brothers' career overall any favors. The sequence (which is wonderful, by the way) was cut in the Southern market (where it was taboo) and the brothers found it difficult to find film work after that. They ended up taking their act to Europe until the 1960s. So, Kelly was well-meaning, but he might not have helped them in the long run.

Going back to Astaire, he did have a scene dancing with Leroy Daniels a few years later in The Band Wagon. Again, this was a time when that was *highly* unusual and highly disapproved of in some parts of the country. It was a performance Astaire probably could have gotten out of easily if he hadn't wanted to do it. Yet, he partnered with Daniels and he did it with a smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbb4kEk3NbQ

It's not definitive proof, of course, that Astaire held similar attitudes to Kelly's, but I think the jury's still out, at worst, on his being a racist in the sense of being unwilling to work with African American performers.

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Re: Was he racist?

This is a difficult issue. Blackface was very common back in the early part of Astaire's career. Blacks certainly didn't like it, but a lot of whites, especially those from areas without much African American population, did not perceive it as problematical until later on. I remember my mother telling me she did a number in blackface in high school with a friend, while growing up in New Hampshire. Later, of course, she realized how racist it was, but she didn't at the time. So, you could say it was racist and hurtful but usually not intentionally racist or hurtful. And it's not as though Astaire made a habit of it later on in his career.
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Astaire rarely used blackface at all and even if he happened to use it a lot, it doesn't prove that he was a racist.

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Regarding whether or not Astaire was racist aside from the use of blackface, that's another difficult question. Onscreen segregation was definitely a thing, thanks to the South being such a huge part of the film audience, and it wasn't that much easier for a white performer to oppose it than for a black performer, even though the white performers' status was higher. So, just because Astaire didn't appear much with black performers, that doesn't say very much at all about his personal attitudes toward them. His opportunities for such professional encounters onscreen would have been very limited.
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I haven't counted the times Astaire appeared on screen with African-Americans anymore than I have counted how many times Frank Sinatra appeared with them.

What I do know is that As 5b4 taire was friends with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. The two men played pool together, and Robinson was said to have taught Astaire a few moves.

Astaire also worked with Oscar Peterson on THE ASTAIRE STORY album.

Oscar Peterson spoke warmly of the sessions that produced THE ASTAIRE STORY in his autobiography, noting that vocally, Astaire was naturally attuned to jazz phrasing, and that Astaire enjoyed playing the drums at home. Astaire gave each of the musicians on the album a gold identification bracelet, inscribed "With thanks, Fred A". Ray Brown lost his bracelet, Alvin Stoller's was stolen, but Peterson wore his for the rest of his life.

Astaire also told the Nicholas Brothers that their song 'Jumpin' Jive' [from STORMY WEATHER, 1943] was the greatest dance number ever filmed.

Shortly before his passing, Astaire said, "I didn't want to leave this world without knowing who my descendant was, thank you Michael" - referring to Michael Jackson.

I think the evidence against Astaire is non existent.

Re: Was he racist?

Blacking up was what Hollywood did for a time.It doesn't
say anything about the actor who is doing it.

I happened to be browsing on the internet about Fred Astaire and it
was claimed he was racist.One of the examples used was
a comment supposedly made by him of not supporting a black workshop.
And another comment from a black background dancer who claimed
Fred Astaire did not acknowledge them and ignored them.

I think this is very thin at best to make such claims.
So no I don't think he is a racist.

The CB Association

http://chrichtonsworld.blogspot.com/

Re: Was he racist?

I think it depends on how strict o 5b4 r broad your definition of "racist" is. Do you have to be an active "hater"? Or can it be a more passive, socially "acceptable" form of a paternalistic or neglectful attitude?

Fred Astaire was a conservative Republican, born near the end of the 19th century, who grew up in a time and place where blacks were second-class citizens who were supposed to "know their place". Like most whites he had little contact with black people beyond the usual background, menial jobs most performed. Of course he encountered black performers once he began dancing, but there's no indication he ever had any serious dealings with any of them.

