On August 31, 1968 Joel Reisner and I conducted a radio interview with Fred Astaire at his home in Beverly Hills. The resulting two hour program, including music from some of Mr. Astaire's movies, was first broadcast on KPFK Radio in Los Angeles on Sept. 21, 1968

Upon arriving at Mr. Astaire's home to conduct the interview he greeted us at the door and modestly, but quite seriously, told us that he really didn't think he had much to talk about.

As these files will reveal, Mr. Astaire had quite a lot to talk about. Throughout our visit he was charming, cordial, elegant, relaxed, friendly, articulate and knowledgeable. In short he was everything you would expect of Fred Astaire and more.

I don't know of another existing audio interview with Mr. Astaire that is this extensive and far ranging. I am posting our conversation with Mr. Astaire for scholars, students, film buffs, admirers and anyone else interested in sharing this time with one of the great artists of the twentieth century.

I do apologize for some of the sound quality. The station for whom we conducted the interview is a publically supported station. The recording equipment we used was not exactly state of the art, even for its time.

Thank you for visiting this page and enjoy your time with Fred Astaire.

Bruce Kane

The audio is divided into fourteen sections. Each section begins with a musical interlude.