Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, singer, director and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create a new form of American dance accessible to the general public, which he called "dance for the common man".[2][3] He starred in, choreographed, and, withStanley Donen, co-directed some of the best-regardedmusical films of the 1940s and 1950s.
His innovations transformed the Hollywood musical, and he is credited with almost single-handedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences.[10] According to dance and art historian Beth Genné, working with his co-director Donen inSingin' in the Rain and in films with directorVincente Minnelli, "Kelly ... fundamentally affected the way movies are made and the way we look at them. And he did it with a dancer's eye and from a dancer's perspective."[2] Kelly received anAcademy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements; the same year,An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He later received lifetime achievement awards in theKennedy Center Honors (1982) and from theScreen Actors Guild andAmerican Film Institute. In 1999, the American Film Institute also ranked him as the15th greatest male screen legend ofClassic Hollywood Cinema.
Kelly was born in theEast Liberty neighborhood ofPittsburgh. He was middle of five children of James Patrick Joseph Kelly, aphonograph salesman, and his wife, Harriet Catherine Curran.[11] His father was born inPeterborough, Ontario, Canada, to an Irish Canadian family. His maternal grandfather was an immigrant fromDerry, Ireland, and his maternal grandmother was of German ancestry.[12] When he was eight, Kelly's mother enrolled him and his brother James in dance classes, along with their sisters. As Kelly recalled, they both rebelled: "We didn't like it much and were continually involved in fistfights with the neighborhood boys who called ussissies ... I didn't dance again until I was 15."[13] At one time, his childhood dream was to playshortstop for the hometownPittsburgh Pirates.[14]
By the time he decided to dance, he was an accomplished sportsman and able to defend himself. He attended St. Raphael Elementary School[15] in theMorningside neighborhood of Pittsburgh and graduated fromPeabody High School at age 16. He entered thePennsylvania State College as a journalism major, but after the1929 crash he left school and found work in order to help his family financially. He created dance routines with his younger brotherFred to earn prize money in local talent contests. They also performed in local nightclubs.[13]
In 1931, Kelly enrolled at theUniversity of Pittsburgh to study economics, joining the Theta Kappa Phi fraternity (later known asPhi Kappa Theta after merging with Phi Kappa).[16] He became involved in the university'sCap and Gown Club, which staged original musical productions.[17] After graduating in 1933, he continued to be active with the Cap and Gown Club, serving as the director from 1934 to 1938. Kelly was admitted to theUniversity of Pittsburgh Law School.[18]
His family opened a dance studio in theSquirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. In 1932, they renamed it the Gene Kelly Studio of the Dance and opened a second location inJohnstown, Pennsylvania in 1933. Kelly served as a teacher at the studio during his undergraduate and law-student years at Pitt. In 1931, he was approached by the Beth Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh to teach dance, and to stage the annualKermesse. The venture proved a success, Kelly being retained for seven years until his departure for New York.[19]
Kelly eventually decided to pursue a career as a dance teacher and full-time entertainer, so he dropped out of law school after two months. He increased his focus on performing and later said: "With time I became disenchanted with teaching because the ratio of girls to boys was more than ten to one, and once the girls reached 16, the dropout rate was very high."[13] In 1937, having successfully managed and developed the family's dance-school business, he moved to New York City in search of work as a choreographer.[13] Kelly returned to Pittsburgh, to his family home at 7514 Kensington Street, in 1940, and worked as a theatrical actor.[20]
After a fruitless search for work in New York, Kelly returned to Pittsburgh to his first position as a choreographer with the Charles Gaynor musical revueHold Your Hats at thePittsburgh Playhouse in April 1938. Kelly appeared in six of the sketches, one of which,La cumparsita, became the basis of an extended Spanish number in the filmAnchors Aweigh eight years later.
His firstBroadway assignment, in November 1938, was as a dancer inCole Porter'sLeave It to Me!—as the American ambassador's secretary who supportsMary Martin while she sings "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". He had been hired byRobert Alton, who had staged a show at the Pittsburgh Playhouse where he was impressed by Kelly's teaching skills. When Alton moved on to choreograph the musicalOne for the Money, he hired Kelly to act, sing, and dance in eight routines. In 1939, he was selected for a musical revue,One for the Money, produced by the actressKatharine Cornell, who was known for finding and hiring talented young actors.
