An Evening with Fred Astaire

Infobox Television
show_name = An Evening with Fred Astaire


caption = Title image of the show
format = Television special
camera = Multiple
picture_format = NTSC color
audio_format = Monaural
runtime = 58 minutes
producer = Bud Yorkin
executive_producer = Fred Astaire
starring = Fred Astaire
Barrie Chase
narrated = Art Gilmore
country = United States
location = Color City, Burbank, California
language = English
network = NBC
first_aired = October 17, 1958
last_aired = October 17, 1958
followed_by = "Another Evening with Fred Astaire" (November 4, 1959)
"Astaire Time" (September 28, 1960)
"The Fred Astaire Show" (February 7, 1968)
imdb_id = 0327699

"An Evening with Fred Astaire" was a one-hour television special starring Fred Astaire, broadcast on NBC on October 17, 1958. It was highly successful, winning nine Emmy awards and spawning three further specials, and technically innovative, as it was the first major television show to be prerecorded on color videotape. It was produced at NBC's Color City studios in Burbank, California.

Considered something of a comeback for the then 59-year-old Astaire, the special was his first starring role on television. It was directed and co-produced by Bud Yorkin and introduced Astaire's new partner Barrie Chase, whom he would later describe in "Interview" magazine in 1973 as perhaps his favorite dance partner. [http://www.fredastaire.net/people/barrie_chase.htm] The Jonah Jones Quartet and David Rose and his Orchestra provided the music, and the Hermes Pan Dancers appeared in the ensemble dance numbers. The announcer was Art Gilmore, who at the time was the voice of the Chrysler Corporation, the show's sponsor. Typical for advertising of the era, Chrysler's 1959 model year Forward Look cars featured prominently in the show; Astaire's final words were "I only hope the show is as good as the cars."

The use of videotape

The program was highly innovative in its use of color videotape, a technology then in its infancy.

The first major television program to be recorded on videotape had been "The Edsel Show" in 1957; however, this was a straight recording of a live performance with no editing. Early videotape use was confined largely to rebroadcasting programs from the east coast three hours later in the west, and was a cheaper, better-quality alternative to the film-based kinescopes. The experimental low-band quadruplex recording system in use was troublesome and hard to copy.

Furthermore, early video editing was a highly complicated matter that required the engineer to cover the two-inch tape with iron oxide solution to locate the magnetic tracks and then splice it with a razor blade. Although it was recorded live, "An Evening with Fred Astaire" used a number of editing techniques that are now commonplace, such as chroma key, and dissolves between scenes recorded at different times, particularly in its opening sequence, which introduced the performers using scenes from their later performances. To simplify the process, the raw videotapes were first copied onto film kinescopes, and these were edited into a mockup of the final edit; then, the same edits were performed on the videotapes. [http://www.tvhandbook.com/History/History_recording.htm]

Interestingly, the show was to earn a further technical Emmy in 1988 for Ed Reitan, Don Kent, and Dan Einstein, who restored the original videotape, transferring its contents to a modern format, and filling in gaps where the tape had deteriorated with kinescope footage. (The three had also restored the oldest color videotape known to exist, the dedication of WRC-TV's new studio in Washington, DC on May 21, 1958. [http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/rca-nbc_firsts.html] )

The show was rebroadcast twice, on NBC on January 26, 1959, and on CBS on December 20, 1964. It was thus the earliest show to be a rerun using color videotape. The later rebroadcast used a different beginning and ending that eliminated the advertising for Chrysler and removed the edits from the introduction; instead the opening and closing dances were shown uninterrupted.

