Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987), born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of seventy-six years, during which he made thirty-one musical films. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films which revolutionized the genre.

Balanchine and Nureyev rated him the greatest dancer of the 20th century, and he is generally acknowledged to have been the most influential dancer in the history of filmed and televised musicals. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.