Kelly's first big breakthrough was in thePulitzer Prize–winningThe Time of Your Life, which opened on October 25, 1939—in which, for the first time on Broadway, he danced to his own choreography. In 1939, he received his first assignment as a Broadway choreographer, forBilly Rose's Diamond Horseshoe. He began dating a cast member,Betsy Blair, and they got married on October 16, 1941.
In 1940, he got the lead role inRodgers and Hart'sPal Joey, again choreographed by Robert Alton. This role propelled him to stardom. During its run, he told reporters: "I don't believe in conformity to any school of dancing. I create what the drama and the music demand. While I am a hundred percent for ballet technique, I use only what I can adapt to my own use. I never let technique get in the way of mood or continuity."[13] His colleagues at this time noticed his great commitment to rehearsal and hard work.Van Johnson—who also appeared inPal Joey—recalled: "I watched him rehearsing, and it seemed to me that there was no possible room for improvement. Yet he wasn't satisfied. It was midnight and we had been rehearsing since 8 in the morning. I was making my way sleepily down the long flight of stairs when I heard staccato steps coming from the stage ... I could see just a single lamp burning. Under it, a figure was dancing ... Gene."[13]
Offers from Hollywood began to arrive, but Kelly was in no hurry to leave New York. Eventually, he signed withDavid O. Selznick, agreeing to go to Hollywood at the end of his commitment toPal Joey, in October 1941. Prior to his contract, he also managed to fit in choreographing the stage production ofBest Foot Forward.[21]
Gene Kelly dances withJerry ofTom and Jerry inAnchors Aweigh (1945), a performance which changed at least one critic's opinion of Kelly's skills.
Selznick sold half of Kelly's contract toMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer for his first motion picture:For Me and My Gal (1942) starringJudy Garland. Kelly said he was "appalled at the sight of myself blown up 20 times. I had an awful feeling that I was a tremendous flop."For Me and My Gal performed very well, and in the face of much internal resistance,Arthur Freed of MGM picked up the other half of Kelly's contract.[13] After appearing in aB movie drama,Pilot No. 5 (1943) and inChristmas Holiday (1944), he took the male lead in Cole Porter'sDu Barry Was a Lady (1943) withLucille Ball, in a part originally intended forAnn Sothern. His first opportunity to dance to his own choreography came in his next picture,Thousands Cheer (1943), in which he performed a mock-love dance with a mop. Unusually, inPilot No. 5, Kelly played theantagonist.
In 1944 he achieved a significant breakthrough as a dancer on film when MGM lent him toColumbia to work withRita Hayworth inCover Girl, a film that foreshadowed the best of his future work.[22] He created a memorable routine dancing to his own reflection. Despite this, criticManny Farber was moved to praise Kelly's "attitude", "clarity", and "feeling" as an actor while inauspiciously concluding, "The two things he does least well—singing and dancing—are what he is given most consistently to do."[23]
In Kelly's next film,Anchors Aweigh (1945), MGM gave him a free hand to devise a range of dance routines, including his duets with co-starFrank Sinatra and the celebrated animated dance withJerry Mouse—the animation for which was supervised byWilliam Hanna andJoseph Barbera. That performance was enough for Farber to completely reverse his previous assessment of Kelly's skills. Reviewing the film, Farber enthused, "Kelly is the most exciting dancer to appear in Hollywood movies."[24]Anchors Aweigh became one of the most successful films of 1945 and Kelly was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Actor. InZiegfeld Follies (1946)—which was produced in 1944 but delayed for release—Kelly collaborated withFred Astaire, for whom he had the greatest admiration, in "The Babbitt and the Bromide" challenge dance routine.