Musical numbers

*"Morning Ride"/"Svengali"/"Frantic Holiday" — Fred Astaire and the Hermes Pan Dancers
*"Change Partners" — Fred Astaire and Barrie Chase

*"Baubles, Bangles & Beads" (Wright and Forrest)
*"Prop Dance" — Fred Astaire
*"Mack the Knife" — The Jonah Jones Quartet
*"Man with the Blues"/"Young Man's Lament" (David Rose)/ "Like Young" (Andre Previn) — Fred Astaire, Barrie Chase and the Hermes Pan Dancers
*"Old MacDonald on a Trip/Holiday for Strings" (David Rose) — The Hermes Pan Dancers, featuring Jimmy Huntley, Roy Fitzell, and Bert May
*"St. James Infirmary" (Primrose) — Fred Astaire, Barrie Chase, Jonah Jones, and the Hermes Pan Dancers
*"Oh, Lady be Good!" (Ira & George Gershwin)/"Cheek to Cheek" (Irving Berlin)/"A Fine Romance" (Kern & Fields)/"They Can't Take That Away From Me"/"Nice Work If You Can Get It"/"A Foggy Day" (Ira & George Gershwin)/"I Won't Dance" (Kern-Hammerstein-Harbach)/"Something's Gotta Give" (Mercer)/"Night and Day" (Porter)/"Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" (Berlin, also the theme music for the show) [http://www.cfhf.net/lyrics/fred-astaire.htm] — Fred Astaire
*"Isn't This A Lovely Day" — Fred Astaire

equels

Astaire produced another three similar specials, each featuring Barrie Chase:

*"Another Evening with Fred Astaire" (November 4, 1959)
*"Astaire Time" (September 28, 1960)
*"The Fred Astaire Show" (February 7, 1968)

Media coverage

Astaire's first foray into television dance, and the introduction of his new dance partner, Barrie Chase, drew significant media coverage, the most prominent being a feature on the cover of TV Guide for October 11-17, 1958 and an inside article: "Now for the Dance Bash",cite book
last = Billman
first = Larry
title = Fred Astaire - A Bio-bibliography
publisher = Greenwood Press
date = 1997
pages = 191, 283
location = Connecticut
id = ISBN 0-313-29010-5 ] formally announcing the new partnership to the American public. The show went on to win the Trendex rating race for its time slot and the week. TV Guide followed up with an in-depth feature article on December 13, 1958: "How Fred Astaire discovered Barrie Chase" and again featured Astaire and Chase on its cover on October 31, 1959, promoting "Another Evening with Fred Astaire". Not all media coverage was so positive however. After the show won an unprecedented nine Emmy awards, Ed Sullivan queried whether Astaire should have been awarded the Best Actor Award.cite book
last = Satchell
first = Tim
title = Astaire - The biography
publisher = Hutchinson
date = 1987
location = London
pages =p.209
id = ISBN 0-09-173736-2 ] Astaire promptly offered to return the award protesting: "I'm an actor, and this Emmy is for a performance by an actor, isn't it? When I do a difficult pantomime in a dance which tells a story, what do they think it is? Tiddlywinks?". He kept the award, but when "Variety" reported that MCA had lost $75,000 on the show he retorted angrily: "Kindly retract erroneous article in last week's Variety. Here are the facts: The entire package is mine, via Ava Productions Corp. MCA merely acted as my agent with the sponsor. Nobody had any cut. All the expenses were paid for by me and the show definitely turned in a sizeable profit. Though I was not interested in that phase, I would like to make it clear that I am not completely nuts. I particularly directed that no expense be spared in carrying out my plans, ideas and designs for the show which I had been working on for some time."

ee also

*Fred Astaire's solo and partnered dances
*1958 in television
*"The Edsel Show"

Notes and references

External links

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20050408073548/http://www.fredastaire.net/biography/conquer.htm fredastaire.net article metioning the special] (via archive.org)
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20020308063157/http://www.fredastaire.net/television/an_evening_with_fred_astaire_complete.htm fredastaire.net production details] (via archive.org)
* [http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/ Ed Reitan color TV page]
* [http://www.ev1.pair.com/colorTV/ Engineer Kris Trexler's page about early videotape, with short clip from the show]
* [http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/astaire/message/25900 Barrie Chase's (unpublished) recollections of the aftermath of the show]
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