I never heard about his refusing to help out a black dance workshop, or not acknowledging supporting black performers, but there's nothing in either of those stories that sounds false. For one thing, Fred was never known for his philanthropy, and again, like most white people of the time he simply never thought much about black people, even fellow professionals.

I'm sure he respected the talents of major black performers but he wasn't close to any and seldom worked with any, and never on an equal footing.

Was he a lyncher or cross-burner? Of course not. He didn't hate black people. But he had little interaction with them, grew up in an era where they were little more than caricatures, and of course never socialized with them. Like simila 1c84 rly conservative contemporaries such as Bing Crosby, James Stewart, Bob Hope, Fred MacMurray, his dance partner Ginger Rogers, and many other stars of the 30s, 40s and 50s, Astaire had a basically condescending attitude toward black people, which could be considered racism.

He would never have condoned violence, and had a professional respectful for black performers, but was clearly just not comfortable with them and had little to do with them. The very few times you see him interacting with a black actor or dancer in any of his films, Fred plainly looks impatient and uncertain, aloof almost to the point of appearing unfriendly, unless it's a dance number (as in the dance with the shoeshine man in The Band Wagon). Even in such rare instances, he's clearly somehow apart. I think he just didn't know or think about black people, or other minorities for that matter. If you care to call it racism -- and I do -- it's not a nasty sort of racism, but one of ignorance and discomfort, born of his time and upbringing. As with the examples I gave above, this was quite common among most of his contemporaries, especially people of like politics, in and out of showbiz.

Re: Was he racist?

Hob, I think if you're going to take note of "conservative" people only and attribute that as the explanation for their "condescending" attitude toward blacks in that era, then we should at least also note that those who were "progressives" in their domestic politics could easily hold the same attitudes as well (Woodrow Wilson was one of the most unenlightened men on racial matters in his time for instance).

Re: Was he racist?

That's quite true, but then on racial matters I wouldn't call Woodrow Wilson a "progressive". Not to mention he came from a completely different background and era than Astaire, who was 43 years younger. You can say the same about other agrarian progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as William Jennings Bryan, and southern Democrats like Pitchfork Ben Tillman, Cotton Ed Smith and Theodore Bilbo -- all relatively liberal except for their violent racism. This was the forerunner of the same kind of "populism" that now finds an echo in the efforts of Republicans to suppress black votes by restricting minority access to registration, voting hours and polling places.

Urban liberals of a century ago such as Al Smith were basically social conservatives dismissive of blacks, though they didn't condone or look aside from the KKK, as Wilson, Bryan and many others did. Of course, to them, the Klan's anti-Catholicism was their first reason for opposing the group.

However, as to Hollywood, the fact is that among Astaire's contemporaries the liberal ones didn't hold blacks in the dismissive manner more conservative whites did, and the attitudes of the latter persisted throughout their lives, to one degree or another. Of course, the basic structure of the industry and society at large was completely different 60 or 70 years ago from today, so all discussion on this subject needs to be asterisked, but off-screen as well as on Hollywood's conservatives were at best indifferent to, and at worst, hostile toward, black people.

A few, such as Eugene Pallette, went off the deep end and were consumed by ardent racism (Pallette was essentially k 5b4 icked out of Hollywood for physically attacking a black performer, as well as for muttering regrets over the defeat of Nazi Germany), or, like Adolphe Menjou, joined groups like the John Birch Society, the racist and anti-semitic radical right bunch now back in favor with the likes of CPAC. Grace Moore was actually thrown out of a Ziegfeld production in 1931 because, good southern girl that she was, she refused to appear in a show featuring black performers, an attitude she carried with her to Hollywood. Respectable conservatives in the industry avoided such extremism. But they were still anything but racially enlightened. You can often see this even in the way many dealt with blacks in their movies.

