Fred Astaire

by Roy Pickard

Book Overview

Fred Astaire, 1985 biography by Ray Pickard. Heavily illustrated with 120 black & white and 60 color photos. Hardcover with dust jacket, 192 pages, published by Crescent Books. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517458047
• ISBN13: 9780517458044
• Release Date: September 1985
• Publisher: Crescent
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 2.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Perfect Astaire Book

Author Roy Picard has produced a compact (under 200 pages), extremely well written, and beautifully illustrated book on the life and legendary career of Mr. Astaire. Picard, a film journalist,is a fine author, and he writes a tight, fact-filled biography that covers Fred from his early years on stage with sister Adele, right through to his AFI tribute in 1981. Along with the wonderfully written text, this (9x12 inch) book also holds the distinction of having the most beautiful photogaphs of any Astaire book i've seen - '120 black and white and 60 color illustrations' the book boasts - and indeed, from the front cover photo of a colorful Fred and Rita Hayworth to the wonderful 'Band Wagon' Fred and Cyd Charisse poster on the back cover, this book is chock-full of the best quality photos, richly reproduced, on just about every page. this is a perfect 'coffee table' book. I highly prize and recommend this book. It ranks easily among my top 5 favorite Astaire books, along with 'Starring Fred Astaire' by Stanley Green & Burt Goldblatt; 'Fred Astaire' by Benny Green; 'Putting On The Ritz' by Peter Levinson; 'A Tribute To Fred Astaire' by Peter Carrick; and of course Astaire's own 'Steps In Time'.