So they thought they could dance.

The trouble with popping over to Biarritz for the weekend is falling behind and failing to mention things:  Like Tony Bentley's review of a new bio of Fred and Adele Astaire, The Astaires, by Kate Riley.  For much of Fred Astaire's career, he played long and graceful second fiddle to his sister, who, by all accounts (not much is recorded, unfortunately), was a stunner.  Only when Adele retired to marry British royalty did her baby brother find his footing in Hollywood.

Born in Omaha, the Astaires began dancing together when Fred was 5 and Adele was 8, and only year later, the family packed up for New York so the kiddies could get better training.  (Dad went back to Omaha to get work.)  The Astaires hoofed their way through vaudeville, as Astaire later remembered, playing in "every rat trap and chicken coop in the Midwest." 

Now, with children's entertainment a great huge maw sucking up zillions of child star wannabes and their even-more-fiercely wanna-be parents by the year, and with the boom-and-spectacular-bust cycle for child stars depressingly familiar, I wondered why the Astaires' experience sounded so distinctly un-apalling to me.  And then I read this:

At age 14 Fred took on the musical responsibilities for their act, frequenting Tin Pan Alley, where he met a 15-year-old George Gershwin in one of the cubicles at the music publisher Jerome H. Remick & Company. Gershwin was working for $15 a week, plugging other people’s songs, and the boys dreamed of George’s writing a musical for Fred one day. “Lady, Be Good!” (1924) and “Funny Face” (1927) were two of those dreams.

Oh, yeah.  They thought they could dance, and they also had talent.  Just think what they could have done with Honey Boo Boo juice.  Here's the link to the review:  http://tinyurl.com/c6n9dzt