Re: Was he racist?

My point was that those who were New Deal type "progressives", which also I would note included the bulk of southern Democrat supporters of FDR who rubberstamped the New Deal, pretty much had the same attitude on their best days. The notion that racial attitudes go hand in glove with one's stances on policies we call "conservative" is the premise I don't accept.

Regarding "efforts to suppress access to registration" that is also a premise I reject emphatically. But I think it best that given the sensitive nature of current issues we steer clear of that.

Re: Was he racist?

Yes, many -- far from all -- southern Democrats voted for much of the New Deal, as I pointed out in the case of one of the most egregious racists of the time, Theodore Bilbo, yet remained unreconstructed racists. Often people aren't simply "conservative" or "liberal" -- people, being people, can simultaneously hold views on different subjects from all over the ideological spectrum.

There are certainly non-racist conservatives, and I never said otherwise. I did not say that racial attitudes go hand-in-glove with one's being a "liberal" or "conservative", especially since a lot of people don't fit neatly into such categories. But racism is by its nature a conservative attitude.

I'm sure you do reject the notion of voter suppression tactics emphatically. I wrote a lot more on this subject but have decided to PM it to you instead, and at least keep this board reasonably clear of more political back-and-forth.

Re: Was he racist?

** Fred Astaire was a conservative Republican, born near the end of the 19th century, who grew up in a time and place where blacks were second-class citizens who were supposed to "know their place". Like most whites he had little contact with black people beyond the usual background, menial jobs most performed. **

He was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. I can't vouch for Nebraska during the time periods of his childhood and teen years, but I have had conversations with a white person who was born in Nebraska in 1935 and spent much of her childhood there. She said she never saw blacks in the farming town where her family lived. She saw them in Omaha during their regular visits there. She could tell at her young age that they clearly were a small minority.

When she rode on a public transit bus in Omaha, it was normal for every passenger to choose his or her seat, and it never occurred to her then that that might not be the case elsewhere in the United States.

When she and her aunt and uncle moved to Oklahoma, she was shocked and disturbed to find out that blacks who sat in the front of the bus had to give up their seats upon the requests of white passengers. And she noticed the sheer numbers of the black population of Tulsa. She saw many more of them there than she had in Omaha.

I consider my source reliable. 16d0 She grew up to enter the newspaper field. She was a proofreader at The Washington Post-Times Herald in the early 1960s then became a proofreader at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Then she got a master's degree and became a journalism professor.

Charting race relations in the United States during the 20th century depends totally on the place. If you visit Madison, Wisconsin, you can see a permanent photo exhibit that proves that shortly after World War II ended, blacks had total freedom to go anywhere within the city or sit anywhere on any bus. Whether that held true in Madison before World War II started I don't know.

** The very few times you see him interacting with a black actor or dancer in any of his films, Fred plainly looks impatient and uncertain, aloof almost to the point of appearing unfriendly, unless it's a dance number (as in the dance with the shoeshine man in The Band Wagon). Even in such rare instances, he's clearly somehow apart. **

When I review the DVD of "Slap That Bass" from Shall We Dance?, I don't notice any impatience, uncertainty or aloofness.

Of course, that musical sequence was a fluke in Astaire's movies. It was also a fluke for American movies in general during the first decade of sound films. Another fluke was the "Reefer Man" sequence in International House. Today many African Americans who have watched the latter on DVD don't consider it a high-water mark in the history of evolving race relations in the United States.

Re: Was he racist?

Nebraska was not a segregated state, at least not by law, so that there was no law or custom forcing blacks to "the back of the bus". (This was true of most places throughout the North.) Blacks have also always been a tiny minority of the residents of Nebraska, along with most of the plains states of the Midwest, so segregation never would have had much meaning. By contrast, segregation was established by law in all the southern and border states up until the 1960s, though it varied in intensity and scope from state to state. Legal segregation also existed in certain areas where there had been a strong southern influence from the early days (as in Arizona and southern Nevada, among other places). Arizona in fact was covered by the recently-gutted Voting Rights Act of 1965.

