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 Astaire's career. "The Astaire Story" later won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, a special Grammy award to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance." His legacy at this point was 30 musical films in 25 years. Afterwards, Astaire announced that he was retiring from dancing in film to concentrate on dramatic acting, scoring rave reviews for the nuclear war drama "On the Beach" (1959). Astaire did not retire from dancing completely. He made a series of four highly rated Emmy Award-winning musical specials for television in 1958, 1959,