That's Entertainment, Part II together for the first time since the 1946 film "Ziegfeld Follies", and for only the second time in their careers. (It was the last time 76-year-old Astaire danced on film, though the veteran actor continued to make film and TV appearances into the 1980s; Kelly would go on to appear in the 1980 musical "Xanadu".) According to film historian Robert Osborne, in specially-filmed introductions produced for Turner Classic Movies, it was Astaire who suggested to Kelly that the two take advantage of this potentially last-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform together, something Kelly actually wishes for out loud during his narration of
Fred Norbert Kelly career both on stage and the screen. He attended the University of Pittsburgh and graduated in 1939. Kelly performed with his older brother Gene as one of the "Kelly Brothers" in Vaudeville. In 1940 Fred replaced Gene in the Broadway production "The Time of Your Life" written by William Saroyan, in the role of "Harry the Hoofer" for which he would go on to win three Tony Awards for this role—one for acting, one for choreography and one for comedy. This was the first show to win both the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. After