Castle, Vernon and Irene

orig. Vernon Blythe and Irene Foote

born May 2, 1887, Norwich, Norfolk, Eng.

died Feb. 15, 1918, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.

born 1893, New Rochelle, N.Y., U.S.

died Jan. 25, 1969, Eureka Springs, Ark.

U.S. husband-and-wife ballroom dance team.

Vernon moved to the U.S. in 1906 and married Irene in 1911. They gained worldwide popularity for their graceful style, and they introduced such dances as the one-step, fox-trot, turkey trot, castle polka, castle walk, and hesitation waltz and popularized several others. Irene is credited with creating the fashion for bobbed hair. Following Vernon's death in an airplane crash, Irene retired from dancing.

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▪ American dancers

original names  Vernon Blythe  and  Irene Foote 

Respectively,

 

born May 2, 1887, Norwich, Norfolk, Eng.

died Feb. 15, 1918, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.

born 1893, New Rochelle, N.Y., U.S.

died Jan. 25, 1969, Eureka Springs, Ark.

 U.S. husband-and-wife dancing team, famous as the originators of the one-step and the turkey trot.

      Vernon and Irene were married in 1911 and as dance partners became famous worldwide. They popularized such dances as the glide, the castle polka, the castle walk, the hesitation waltz, the maxixe, the tango, and the bunny hug.

      They wrote Modern Dancing (1914) together, and after Vernon was killed in an aviation accident while training cadets to pilot planes during World War I, Irene wrote My Husband (1919). In 1939 a motion picture starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, was released, and in 1958 Irene published Castles in the Air.

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