Tag: Fred Astaire

Jack Benny slept here

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Though we’re committed New Yorkers, we woulnd’t mind a bit spending a few weeks — perhaps even a few months — a year in Los Angeles. We even find ourselves daydreaming about the City of Angels from time to time.

And yet, we came around slowly on L.A. Our first couple of visits were enjoyable enough, but we didn’t find the city particularly engaging. After three week-long sojourns there over the past six or seven years, though, we’ve been won over.

We view the city through a movie buff’s eye, primarily, and spend our time motoring about checking out movie stars’ homes, vintage movie palaces, and locations for favorite classic pictures (though we’re also happy just puttering through the various old neighborhoods south of the Hollywood hills — we love the residential architecture in old L.A.).

We didn’t snap the photos shared below; we bought them at a flea market some years back. They’re snapshots taken around Hollywood and its environs back in the day How old they are, exactly, we’re not sure — we’re inclined to think they’re from the late 1930s, but we’re open to guesses from you, gentle readers. (For larger views, just click the images.)


Fred Astaire’s home
Jack Benny’s home
Claudette Colbert’s home

Sam Goldwyn’s home
Norma Shearer’s home
Robert Taylor’s home

Mary Pickford and Douglas
Fairbanks’ Pickfair
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre

Puttin' on the Ritz

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Fred Astaire, the very personification of suavity and grace, would have been 111 years old today.

Everyone knows Astaire was a great dancer, of course, but he was also a vastly underrated singer and an amazing dresser, one of the true icons of men’s fashion in the 20th century.

If I could manage to attain one-tenth of the style, grace, and savoir-faire Astaire possessed, I’d be a happy man.

Here’s hoping Mr. Astaire is somewhere dancing up a storm today, with Ginger Rogers at the head of a long line of lovely gals waiting to cut a rug with him.


“The Way You Look Tonight” — Fred Astaire
“Puttin’ on the Ritz” — Fred Astaire
“A Fine Romance” — Fred Astaire

Putting a polish on your day

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Having our shoes shined is one of our favorite simple pleasures, and the reasons are many.

It’s a rare pleasure, this particular indulgence. We’ve invariably found those who perform the service to be congenial types, and it makes for a pleasant diversion from the day’s duties to take a break, perched on high and glancing at the sports pages, while an amiable gent fusses over one’s shoes (we’ve yet to meet a shoe shine gal, though she can count on our business when we do).

One definitely get one’s money’s worth with a shoe shine. We’ve rarely paid more than three bucks for this service (though we do fork over more when we step up for a shine at an airport), and the attendants are always conscientious and hard-working.

Compare the humble shoe shine to a professional shave at a barber shop. In NYC, you’ll pay twenty, thirty, even forty bucks for the latter, and while we’ve no doubt it’s a pleasure every bit the equal of the shoe shine, the price renders it an indulgence most of us can’t often allow ourselves.

But three bucks for a full ten minutes of a experienced professional’s services? That’s a bargain that’s hard to beat.

What’s more, the humble shoe shine presents one the opportunity to be a real sport — you can throw the attendant a five-spot and tell him or her to keep the change. Where else can one improve one’s karma — a 66% tip! — at such a reasonable rate? And even at the airport price of five or six bucks plus tip, a shoe shine is a relative bargain.

We live in a dressed-down era, of course, with many people wearing sneakers and hiking boots and other casual footwear. While there are still plenty of us who regularly patronize shoe shine stands, for most, it’s something they can only occasionally indulge in.

But we always enjoy the experience, and we highly recommend it to all members of the Cladrite Community.

It’s clear that Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz were fellow advocates for the shoe shine experience, given that they wrote a song celebrating the practice of paying for a polish for the 1932 Broadway musical “Flying Colors” (Fred Astaire also performed the song in the 1952 movie musical The Band Wagon):

A Shine On Your Shoes
When you feel as low
as the bottom of a well
and can’t get out of the mood,
do something to perk yourself up
and change your attitude.
Give a tug to your tie,
Put a crease in your pants,
but if you really want to feel fine,
give your shoes a shine.

When there’s a shine on your shoes,
there’s a melody in your heart
with a singable happy feeling.
A wonderful way to start
to face the world every day,
with a deedle-dum-dee-dah-dah,
a little melody that is making
the worrying world go by.

When you walk down the street
with a happy-go-lucky beat,
you’ll find a lot in what I’m repeating.