You can chart the history of race relations in the US on many bases aside simply from place, although that could also be a crucial factor. Many people assume the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, that outlawed segregation in public schools, came from the South. In fact, it came from Topeka, Kansas. But legal segregation aside, America was a largely segregated society until the past 40 or 50 years, if not by law, by custom. Restrictive covenants in residential areas across the country were used to keep neighborhoods and whole sections of various localities segregated by prohibiting members of certain races or religions from buying or living in them. These practices were finally outlawed in the 1960s.

I won't dispute differing opinions on whether Astaire (or any other performer) looks uncomfortable beside a black performer. Perhaps knowing much of his background makes one more alert (or susceptible) to picking up on any discomfort. As I've said, Astaire certainly had a professional regard for black performers in his field. But that didn't translate into any close relationships. Astaire never went out of his way to procure black performers to appear in any of his films. He did what he had to for a movie but was never interested in promoting black entertainers.

The Cab Calloway "Reefer Man" number in International House was nothing compared to some of the truly racist stuff that infused many films in that e 111c ra. (Besides which, that number was a standard of Calloway's act, a song he made famous, so he was hardly being forced to perform it, and obviously he didn't see it as racist in nature.) Check out a 1934 film called Wonder Bar with Al Jolson. Jolson frequently performed in blackface, but the real racism in that film was in its most extravagent number, "Ridin' to Heaven on a Mule", with lots of "darkies" eating watermelon and exhibiting the most demeaning forms of behavior in line with every prejudicial white stereotype of the time (and one some whites have today).

Re: Was he racist?

To make some corrections here before I get to Fred Astaire.

1. No one ever accused Bing Crosby of racism as far as I know. In fact, Garry Giddens interviewed many blacks who worked with Crosby. And ALL of them say that he was always kind, tolerant and respectful towards them. He was close friends with Louis Armstrong, and worked well with Ella Fitzgerald. I don't know why Crosby was even mentioned, as I have never heard the slightest accusation of racism against him.

2. James Stewart was not a racist. There is A LOT of detail about this on Stewart's IMDb page, but here in brief is the answer. According to Donald Dewey, John Ford tried to humiliate Stewart on the set of THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE by saying in front of Woody Strode that Stewart didn't like negroes. Woody Strode never saw any hint of racism on Stewart's part. Years later, Hal Kanter claimed that Stewart had Hal Williams fired from THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW because Williams was playing a cop who had to give Stewart a ticket. Stewart was angry that a black man would give a white man a ticket. However, Hal Williams denied this incident and claims that he has wonderful memories of Stewart, and that he wasn't a racist. More examples on his IMDb page. And before John Wayne comes into it check out his IMDb page for some insight into the false accusations that he was a racist as well.

3. Bob Hope was disgusted when a white heckler insulted Billie Holiday at a New York club in 1939. Hope [accompanied by Judy Garland] heckled the white man until he left. Hope was also close friends with Sammy Davis Jr, and attended the funeral of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

4. I've still never seen any evidence for Fred MacMurray. Someone told me that it could be found in Donald Dewey's bi 5b4 ography on Stewart. Only two references to MacMurray in there, but none of them have anything to do with race.

5. Ginger Rogers was close friends with Lena Horne, and personally traveled with other stars into black neighborhoods to get their vote for Thomas Dewey. And she appeared in STORM WARNING [1951] which tackled the subject of the KKK.

There were many well known Conservatives in Hollywood who didn't hold on to racial attitudes. Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, George Murphy, Raymond Massey, James Stewart, John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, Clark Gable, and Barbara Stanwyck, all Conservatives, none of them racist. Racism crosses political lines all the time.
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Now for Fred Astaire.

The book 'Puttin' On the Ritz' is said to contain many inaccuracies for a start. Just puttin' that out there.

