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
Charley Foy stage through the 1920s, eventually disbanding when Eddie Foy Jr. went out on his own as a single act in 1929. Foy, along with three of his younger siblings, Madeline, Mary, and Irving, continued to perform as an act in Vaudeville through the mid-1930s, billed as "The Foy Family: Real Chips Off the Old Block", in which Charley Foy was given top billing. At one point in the mid-1920s, Foy attempted to give Ginger Rogers, then an unknown dancer by the name of Ginger McMath, an opportunity on stage during a performance in Fort Worth, Texas. However the venue manager