I guess the only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire. - Fred Astaire

Q: What great singers of the past do you wish had sung your music?

Astaire really sweat - he toiled. He was a humorless Teutonic man, the opposite of his debonair image in top hat and tails. I liked him because he was an entertainer and an artist. There's a distinction between them. An artist is concerned only with what is acceptable to himself, where an entertainer strives to please the public. Astaire did both. Louis Armstrong was another one.

I'd never seen him out front before. It was also the first time I realized that Fred had sex appeal. Fred. Wherever did he get it?