Giles Beguiles

Where style meets substance

He was bom Frederick Austerlitz, and his father, an Austrian immigrant, made beer. But for most of his life, Fred Astaire would make the world feel as if it were drinking champagne. Since Astaire's death last year, Vanity Fair's editor-at-large, Sarah Giles, has conducted a legion of interviews with those who knew the legend best. Doubleday editor Jacqueline Onassis commissioned the book after reading an Astaire piece by Giles in V.F., and the result is released this month. Fred Astaire: His Friends Talk is an elegant tribute to the dash and panache—and, of course, the steps—of Astaire. In the words of Leslie Caron, one of the many leading ladies Fred led across the floor, "When you were in his arms, you just knew how to dance."