And Astaire was close friends with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

Levinson also makes the same mistake that Donald Dewey did with James Stewart. He cites an anecdote [here Budd Schulberg], but doesn't follow it up. He just leaves it. You have to get more confirmation on an accusation like that. Why didn't any blacks say he was a racist?

A few negative reviews of Levinson's book agree that there are hundreds of inaccuracies in there. Some of those inaccuracies are the kind that should never have been made.

To end this, let me say that I have NEVER heard of Fred A 111c staire being accused of racism at ANY other time other than this apparently inaccurate biography.

Re: Was he racist?


metalman091, let me correct something you said about Bing Crosby. Louis Armstrong never considered him a friend and in fact when Bing said Armstrong was a good friend of his Armstrong said Bing never invited me to his home.

I thought Astaire was Jewish? His surname is Jewish big time. Please don't say, he wasn't Jewish because he didn't practice the Jewish religion. That is like saying well, a person isn't Spanish, Italian, etc. because he or she is not Catholic. When the Nazi's put Jews in concentration camps they didn't go by their religion, they went by their surnames. Many, many Jews in the concentration camps weren't religious.

Re: Was he racist?

The website "Jew Or Not Jew" declares he was "barely Jewish". His mother was born in the U.S. to Lutheran German emigrants but his father was born in Austria to Jewish parents who had converted to Roman Catholicism.

Re: Was he racist?

Good point about Crosby and Armstrong, but still Crosby was not a racist and not one accusation has been made about this that I am aware of.

Astaire was Jewish.
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Please don't say, he wasn't Jewish because he didn't practice the Jewish religion.
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Who says I was going to say that? I might as well say Al Jolson wasn't Jewish because he wasn't strict about it.

Ahem… Republicans in the 19th Century freed the slaves.

Being a Republican does not make one a racist. Democrats, after all, are the party of slavery, secession and Jim Crow..

Historical context appears quite foreign to many in the current generation.

Re: Was he racist?


Being a Republican does not make one a racist.


Quite so. No one ever said otherwise.


Democrats, after all, are the party of slavery, secession and Jim Crow.


(1) The Democrats were never "the party of slavery". Before the Civil War both parties, the Democrats and the Whigs, had pro- and anti-slavery factions. When the Whigs split the southern wing largely joined the Democrats by default while the northerners mostly joined the new Republican Party (as did many northern Democrats). The southern wing was pro-slavery but the party as a whole (and not to its credit) was neither pro- nor anti-slavery until the War made that issue moot.

(2) Democrats were not the "party of secession". Southerners, most of whom had by 1860 aligned themselves wi 5b4 th the Democratic Party, were secessionist. Yes, there were Copperhead (pro-South) northern Democrats, but most Democrats outside the South were pro-Union. The Democratic Party as an institution never advocated secession, and even most Copperheads wanted the South back in the Union, albeit with the unacceptable retention of slavery.

(3) It's true that, for a century after the Civil War when the South was mostly one-party Democratic, the southern wing of the party was devoted to Jim Crow laws, and for many years the national party ignored the whole issue and was at best indifferent to and at worst an advocate of segregation. However, beginning in the 1930s the Democrats became the party of most blacks and of civil rights, which over several decades ultimately led to the exodus of white, segregationist and racist southern Democrats into the Republican Party, where they reside today, in a largely one-party Republican South bolstered by voter suppression laws and racial gerrymandering. You wanted 'em, you got 'em. Meanwhile, liberal and moderate Republicans have in great numbers abandoned a Republican Party that they believe has betrayed its socially liberal roots, as it has.


Historical context appears quite foreign to many in the current generation.


Indeed it does, and you're a perfect example of it. This is 2014, not 1864.

Ahem yourself.

Re: Was he racist?

All this is very interesting, but it's only focus is on the times Astaire lived in and has no reflection on the man himself. We shouldn't use those times as proof that everyone reflected those times. We have to look at Astaire as an individual human being instead of merely lumping him with other people. From what I've read, Astaire was not a racist.

