SONG AND DANCE

Southland Times, Issue 23227, 16 June 1937, Page 9

SONG AND DANCE

SCREEN DEBUT FOR ADELE ASTAIRE RUMOURS FROM LONDON Lady Charles Cavendish, better known to millions as Adele Astaire, who became world-famous on the stage as the dancing sister of Fred Astaire, is planning to make her debut in a British talking-picture with Jack Buchanan. Rene Clair is to be the director, and the film will be made at Pinewood Studios, Iver, Buckinghamshire. Miss Astaire has been at the Pinewood Club, where she and Mr Buchanan have had conferences, says the London Daily Mail. Arrangements are now complete for voice and makeup tests to be made during the next few days. The discussions have taken place in great secrecy. Full details of the scenario have not yet been worked out, and no title has been chosen, but the film will be largely musical and will include new dance numbers specially

written for Jack Buchanan and Adele Astaire. Officials at the studios did not know of Miss Astaire’s presence there, and others who saw her believed that she was spending a short holiday with friends at the club. Last December it was reported that she had had film tests made in Hollywood, but later she denied having had them. It was also said that she intended to star with her brother Fred in another picture of the “Top Hat” type, but nothing came of it. Earlier last year Miss Astaire made screen tests in Hollywood “for fun,” and it was rumoured that she had signed a four-years’ contract with David Selznick, the producer, to make one picture a year. On the day the report was published, she said: “I am much too happy as I am to dream of giving up my nice, quiet, peaceful life in Ireland.” When she married Lord Charles Cavendish, second son of the Duke of Devonshire, in 1932, Miss Astaire gave up the stage and lived mostly at her beautiful Irish home, Lismore Castle.