Author: Joseph Epstein
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
About the book...
A short biography covering Fred Astaire’s life.
What I think…
I’m a big Fred Astaire fan, so have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand it started out with an interesting look at his early life, which is something I always enjoy looking at. Furthermore, there were bit and pieces of trivia throughout that I liked learning about in regards to Astaire himself and some of the movies he made.
However…there were a number of aspects I found really irritating. Epstein spends a lot of time criticizing appearance both of Astaire, and others he worked with, such as Betty Hutton. While I’d find this annoying at any given time, certain parts had me wondering what exactly he was trying to get at with these criticisms. His facts were also off at times, which does make me question how accurate the book is as a whole. At one point he even makes the claim Astaire and Gene Kelly never danced together, which is untrue as they do a segment in Ziegfeld Follies (1945) called “The Babbitt and the Bromide” (which happens to be one of my favorites from that movie and I song I thoroughly enjoy).
To sum it all up…
Not the best and if you plan to read this one, you’ll have to be willing to put up with the author’s opinions and inaccuracies. ♥
What a strange, I'd argue almost irrelevant point to focus on so much. Both Fred and Betty were attractive, well dressed people, especially by the standards of the day. It seems to me like he (the author) was trying to knock them down just to build himself up. Shame! There's a lot of great, interesting things to be shared about Fred's life.
ReplyDeleteHave a beautiful Sunday, lovely lady,
♥ Jessica
It really was odd that he chose to do so and I think I'd have to agree with you about the author. There were a lot of things he could have written about instead, but apparently he didn't dub them important enough to delve into.
DeleteOh, I love that man!!!!
ReplyDelete