[philmcc]

It wasn't really always the case. If you scroll back, so to speak, a generation or so, the further and further you get, the less necessary it was to win the trifecta of being Attractive, A Dancer, and a Live Performer. Let alone songwriter. There's only so many people that are all 4 and you know all of them by name.

You could be VERY plain looking, and unable to dance at all, and chart in in 1965.

[WalterBright]

Fred Astaire's original audition allegedly was noted as: "can act, can sing, can dance a little."

[hnick]

Attraction followed from fame, rather than the other way around.