Adele Astaire Adele Astaire Adele, Lady Charles Cavendish (born Adele Marie Austerlitz; September 10, 1896 – January 25, 1981), was an American dancer, stage actress and singer. She was Fred Astaire's elder sister, and his partner in a 27-year career in vaudeville and theater, beginning when he was five and she was eight. Adele Marie Austerlitz was born on September 10, 1896, in Omaha, Nebraska. Her parents were Johanna "Ann" Geilus, an American-born Lutheran of German descent, and Frederic "Fritz" Austerlitz, an Austrian-born Roman Catholic of Jewish descent. Adele's younger brother, Fred, was born two years after her. When Adele was eight
Ginger Rogers Harry", a 1941 comedy in which she dreams of marrying three different men; "I'll Be Seeing You" (1944), with Joseph Cotten; and Billy Wilder's first Hollywood feature film: "The Major and the Minor" (1942), in which she played a woman who masquerades as a 12-year-old to get a cheap train ticket and finds herself obliged to continue the ruse for an extended period. This film featured a performance by Rogers' own real mother, Lela, playing her film mother. After becoming a free agent, Rogers made hugely successful films with other studios in the mid-'40s, including "Tender Comrade" (1943), "Lady in