When there’s a shine on your shoes,
there’s a melody in your heart
What a wonderful way to start the day!
                      –Dietz & Schwartz

Here’s one of our favorite renditions of the song, recorded by Billy Banks and His Orchestra in 1932.

“When There’s a Shine on Your Shoes” — Billy Banks and His Orchestra

A Ginger-infused potpourri

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It’s always a kick to see what familiar stars were up to before they became household names, and tonight’s lineup of early Ginger Rogers pictures on Turner Classic Movies provides just such an opportunity for fans of the twinkled-toed hoofer.

Rogers, a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1932, is best remembered, of course, for her storied association with Fred Astaire, with whom she made ten pictures, but she’d already appeared in nine movies before she was paired with Astaire for the first time in 1933’s Flying Down to Rio. Six of those movies are included among tonight’s offerings on TCM.

42nd Street is a title familiar to many, as much for its second life as a Broadway stage musical as anything, but if you’ve not seen the original picture, you should; it’s grittier (and sexier) than you might expect — a true Pre-Code musical.

Here’s the full line-up, beginning at 8pm and extending well into Thursday morning:

8:00pm — 42nd Street (1933)
The definitive backstage musical, complete with the dazzling newcomer who goes on for the injured star.
Cast: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers. Dir: Lloyd Bacon.

9:45pm — Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Three chorus girls fight to keep their show going and find rich husbands.
Cast: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy.

11:30pm — Professional Sweetheart (1933)
A radio star’s pure image leads to a fake engagement to a hayseed.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Norman Foster, ZaSu Pitts, Frank McHugh. Dir: William A. Seiter.

1:00am — Rafter Romance (1933)
A salesgirl falls for a night worker without realizing they share the same apartment.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Norman Foster, George Sidney, Robert Benchley. Dir: William A. Seiter.

2:15am — Carnival Boat (1932)
A logger defies his father to court a showgirl.
Cast: Bill Boyd, Ginger Rogers, Fred Kohler, Hobart Bosworth. Dir: Albert Rogell.

3:30am — Suicide Fleet (1931)
Three Navy shipmates fight over the same girl.
Cast: Bill Boyd, Robert Armstrong, James Gleason, Ginger Rogers. Dir: Albert Rogell.

5:00am — Chance At Heaven (1934)
A society girl steals a simple gas station attendant from his working-class girlfriend.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marion Nixon, Andy Devine. Dir: William A. Seiter.

6:15am — The Tenderfoot (1932)
An innocent cowboy sets out to back a Broadway play.
Cast: Joe E. Brown, Ginger Rogers, Lew Cody, Vivian Oakland. Dir: Ray Enright.

7:30am — You Said A Mouthful (1932)
To sell his unsinkable bathing suit, an inventor passes himself off as a championship swimmer.
Cast: Joe E. Brown, Ginger Rogers, Preston S. Foster, Allen “Farina” Hoskins. Dir: Lloyd Bacon

9:00am — The Tip-Off (1932)
A dim-witted boxer helps a naive friend romance a gangster’s girl.
Cast: Eddie Quillan, Robert Armstrong, Ginger Rogers, Joan Peers. Dir: Albert Rogell.

10:15am — Finishing School (1934)
A boarding-school girl has to cope with family problems and puppy love.
Cast: Frances Dee, Billie Burke, Ginger Rogers, Bruce Cabot. Dir: George Nicholls Jr.

Great music at popular prices

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We have no interest in being bargain spotters — there are too many sites that already cover that ground — but occasionally, when we find a really top-notch deal that fits nicely here at Cladrite Radio, we’ll share it with you.

Les Voix d’or d’Hollywood is a five-disc CD collection of tunes taken from the golden age of Hollywood musicals. It’s from the French label Marianne Melodie, and, so far as we can ascertain, is available in the United States only in the form of downloadable MP3s. The set includes 126 tracks, covering the thirty-year period from 1927 to 1957 and performed by artists ranging from Al Jolsen to Fred Astaire, the Benny Goodman Orchestra, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and Elvis Presley, among dozens of others.

iTunes sells the set for $54.99, which is not so bad, really, for a five-disc compilation with so many tracks — it’s just over 41 cents a song. But Amazon is offering the entire set as MP3 downloads for just $19.98, or just under 16 cents a song. That’s pretty hard to beat (you have to buy the whole set to get that price, mind you — individual songs are much more).

Here’s the link; take a look at the full lineup and see what you think. And tell ’em your pals at Cladrite Radio sent you.