Re: Was he racist?

I quite agree none of this has anything to do with Fred Astaire. I was replying to proudnole's idiotic and inaccurate po 16d0 st, which took us off topic.

From my reading and understanding people like Astaire, Crosby, Hope, Stewart, Wayne and many others were not racists in the sense that they were overtly anti-black or openly discriminated against any people of color. They were not people who were in sympathy with the KKK or similar groups, they would never support physical attacks on minorities, they did not engage in race-based rhetoric or behavior.

All that said, none of these men were what we today would call crusading racial liberals. They were not cruel or unkind people and would not harm others, but their contact with minorities was mostly limited (as was that of most white Americans in the 30s, 40s, and 50s) to brief and inconsequential encounters with porters, drivers, cooks and so forth.

The major exception for actors, of course, was their many encounters with black actors and performers, whom they generally viewed as peers and respected as fellow professionals. Citing their professional liking and respect for fellow entertainers points out the limitations of their experiences and the nature of the majority of their encounters with non-white individuals.

The fact is that none of these people was involved with or particularly supportive of the Civil Rights movement, and most opposed legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, not to mention things like Open Housing Laws, much as conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan did...including George Murphy, on your previous list as a conservative who was not a racist. In fact, Murphy largely owed his election to the U.S. Senate (an office for which he was thoroughly unqualified) to the outpouring of support for a (successful) ballot measure to overturn California's open housing law in 1964, which Murphy supported and which brought many like-minded voters to the polls. These people were also largely unsympathetic to Martin Luther King and other blacks who "rocked the boat", such as Muhammad Ali.

Most of these people would never have supported violence or overt discrimination against individuals, but they were comfortable with the old order of things they'd grown up with, where black people occupied a lower, unobtrusive stratum of society and could be treated politely, sometimes even affectionately, but never truly as equals. Like most white people who had selective encounters with individual black people, the black performers these white actors knew occupied for them a separate, and more equal, plane, one of familiarity and respect, but this was not generalized across the racial spectrum. They would stand up for such people based more on their personal acquaintanceship with them and knowledge of them as fellow performers than any deep-rooted commitment to equal rights.

In sum, their attitudes basically consisted of a well-meaning but aloof condescension to most blacks, coupled with a detached, abstract respect for their peers, people whom they knew personally and were not "threatening" to them or their interests. This kind of thing was common among most whites of that time -- people who would never indulge in acts of hatred or violence, never deliberately harm or be nasty about anyone, but who understood and preferred the old order of things and were uncomfortable with anyone who challenged the racial status quo in this country. Was this racist? In a sense, of course it was. Not the racism of the virulent white supremacist (the kind of people certain actors, such as Walter Brennan and Eugene Pallette, were) but hardly an attitude of enlightened racial awareness either. It was largely generational, stemming from their upbringing in an America where segregation and indifference to racial problems was normal.

And with that I have little more to say on the subject. Fred Astaire was not a racist in the way one typically thinks of that term, but neither was he a proponent of nor comfortable with the changes in racial attitudes and the progress toward racial equality that took hold from the 1960s on. Like most of us, he was a product of his era, and not someone who could easily adjust to change.

Re: Was he racist?

That's like asking are you an *beep* , mind you probably different answers

Re: Was he racist?

Fred Astaire on Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and John Bubbles.

Astaire first met Robinson in 1912, when he was thirteen and already dancing on stage for eight years, and this is what he says about that meeting in his 1959 autobiography Steps in Time p.49 "The great Bill interested me, not only for his incomparable dancing but for his good nature and likeable personality - in addition to his ability as a pool player. He often watched our act. His first words to me were "Boy, you can dance!" That meant a lot to me. We discussed dancing and compared steps."

