Vernon and Irene Castle popularized ragtime dancing in the years just before World War I and made dancing a respectable pastime in America. The whisper-thin; elegant Castles were trendsetters in many ways: they traveled with a black orchestra; had an openly lesbian manager; and were animal-rights advocates decades before it became a public issue. Irene was also a fashion innovator; bobbing her hair ten years before the flapper look of the 1920s became popular. From their marriage in 1911 until 1916; the Castles were the most famous and influential dance team in the world. Their dancing schools and nightclubs were packed with society figures and white-collar workers alike. After their peak of white-hot fame; Vernon enlisted in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps; served at the front lines; and was killed in a 1918 airplane crash. Irene became a movie star and appeared in more than a dozen films between 1917 and 1922. The Castles were depicted in the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Vernon and Irene Castles Ragtime Revolution (1939); but the film omitted most of the interesting and controversial aspects of their lives. They were more complex than posterity would have it: Vernon was charming but irresponsible; Irene was strong-minded but self-centered; and the couple had filed for divorce before Vernons death (information that has never before been made public). Vernon and Irene Castles Ragtime Revolution is the fascinating story of a couple who reinvented dance and its place in twentieth-century culture.
#479513 in eBooks 2010-03-05 2010-03-05File Name: B003B4IW5W
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