LIFE Magazine's Classic Photos

Fred Astaire, 1945
By Bob Landry
Even as thousands of copies of his Rita Hayworth pinup were zooming across the world to bolster the morale of US troops fighting in the Pacific, Bob Landry, himself returned from the European Theater, entered the studio to make a lighter—than—air portrait of one of Hayworth's favorite dance partners. Landry could shoot fierce scenes and fun ones. Consider: Within a few months he made images for LIFE of a French woman discovering her husband's body in St. Marcouf, Normandy; of French patriots beating a German collaborator in Rennes; and this, of Hollywood's high-flying Astaire.

• The Book, "Life, the Classic Collection"