Interviewed in 1984 for Bob Thomas' Astaire, The Man, The Dancer, p.27, he goes further: "Bill Robinson was a buck dancer. I admired him, but I didn't want to do what he did - the wooden-shoe up and down the stairs. John Bubbles was different. I don't know whether he used tap shoes or not but he was stylish. I used to meet him occasionally and we'd try steps together, but at that point in my career I wasn't doing much tap dancing"

Re: Was he racist?

Hob, I think we need to remember that Murphy's competition in 1964 was a guy who wasn't exactly blest with a first class temperament for the Senate himself. :) (In later years, after making a fool of himself on "Batman", Pierre became more noted for living off the fat of the land on an ABC expense account in Paris while performing lip service as a "journalist". When budget cutbacks resulted in the closure of the Paris bureau and Pierre being forced to relocate to London, he complained quite mightily!)

Stay safe in the snow tonight!

Re: Was he racist?

This will also be my last post on this topic concerning Fred Astaire but I can hope to clear some things up.

1. I still do not understand why Bing Crosby gets a mention here. No one has ever accused him of racism and he also donated money for the defense of the Scotsboro Boys. This has been documented in his biography by Gary Giddins.

2. The accusations concerning James Stewart are contradictory and only come from authors like Donald Dewey, Marc Elliot and Michael Munn. The whole thing has been debated over and over again on his message board and it all adds up to the same thing. NO EVIDENCE.

3. John Wayne is the only one here that can be debated. He did not care for the civil rights movement or Martin Luther King. I think he saw the civil rights movement as an act of entitlement [which it wasn't]. But he still didn't hold any racist feelings about blacks as can be attested by himself and others like Sammy Davis Jr.

4. George Murphy had to correct Michael Curtiz on the correct way to address African-Americans after Curtiz dropped the N word during the shooting of THIS IS THE ARMY [1943]. Murphy was offended and suggested the word "colored" instead [yeah yeah it wouldn't fly today as Benedict Cumberbatch found out]. It's actually a funny story and one of my favorites but have to be careful about telling it because people might take it too seriously. The story can be found it Murphy's autobiography. According to Murphy's autobiography ['Say, Didn't You Used To Be George Murphy?' 1970], Murphy did not take a position on the Rumford Fair Housing Act. This can be found on pages 388-89.

5. Walter Brennan and Eugene Pallette are contradictory cases. I don't care for either actor [cannot stand Brennan]. Pallette was accused of refusing to sit next to a black person but paid tribute to African-American Madame Sul-Te-Wan. He also interacted well with an African-American in HEAVEN CAN WAIT [1943]. Brennan was accused of rejoicing at the news of the murder of Martin Luther King while filming THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT, but Carl Rollyson writes that King was assassinated in April 1968 and Robert Kennedy in June the same year and that THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT was not in production of April of that year but resumed in the last week of June. So Brennan would have had to have danced the jig on two separate occasions and away from the film crew. I think Brennan was a paranoid extremist and quite possibly was a racist, but that's one myth that needed to be debunked.

It's funny how people automatically believe these stories and then launch into a sermon about being a product of a certain era instead of looking at these men as individuals who may not have conformed to what was going on elsewhere. As for Fred Astaire, it's only ONE book written long after he died. It's also a book that a lot of people dislike. Like Dewey's book on James Stewart, this book relies on ONE "source" to confirm Astaire as a racist. What about survivng friends, peers or his family? If one had to pick between what we already know about Astaire vs what this book says I would b68 go with the former.

And let me add one last thing. Fred Astaire is just one of several stars who has been accused of racism to some degree and they all add up to nothing. A few years ago there was Lucille Ball. Just recently there was Clark Gable and the list goes on to include the usual suspects [Jolson, Wayne and Stewart] as well as new ones Frank Sinatra [of all people], Judy Garland got a little thrown her way, Fred MacMurray, Groucho Marx, Terry-Thomas, Elizabeth Taylor, Jimmy Durante, Charles Laughton, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Milton Berle, Red Skelton, Yul Brynner, Danny Kaye and Gary Cooper. No evidence for any of them. In fact, most of them are pretty ridiculous claims.

