Status Updates From Fred Astaire His Friends Talk

And here's a claim that he said Cyd Charisse was his favorite partner!

Fred Astaire had a pet cockatiel named Gregory Peck, named both after the actor and "because the bird pecked"??

Raising my eyebrows a bit about the way people talk about Fred's second wife (36 to his 81)- 'oh, she was a lovely lady and I'm sure he loved her and wasn't exploited by her. they definitely loved each other! also, I hardly ever saw Fred after they got married, but that's perfectly natural, and also she changed his phone number and never told his close friends about it. She told me she was "really good at old men."'

"Fred moved directly, and with as much purpose and as little fuss as a flying bird."

I... really need to watch the Astaire TV specials, since so many of his friends and collaborators seemed to share the opinion that Barrie Chase was his favorite dance partner.

It's interesting that Astaire's longtime collaborator and choreographer Hermes Pan had the opinion that Ginger Rogers was Astaire's greatest dance partner (but that Cyd Charisse was perhaps the most technically skilled dancer). I tend to agree with his statement that "there was something when Fred and Ginger danced which was magic. They seemed to go together."