Kelly was deferred from thedraft in 1940[25] by the U.S.Selective Service System at the request of his employers, but was classified 1-A, eligible for induction, in October 1944 after an appeal to PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt by the head of the Selective Service in New York City.[26] Roosevelt personally upheld the appeal.[25]
In November 1944, he was inducted into the armed forces, and at his request he was assigned to the U.S. Navy.[27][28] He served in theU.S. Naval Air Service and was commissioned aslieutenant, junior grade. He was stationed in the Photographic Section, Washington, D.C., where he helped write and direct a range of documentaries – this stimulated his interest in the production side of filmmaking.[16][29] He was discharged in 1946.[30]
After Kelly returned from Naval service, MGM had nothing planned and used him in a routine black-and-white movie:Living in a Big Way (1947). The film was considered so weak that the studio asked Kelly to design and insert a series of dance routines; they noticed his ability to carry out such assignments. This led to a lead part in his next picture, with Judy Garland and directorVincente Minnelli—a musical film version ofS.N. Behrman's play,The Pirate (1948), with songs by Cole Porter.The Pirate gave full rein to Kelly's athleticism. It features Kelly's work withthe Nicholas Brothers—the leading black dancers of their day—in a virtuoso dance routine. Now regarded as a classic, the film was ahead of its time, but flopped at the box office.
MGM wanted Kelly to return to safer and more commercial vehicles, but he ceaselessly fought for an opportunity to direct his own musical film. In the interim, he capitalized on his swashbuckling image asd'Artagnan inThe Three Musketeers in 1948—and appeared withVera-Ellen in theSlaughter on Tenth Avenue ballet inWords and Music (1948 again). He was due to play the male lead opposite Garland inEaster Parade (1948), but broke his ankle playing volleyball. He withdrew from the film and persuadedFred Astaire to come out of retirement to replace him.[31]
In 1949 he starred inTake Me Out to the Ball Game, his second film with Sinatra, where Kelly paid tribute to his Irish heritage in "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day" routine. This musical film persuaded Arthur Freed to have Kelly makeOn the Town, also in 1949, in which he partnered with Frank Sinatra for the third and final time. A breakthrough in the musical film genre, it has been described as "the most inventive and effervescent musical thus far produced in Hollywood."[13]
Stanley Donen, brought to Hollywood by Kelly to be his assistant choreographer, received co-director credit forOn the Town. According to Kelly: "when you are involved in doing choreography for film, you must have expert assistants. I needed one to watch my performance, and one to work with the cameraman on the timing ... without such people as Stanley,Carol Haney, andJeanne Coyne I could never have done these things. When we came to doOn the Town, I knew it was time for Stanley to get screen credit because we weren't boss–assistant anymore but co-creators."[13][32] Together, they opened up the musical form, taking the film musical out of the studio and into real locations, with Donen taking responsibility for the staging and Kelly handling the choreography. Kelly went much further than before in introducing modern ballet into his dance sequences, going so far in the "Day in New York" routine as to substitute four leading ballet specialists for Sinatra, Munshin, Garrett, and Miller.[16]
Kelly asked the studio for a straight acting role, and he took the lead role in the earlyMafia melodramaBlack Hand (1950). This exposé of organized crime is set in New York's "Little Italy" during the late 19th century and focuses on theBlack Hand, a group that extorts money upon threat of death. In the real-life incidents upon which this film is based, it was the Mafia, not the Black Hand, who functioned as the villain. Filmmakers had to tread gingerly whenever dealing with big-time crime, it being safer to go after a "dead" criminal organization than a "live" one. There followedSummer Stock (1950)—Garland's last musical film for MGM—in which Kelly performed the "You, You Wonderful You" solo routine with a newspaper and a squeaky floorboard. In his bookEasy the Hard Way,Joe Pasternak, head of another of MGM's musical units, singled out Kelly for his patience and willingness to spend as much time as necessary to enable the ailing Garland to complete her part.[13]
Then followed in quick succession two musicals that secured Kelly's reputation as a major figure in the American musical film. First,An American in Paris (1951) and—probably the most admired of all film musicals—Singin' in the Rain (1952). As co-director, lead star, and choreographer, Kelly was the driving force in both of these films.Johnny Green, the head of music at MGM at the time, said of him,
Gene is easygoing as long as you know exactly what you are doing when you're working with him. He's a hard taskmaster and he loves hard work. If you want to play on his team you'd better like hard work, too. He isn't cruel, but he is tough, and if Gene believed in something, he didn't care who he was talking to, whether it wasLouis B. Mayer or the gatekeeper. He wasn't awed by anybody, and he had a good record of getting what he wanted.[13]
An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, includingBest Picture. The film also marked the debut of 19-year-old ballerinaLeslie Caron, whom Kelly had spotted in Paris and brought to Hollywood. Its dream ballet sequence, lasting an unprecedented 17 minutes, was the most expensive production number ever filmed at that time.Bosley Crowther described it as, "whoop-de-doo ... one of the finest ever put on the screen."[16] Also in 1951, Kelly received an honorary Academy Award for his contribution to film musicals and the art of choreography.
Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, and Gene Kelly from alobby card forSingin' in the Rain
The following year,Singin' in the Rain featured Kelly's celebrated and much imitated solo dance routine to the title song, along with the "Moses Supposes" routine with Donald O'Connor and the "Broadway Melody" finale withCyd Charisse. Though the film did not initially generate the same enthusiasmAn American in Paris created, it has subsequently overtaken the earlier film to occupy its current pre-eminent place in the esteem of critics.
At the peak of his creative powers, Kelly made what in retrospect some see as a career mistake.[16] In December 1951, he signed a contract with MGM that sent him to Europe for 19 months to use MGM funds frozen in Europe to make three pictures while personally benefiting from tax exemptions.Invitation to the Dance, a pet project of Kelly's to bring modern ballet to mainstream film audiences. It was beset with delays and technical problems, and flopped when finally released in 1956.
When Kelly returned to Hollywood in 1953, the film musical was beginning to feel the pressures from television, and MGM cut the budget for his next pictureBrigadoon (1954), with Cyd Charisse, forcing him to make the film on studio backlots instead of on location in Scotland. This year also had him appear as a guest star with his brother Fred in the "I Love to Go Swimmin' with Wimmen" routine inDeep in My Heart (1954).
MGM's refusal to lend him out forGuys and Dolls andPal Joey put further strains on his relationship with the studio. He negotiated an exit to his contract that involved making three further pictures for MGM. The first of these,It's Always Fair Weather (1955), co-directed with Donen, was a musical satire on television and advertising, and includes his roller-skate dance routine toI Like Myself, and a dance trio withMichael Kidd andDan Dailey that Kelly used to experiment with the widescreen possibilities ofCinemascope.
MGM had lost faith in Kelly's box-office appeal, and as a resultIt's Always Fair Weather premiered at 17 drive-in theaters around the Los Angeles metroplex. Next followed Kelly's last musical film for MGM,Les Girls (1957), in which he joinedMitzi Gaynor,Kay Kendall, andTaina Elg. The third picture he completed was a co-production between MGM and himself, a B-film,The Happy Road (1957), set in his beloved France, his first foray in a new role as producer-director-actor. After leaving MGM, Kelly returned to stage work.
In 1958, Kelly directedRodgers and Hammerstein's musical playFlower Drum Song.[33] Early in 1960, Kelly, an ardent Francophile and fluent French speaker, was invited by A. M. Julien, the general administrator of theParis Opéra andOpéra-Comique,[13] to select his own material and create a modern ballet for the company, the first time an American had received such an assignment. The result wasPas de Dieux, based onGreek mythology, combined with the music ofGeorge Gershwin'sConcerto in F. It was a major success, and it led to his being honored with theChevalier de laLégion d'Honneur by the French Government.
In 1960, Kelly continued to make some film appearances, such as Hornbeck in the Hollywood production ofInherit the Wind and as himself inLet's Make Love. However, most of his efforts were now concentrated on film production and directing. In Paris, he directedJackie Gleason inGigot (1962), but the film was drastically recut bySeven Arts Productions and flopped.[16] Another French effort,Jacques Demy's homage to the MGM musical,The Young Girls of Rochefort (Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, 1967), in which Kelly appeared, was a box-office success in France and nominated for Academy Awards for Best Music and Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation), but performed poorly elsewhere.
He was asked to direct the 1965 film version ofThe Sound of Music, which had already been turned down by Stanley Donen. He escortedErnest Lehman, the screenwriter, out of his house, saying, "Go find someone else to direct this piece of shit."[34]
His first foray into television was a documentary forNBC'sOmnibus,Dancing is a Man's Game (1958), in which he assembled a group of America's greatest sportsmen—includingMickey Mantle,Sugar Ray Robinson, andBob Cousy—and reinterpreted their moves choreographically, as part of his lifelong quest to remove the effeminate stereotype of the art of dance, while articulating the philosophy behind his dance style.[16] It gained anEmmy nomination for choreography and now stands as the key document explaining Kelly's approach to modern dance.