Re: Was he racist?

I know I said it would be my last post on this subject, but I found this little example from wikipedia on making the 1952 Album THE ASTAIRE STORY.

Oscar Peterson spoke warmly of the sessions that produced The A 2000 staire Story in his autobiography, noting that vocally, Astaire was naturally attuned to jazz phrasing, and that Astaire enjoyed playing the drums at home. Astaire gave each of the musicians on the album a gold identification bracelet, inscribed "With thanks, Fred A". Ray Brown lost his bracelet, Alvin Stoller's was stolen, but Peterson wore his for the rest of his life.[3]

OK! NOW it is my last post on this subject.

Re: Was he racist?

Shortly before his passing, Astaire said, "I didn't want to leave this world without knowing who my descendant was, thank you Michael" - referring to Michael Jackson.

Re: Was he racist?

Michael Jackson talks about Fred Astaire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxBmomtQmjo

Re: Was he racist?

Well, there are other things to weigh.

There's an actress whose name I've forgotten, but she was African American, who was part of a dance number with Astaire earlier in his career. She was featured, not chorus. When she had a smaller role in Easter Parade and greeted him, she said he completely ignored her. Whether that's due to her race and lower status (as she felt) or she misread him, who knows.

The story about Michael Jackson being his "descendant" is apocryphal. He may have admired him.

He supposedly denied a request for a donation to an African American cause, saying he didn't know where anyone got the idea he was interested in doing that. That may be as apocryphal as the quote about Michael Jackson. But this, from the "New Statemen"'s review of Kathleen Riley's biography of Fred and Adele:

"Noting that Fred referred in the 1920s to the blues as *beep* music”, Riley hastens to assure us that this does not mean he was a racist: “It should be stressed that Astaire’s use of the term *beep* in this context was not intended to cause offence. It is indicative of a less sensitive and less enlightened era regarding race issues.” That’s one way of putting it. Another is that it was indicative of racism, of a time when white people didn’t give a damn if they caused offence to black people, rendering the question of intention entirely moot. (Nor am I as certain as Riley of our era’s sensitivity and enlightenment, although I am quite s 1ebc ure that we should not be so condescending to the past, even when it’s being nasty.) The ugly fact is that casual racism was endemic in the interwar years and it’s hardly surprising that Astaire wasn’t immune to it."

I've read up on the Castles (Vernon and Irene), a couple who were the generation before Astaire. They fancied themselves racially enlightened and fined people who used the "N" word around them in their shows. It was NOT an ordinary, harmless word that later acquired ugly connotations. It was never an ordinary word. You didn't use that word out of naivete.

Re: Was he racist?

That may be true about the woman you're referring to [Jeni Le Gon], but the Nicholas Brothers said the exact opposite.

If it's true that he ignored her it would only prove that Astaire was a snob not a racist. I mean, you can be rude to a black person for other "reasons" aside from race.

Sammy Davis, Jr. Ethel Waters, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson had no issues with him.

Astaire also worked with Oscar Peterson on THE ASTAIRE STORY album.

Oscar Peterson spoke warmly of the sessions that produced THE ASTAIRE STORY in his autobiography, noting that vocally, Astaire was naturally attuned to jazz phrasing, and that Astaire enjoyed playing the drums at home. Astaire gave each of the musicians on the album a gold identification bracelet, inscribed "With thanks, Fred A". Ray Brown lost his bracelet, Alvin Stoller's was stolen, but Peterson wore his for the rest of his life.

And Fred's comments in the 1920s could show us that he had racist attitudes back then and changed later. Vincent Price was an anti-Semite up until his early 30s and then completely changed his views.

And that book on Astaire is not supposed to be the definitive story. I don't know, I'm just saying what I heard.
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