At The Time The Quickest Way To

Mentally, I Write Myself A Little Story. Of Course, Sometimes You Have A Song That Says, "do That." My Best Example Is Singin' In The Rain. Arthur Freed Had Insisted That The Song Should Be In The Picture, But He Was Very Anxious About It.

I Wanted To Do New Things With Dance, Adapt It To The Motion Picture Medium.

Fred Astaire Represented The Aristocracy, I Represented The Proletariat.

I Wanted To Invent Some Kind Of American Dance That Was Danced To The Music That I Grew Up On: Cole Porter And Rodgers And Hart And Irving Berlin. So I Evolved A Style That Certainly Didn't Catch On Right Away - But I Had Some Good Mentors In New York Who Encouraged Me.

The Only Thing Is That Ordinarily When I Do Dance With [women] They Think I Am Suddenly Going To Throw Them Over A Table Or Twist Them All Around. All I Want To Do Is One-two, One-two-three - A Simple Fox Trot. But They're Shaking With Anticipation At The Thought That I'm About To Whip Them Around And Then Toss Them On The Roof.