Vernon and Irene Castle

Vernon and Irene Castle (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.) were an American 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.