FRED ASTAIRE'S SISTER IN FILMS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 26, 23 October 1937, Page 11

FRED ASTAIRE'S SISTER IN FILMS

If you walk across those lawns aud terraces that make Pinewood Studios, Iver, Buckinghamshire, more like a country house than -a motion-picture factory you are liable to see, any day during the next seven weeks, a v$ty small person in divided skirts, a jersey, and sun sueetacles, skipping like a 10-year-old, says a writer in a London paper. • - She looks |(and skips) like ti Schoolgirl, but in fact this is Pinewood 's new star, Adele Astaire. Everywhere outside the studio (and occasionally insideT though she does not care about it), she is still Lady Ckarles Cavendish. It is just five years ago that Adefp Astaire, musical eomedy star, and Fred Astaire 's sister, gave up the stage to marry Lord Charles Cavendish, second son of the Duke of Devonshire* During those five years she has lived mostly at .Lismore Castle in Ireland, shooting, fishing, enjoying the country life, and saying that never, never, never would she go back to the stage. Well, she hasn't exactly. 1 "Who Could Resist?,' ••Making a film is quite different, don't you think?" she said. ' 'I could never go back to the stage, because that just absorb your whole life — night after night ' at thej theatre for months on end— and iny) husabnd wouldn't want me to do that. Neither should I. ','But this picture is going to . take only seven of eight weesk, • and I» simply couldn't resist the offer to star in a Rene Clair film • with Jack Buckanan and Maurice . Chevalier. Who could resist that? "And Charles is quite pleased abont it, anyway. As soon as he is wel-1' enough (he has been awfully ill, poor darling) he is coming to 'Pinewood to ee me work." > . ■ • No Dancing. ; Miss Astaire 's fans from her preCavendish days will be disappointed to hear that although Cole Porter is writing the musie for the picture, their favourito dancing star will do no dancing. ,cAt least, I don't think so," shei said. "As far as I know this is to be myi first straight part. In the picture I'm an aetress-produucer, putting- on a show of her own, and Jack and Maurice are two chorus boys. I should rather like to be dancing in it too." She looked wistful. "But I'm told there's a lot of comedy in my part, and I hope there will be." The last few days Miss Astaire has spent submitting to make-up and hairdressing experiments, and wondering what hcr brother Fred will say about tho venture. Fred May Object. "I didn't write and tell him about it until the contract was signed," she said. "I'm not so suro that he willj approvc of my going into pictures, and I'm. moro afraid of his criticism than than of any one else's on earth. "When I had offcrs in Hollywood more thau a year ago it was really Fred who dissuaded me from the idea. ^ou see, he worries an awful lot, and ho thought I wouldn't be able to make the grado after five years away from the stage. " 'Yon're through with career*,* hf> said. Just like a brother!" 1