| OCR Text |
Show 4 flsfc: EMo Bailee By DON FREEMAN Copley News Service Fred Astaire, that lithe legend of show business, his image a blend of swift feet and airy urbanity and white tie and tails, has been tapped to play a blue-collar worker in a forthcoming NBC World Premiere movie called "A Family Upside Down." A house painter, actually, without a pair of dancing pumps to his name, without even a nodding acquaintance with Ginger Rogers and Rita Hayworth and Leslie Caron and - who was that flashy dancing partner in his Emmy-winning triumphs? oh yes, Barrie Chase. What's more, Astaire, the epitome of the carefree bachelor in most of his films, from "Flying Down to Rio" to "Top Hat" to "Blue Skies" and on and on, is an old married man in his new TV film. OLD? Not Fred. Whatever the calendar dictates, Astaire is as young as our memories. He plays a man who is 73, five years less than Astaire's true chronological age. Fred was saying in an interview in-terview that he was serious about playing a man who paints houses for a living. Obviously, he had given this aspect of the role, this sudden departure from his usual characterizations, a moderate amount of thought. "I DIDN'T want to make him debonaire," Astaire said in that gentle, diffident way of his, for he is basically a shy, private man. I was afraid to make him something out of my past. So long as I don't look as if I'm going to bounce on the dance floor, I'll be satisfied." BUT no dancing? "I don't know what else I could do in the way of hoofing," hoof-ing," Astaire said. "THE truth is, I'm delighted delight-ed I don't have to dance anymore. I hoofed myself cockeyed. Being a dancer is like being an athlete. The time comes when you hang 'em up and you move on to other things. "No athlete stays an athlete forever. I couldn't dance forever." THEN the shy grin: "Oh, once in a while, I see a thing on television called 'Soul Train.' "Those kids on 'Soul Train'," Astaire said. "THEY are mostly black kids and their dancing is so pure, so marvelously clean and pure. It's all ad-lib. Nothing is choreographed for them. They just dance. "And then well, then I get up and I'm dancing too, right along with them. I'm doing steps I had forgotten. Steps I never even knew that I knew, and I'm dancing and being free. I join right in, me and the kids, dancing our heads off." THE GRIN has turned into a warm smile that creases the narrow confines of his face. (It's a nice face that has weathered well,. i studio by atadof."J back in th" S' seeing .Wlk? rsr.1'. fciresaysno'': bemg,nshowb'It kP you young grow old, thatil'u" ' a'e slower, skateboards. My 1? I grandson bought' m "BUT I did get on it ;.a went carefully for md No tricks. Nofoolim, 1 Nothing fancy. 8H "Then I tried somet J fancy and Handed on, 1 hip. Broke my let, Wr",1 learned not to loot J'J with skateboards. 1 "I WAS made an fc, member of the Skateb Society for proving ho : J it is to use a skateboard ij plan to be a non-particiu l member.'; 1 |
