Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire by Bill Adler Sr is a biography of Fred Astaire, and its Open Library record gives 1987 as the year of first publication, with Landmark Books as publisher. Google Books lists it under a longer title, Fred Astaire: A Wonderful Life, followed by the words “a Biography,” and credits the author simply as Bill Adler.

Among the Astaire books listed with it, Adler’s shares its year with one other title, Tim Satchell’s Astaire (1987, Hutchinson), also classed as a biography. Eight of the listed books came earlier, including Astaire’s own memoir, Steps in Time (1959), and five came later.

For fans

The library records

Open Library describes a 1988 Landmark Books edition of 277 pages. Google Books also dates its record to 1988 but differs on two points, naming the publisher as Landmark Music Group and giving the length as 298 pages. Neither record explains the difference. Open Library files the work under biography, dancers and actors, narrows actors further to the United States, and also lists large type books among its subjects, without saying which printing that heading covers. Its heading for Astaire carries the dates 1899-1987, and Wikipedia’s entry gives his death as June 22, 1987. Neither library record gives a month of publication, so whether the book appeared before or after that date cannot be confirmed from them.

Beside the other Astaire books

The books listed before Adler’s are the 1959 memoir, Arlene Croce’s The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers book (1972), Stanley Green’s film history Starring Fred Astaire (1973), and biographies by Michael Freedland (1976), Benny Green (1979), Peter Carrick (1984), Bob Thomas (1984) and Roy Pickard (1985). The Thomas title announces that it comes “with comments by Fred Astaire,” and Adler’s listed title carries no such line. Later biographies come from Sarah Giles (1988), Larry Billman (1997) and Joseph Epstein (2008). Two later titles, Stuart M. Kaminsky’s Dancing in the Dark (1996) and George Baxt’s The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers murder case (1997), are novels. Neither the Open Library record nor the Google Books record carries a description of what Adler’s book contains.