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 Astaire the box office and among critics. Astaire continued to act in the 1970s, appearing on television as the father of Robert Wagner's character, Alexander Mundy, in "It Takes a Thief" and in such films as "The Towering Inferno" (1974), in which he danced with Jennifer Jones and for which he received his only Academy Award nomination, in the category of Best Supporting Actor. He voiced the mailman narrator in the 1970s animated television specials "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" and "The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town". Astaire also appeared in the first two "That's Entertainment!" documentaries, in the