Some of you kids probably don’t even know who Fred Astaire is…but then you may not have had a grandmother that a huge crush on Fred Astaire and made you watch him twirl Ginger Rogers around the dance floor more times than you can remember.

fred astaire racist

That said, it’s no wonder when I read this snippet on Page Six today my mouth dropped open in complete shock.

The new bio, “Puttin’ on the Ritz: Fred Astaire and the Fine Art of Panache,” by Peter Levinson who died last year, says that in 1965, after the Watts riot broke out in LA, “On the Waterfront” screenwriter Budd Schulberg enlisted some show business friends to start a writers’ workshop that would nurture young black talent. Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon and Sammy Davis Jr. backed the project with donations. But according to the book, Astaire’s response was: “Budd, whatever gave you the impression that I would be interested in giving money to start a workshop to help black kids? You’ve got the wrong guy.”

Oh well, screw him. I really always thought Ginger was the real talent in that pair. One of my all time favorite quotes is, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.”