Kelly appeared frequently on television shows during the 1960s, includingGoing My Way (1962–63), which was based on the1944 film of the same name. It enjoyed great popularity in Roman Catholic countries outside the US.[16] He also appeared in three major TV specials:The Julie Andrews Show (1965),New York, New York (1966), andJack and the Beanstalk (1967)—a show he produced and directed that again combined cartoon animation and live dance, winning him anEmmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program.
In 1963, Kelly joinedUniversal Pictures for a two-year stint. He joined20th Century Fox in 1965, but had little to do—partly due to his decision to decline assignments away from Los Angeles for family reasons. His perseverance finally paid off, with the major box-office hitA Guide for the Married Man (1967), in which he directedWalter Matthau. Then, a major opportunity arose when Fox—buoyed by the returns fromThe Sound of Music (1965)—commissioned Kelly to directHello, Dolly! (1969), again directing Matthau along withBarbra Streisand. The film was nominated forseven Academy Awards, winning three.
In 1966, Kelly starred in a musical television special forCBS titledGene Kelly in New York, New York.[35] The special focuses on Gene Kelly in a musical tour aroundManhattan, dancing along such landmarks asRockefeller Center,the Plaza Hotel, andthe Museum of Modern Art, which serve as backdrops for the show's entertaining production numbers.[36] The special was written byWoody Allen, who also stars alongside Kelly. Guest stars included choreographerGower Champion, British musical comedy starTommy Steele, and singerDamita Jo DeBlanc.[37]
In 1970, he made another television special:Gene Kelly and 50 Girls, and was invited to bring the show toLas Vegas, which he did for an eight-week stint on the condition he be paid more than any artist had ever been paid there.[16] He directed veteran actorsJames Stewart andHenry Fonda in the comedy WesternThe Cheyenne Social Club (1970), which performed poorly at the box office. In 1973, he worked again with Frank Sinatra as part of Sinatra'sEmmy-nominated TV special,Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra.
In 1974, he appeared as one of many special narrators in the surprise hitThat's Entertainment! In 1976, he directed and co-starred with his friend Fred Astaire in the sequelThat's Entertainment, Part II. It was a measure of his powers of persuasion that he managed to coax the 77-year-old Astaire—who had insisted that his contract rule out any dancing, having long since retired—into performing a series of song-and-dance duets, evoking a powerful nostalgia for the glory days of the American musical film.
Kelly was a guest on the 1975 television special starring Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, "Our Love Is Here to Stay," appearing with his son, Tim, and daughter, Bridget. He starred in the poorly received action filmViva Knievel! (1977), with the then high-profile stuntman,Evel Knievel. Kelly continued to make frequent TV appearances. His final film role was inXanadu (1980), a flop despite a popularsoundtrack that spawned five Top 20 hits by theElectric Light Orchestra,Cliff Richard, and Kelly's co-starOlivia Newton-John.[16] In Kelly's opinion, "The concept was marvelous, but it just didn't come off."[13]
In 1980, he was invited byFrancis Ford Coppola to recruit a production staff for American Zoetrope'sOne from the Heart (1982). Although Coppola's ambition was for him to establish a production unit to rival theFreed Unit at MGM, the film's failure put an end to this idea.[16] In November 1983 he made his first Royal Variety Performance before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, at London's Theatre Royal. Kelly served as executive producer and co-host ofThat's Dancing! (1985), a celebration of the history of dance in the American musical. Kelly's final on-screen appearance was to introduceThat's Entertainment! III (1994). His final film project was the animated filmCats Don't Dance, not released until 1997, for which Kelly acted as an uncredited choreographic consultant. It was dedicated to his memory.
