Ann Reinking Quotes

I went to an audition for a Harry Belafonte Roaring Twenties special for choreographer Donald McKayle, but I failed.

Fred Astaire was a more formal, trained dancer who loved waltzing and only danced with the girls.

I thought the Charleston would be a bit like the jive, but it isn't really.

If I could have lived as an actress in any period, it would have been the 1920s - I would have loved to have been part of that speakeasy era.

The Fred Astaire movies made a huge impression on me.

There is nothing in my life where I view myself as a 1920s person.

My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First World War and shortly after it. This music I've always known, and it is that music that's most important to me.

I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.

Swing dance has been a part of my life since I was born.

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.'

As a dancer, obviously, we are all inspired by Michael Jackson, and I always looked up to Gene Kelly. He was a bigger version of Fred Astaire, and he was amazing as well.

I connected very much with all the work of Joan Crawford because she started as a flapper. She used to dance and sing and she was very cute. She had something that was so different from what she is at the end of her life and she started in the silent movies and then went into the talkies.

There are always decades that interest people. For me, that's the Roaring Twenties.

We went to see all the shows. American musical theater and jazz were very big.

Inside my heart, there's a 12-year-old girl who has always wanted to be Ginger Rogers.

When my dad, Tommy Tucker Kelly, was about six, he started out with his dad on 'The Black and White Minstrel' Shows.

I used to love the '20s.

I was thrilled to be rehired for the 1919 'Follies.' Mr. Ziegfeld himself hired me. To me, that particular 'Follies' was his greatest 'Follies' of all - not because I was in the show, but because of the great cast and memorable music.

Al Jolson was one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived.

Swing is my favorite kind of music.

My father danced a lot. He was called 'the French Fred Astaire.'

I am embarrassingly 1920s in style.

In his musicals with Garland, Rooney was the sparkplug for prodigious entrepreneurship - that era's predecessor of the garage band, but with Gershwin tunes and an all-star cast.

Fred Astaire is my real idol.

Fred Astaire was my dream dancer.