*FRED ASTAIRE COLE PORTER RARE 1933 LONDON GAY DIVORCE PROGRAM "NIGHT AND DAY"*

Description

A rare original 1933 Palace Theatre, London program for Fred Astaire and Claire Luce in the British premiere production of Gay Divorce, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The show featured Astaire singing the Cole Porter classic "Night and Day," one of Porter's greatest songs. The show was filmed a year later with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, retitled The Gay Divorcee. Twenty eight pages. Dimensions eight and a half by five and a half inches. Light wear otherwise fine. See the stories of Fred Astaire and Cole Porter below.
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FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Fred Astaire
(born
Frederick Austerlitz
;
[1]
May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American actor, dancer, singer, choreographer, and television presenter. He is widely considered the most influential dancer in the history of film.
[2]
His stage and subsequent film and television careers spanned a total of 76 years. He starred in more than 10
Broadway
and
West End
musicals, made 31
musical films
, four television specials, and issued numerous recordings. As a dancer, his most outstanding traits were his uncanny sense of rhythm, perfectionism, and innovation. His most memorable dancing partnership was with
Ginger Rogers
, with whom he co-starred in a series of ten Hollywood musicals, including
Top Hat
(1935),
Swing Time
(1936), and
Shall We Dance
(1937).
[3]
Among his other most notable films where Astaire gained popularity and took the genre of tap dancing to a new level include
Holiday Inn
(1944),
Easter Parade
(1948),
The Band Wagon
(1953),
Funny Face
(1957), and
Silk Stockings
(1957). The
American Film Institute
named Astaire the fifth-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema.
Cole Albert Porter
(June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became
standards
noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on
Broadway
and in film.
Born to a wealthy family in
Indiana
, Porter defied his grandfather's wishes and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to
musical theatre
. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs. After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical,
Kiss Me, Kate
. It won the first
Tony Award for Best Musical
.
Porter's other musicals include
Fifty Million Frenchmen
,
DuBarry Was a Lady
,
Anything Goes
,
Can-Can
and
Silk Stockings
. His numerous hit songs include "
Night and Day
", "
Begin the Beguine
", "
I Get a Kick Out of You
", "
Well, Did You Evah!
", "
I've Got You Under My Skin
", "
My Heart Belongs to Daddy
" and "
You're the Top
". He also composed scores for films from the 1930s to the 1950s, including
Born to Dance
(1936), which featured the song "
You'd Be So Easy to Love
";
Rosalie
(1937), which featured "
In the Still of the Night
";
High Society
(1956), which included "
True Love
"; and
Les Girls
(1957).
"
Night and Day
" is a
popular song
by
Cole Porter
that was written for the 1932 musical
Gay Divorce
. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the
Great American Songbook
and has been recorded by dozens of musicians.
Fred Astaire
introduced "Night and Day" on stage. His recording of the song with the
Leo Reisman
orchestra was a No. 1 hit, topping the charts of the day for ten weeks.
[1]
He performed it again in the 1934 film version of the show, renamed
The Gay Divorcee
, and it became one of his signature songs.
There are several accounts about the song's origin. One mentions that Porter was inspired by an Islamic prayer when he visited Morocco.
[2]
Another account says he was inspired by the Moorish architecture of the
Alcazar Hotel
in Ohio.
[3]
Others mention that he was inspired by a
Mosaic
of the
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
in
Ravenna
, he had been visiting during a trip of his honeymoon in
Italy
.
[4]
[5]
The song was so associated with Porter that when Hollywood filmed his life story in 1946, the movie was entitled
Night and Day
.
Gay Divorce
is a
musical
with music and lyrics by
Cole Porter
and book by Dwight Taylor, adapted by
Kenneth Webb
and
Samuel Hoffenstein
. It was
Fred Astaire
's last
Broadway
show and featured the hit song "
Night and Day
" in which Astaire danced with co-star
Claire Luce
.
It was made into a
musical film
by
RKO Radio Pictures
in 1934, starring Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers
, and renamed
The Gay Divorcee
.
Astaire's sister
Adele
retired from showbusiness and married
Lord Charles Cavendish
after her last show with Fred,
The Band Wagon
(1931). When the producers of
Gay Divorce
asked Fred to star in the show, he deferred an answer until he could spend the summer of 1932 wooing his future wife, Phyllis, in London. He finally agreed, and rehearsals began in September 1932.
[1]
The show was both Astaire's last Broadway musical (after which he moved to
Hollywood
) and also his only stage musical without Adele. Also in the cast were
Erik Rhodes
and
Eric Blore
who soon became famous in the early 1930s RKO comedies.
[2]
Gay Divorce
opened in pre-Broadway tryouts at the
Wilbur Theatre
,
Boston
on November 7, 1932 and then moved to the
Shubert Theatre
, New Haven on November 21, 1932. It opened on Broadway at the
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
on November 29, 1932 and transferred to the
Shubert Theatre
on January 16, 1933 and closed on July 1, 1933 for a total run of 248 performances. Directed by
Howard Lindsay
with choreography by Barbara Newberry and Carl Randall, and set design by
Jo Mielziner
, the cast featured
Fred Astaire
as Guy Holden,
Claire Luce
as Mimi, Luella Gear as Hortense, G. P. Huntley Jr as Teddy, Betty Starbuck as Barbara Wray,
Erik Rhodes
as Tonetti,
Eric Blore
as Waiter, and Roland Bottomley as Pratt.
The show opened in the
West End
at the
Palace Theatre
on November 2, 1933 and ran for 180 performances. It was directed by Felix Edwardes with Astaire, Luce, Rhodes and Blore reprising their roles. They were joined by Olive Blakeney as Gertrude Howard,
Claud Allister
as Teddy,
Joan Gardner
as Barbara Wray and Fred Hearne as Octavius Mann.