Starring Adele Astaire by Eliza Knight

Author:Eliza Knight
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Adele

The Limelight

Our American darling is back on British soil. But don’t pull out your wallets just yet. Miss Astaire, soon to be Lady Charles Cavendish, isn’t going to be in the West End unless it’s a box at the theatre. The beloved star has hopped the pond this time to get married, and the only performing she’ll be doing now is in lavish noble drawing rooms. A tragic loss to every fan of the lilac flame.

Spring 1931

New York City

I don’t know whether it was because we all knew I was soon to retire, or because our shoes had wings, but The Band Wagon felt like the beginning and the end of a new era all at once.

The show was popular among the critics, and, unlike Marilyn Miller, with whom I’d squabbled, Tilly Losch was my favorite in the cast, and we became inseparable.

Tilly was a statuesque brunette who hailed from a Jewish family in Austria. In addition to our similar cultural background, she’d also studied ballet since childhood, performed in London with our good friend Noël Coward, and made the rounds with all the honorables there whom we’d partied with. It was a wonder we’d never met before. Even Freddie had a hard time telling us apart from the back.

She teased Freddie in her Austrian accent, calling him a “silly ham” nearly every hour, and we tore up the New York speakeasies as if I were trying to imprint every dance floor, barhop, and stool on my brain. Freddie introduced Tilly to the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he loved to watch the young Black American Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, tap-dance until sparks ignited from their shoes. At only eighteen and eleven, their talent surpassed Freddie’s and mine, and we were double their age.

Setting sail for London, I didn’t know when I’d be back in New York. A part of me was unquestionably sad about that, but the other part was so elated to start a life that I’d dreamt about since I was a young girl. Marriage, motherhood. Freedom from the strains of dancing and showbiz. No longer wearing what my mother wanted me to wear, or doing my hair the way she said. No longer asking Freddie to give me some money for new shoes.

I was going to be a married woman. A lady.

I’d at first been a little upset that Charlie had let the cat out of the bag, but then I realized that his doing so had forced me to tell my brother. Something I’d already put off for months. I wanted to marry Charlie. And I needed a man like him, who would take the lead.

True to his word, Charlie had been there for the opening night of The Band Wagon, looking as dapper as ever. And he’d brought with him his younger sister Anne, whom I found to be completely delightful.

We’d cut it up at 21 and every other club, grinning for the cameras. When he’d headed back to London without me, I’d longed to stow away with him.

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