In 1993, Kelly was hired byMadonna and her brotherChristopher Ciccone to do the choreography for part of Madonna'sThe Girlie Show tour, but he was quickly dismissed due to the very different visions that Kelly and the Ciccones had about the performers he was to direct and their dancing abilities.[38]
When he began his collaborative film work, he was influenced byRobert Alton andJohn Murray Anderson, striving to create moods and character insight with his dances. He choreographed his own movement, along with that of the ensemble, with the assistance ofJeanne Coyne, Stanley Donen,Carol Haney, and Alex Romero.[10] He experimented with lighting, camera techniques, and special effects to achieve true integration of dance with film, and was one of the first to use split screens, double images, and live action with animation, and is credited as the person who made the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences.[10]
A clear progression was evident in his development, from an early concentration on tap and musical comedy style to greater complexity using ballet and modern dance forms.[39] Kelly himself refused to categorize his style: "I don't have a name for my style of dancing ... It's certainly hybrid ... I've borrowed from the modern dance, from the classical, and certainly from the American folk dance—tap-dancing, jitterbugging ... But I have tried to develop a style which is indigenous to the environment in which I was reared."[39] He especially acknowledged the influence ofGeorge M. Cohan: "I have a lot of Cohan in me. It's an Irish quality, a jaw-jutting, up-on-the-toes cockiness—which is a good quality for a male dancer to have."[13]
He was heavily influenced by an African-American dancer,Robert Dotson, whom he saw perform atLoew's Penn Theatre around 1929. He was briefly taught by Frank Harrington, an African-American tap specialist from New York.[40] However, his main interest was in ballet, which he studied under Kotchetovsky in the early 1930s. BiographerClive Hirschhorn writes: "As a child, he used to run for miles through parks and streets and woods—anywhere, just as long as he could feel the wind against his body and through his hair. Ballet gave him the same feeling of exhilaration, and in 1933, he was convinced it was the most satisfying form of self-expression."[16]
He studied Spanish dancing under Angel Cansino,Rita Hayworth's uncle.[16] Generally speaking, he tended to use tap and other popular dance idioms to express joy and exuberance—as in the title song forSingin' in the Rain or "I Got Rhythm" inAn American in Paris, whereas pensive or romantic feelings were more often expressed via ballet or modern dance, as in "Heather on the Hill" fromBrigadoon or "Our Love Is Here to Stay" fromAn American in Paris.[39]
Kelly in rehearsal withSugar Ray Robinson and assistantJeanne Coyne, his future wife in theNBCOmnibus television specialDancing is a Man's Game, 1958
According to Delamater, Kelly's work "seems to represent the fulfillment of dance–film integration in the 1940s and 1950s". While Fred Astaire had revolutionized the filming of dance in the 1930s by insisting on full-figure photography of dancers, while allowing only a modest degree of camera movement, Kelly freed up the camera, making greater use of space, camera movement, camera angles, and editing, creating a partnership between dance movement and camera movement without sacrificing full-figure framing.[39]
Kelly's reasoning behind this was that he felt the kinetic force of live dance often evaporated when brought to film, and he sought to partially overcome this by involving the camera in movement and giving the dancer a greater number of directions in which to move. Examples of this abound in Kelly's work and are well illustrated in the "Prehistoric Man" sequence fromOn the Town and "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day" fromTake Me Out to the Ball Game.[39]
In 1951, he summed up his vision as: "If the camera is to make a contribution at all to dance, this must be the focal point of its contribution; the fluid background, giving each spectator an undistorted and altogether similar view of dancer and background. To accomplish this, the camera is made fluid, moving with the dancer, so that the lens becomes the eye of the spectator,your eye".[10]
Kelly's athleticism gave his moves a distinctive broad, muscular quality,[39] and this was a deliberate choice on his part, as he explained: "There's a strong link between sports and dancing, and my own dancing springs from my early days as an athlete ... I think dancing is a man's game and if he does it well he does it better than a woman."[13] Caron said that while dancing with Astaire she felt like she was floating, Kelly danced close to the ground.[41] He railed against what he saw as the widespread effeminacy in male dancing, which, in his opinion, "tragically" stigmatized the genre, alienating boys from entering the field:
Dancingdoes attract effeminate young men. I don't object to that as long as they don't dance effeminately. I just say that if a man dances effeminately, he dances badly—just as if a woman comes out on stage and starts to sing bass. Unfortunately, people confuse gracefulness with softness.John Wayne is a graceful man and so are some of the great ballplayers ... but, of course, they don't run the risk of being called sissies.[13]
In his view, "one of our problems is that so much dancing is taught by women. You can spot many male dancers who have this tuition by their arm movements—they are soft, limp, and feminine."[13] He acknowledged that in spite of his efforts—in TV programs such asDancing: A Man's Game (1958) for example—the situation changed little over the years.[13]He also sought to break from the class-conscious conventions of the 1930s and early 40s, when top hat and tails or tuxedos were the norm, by dancing in casual or everyday work clothes, so as to make his dancing more relevant to the cinema-going public. His first wife, actress and dancerBetsy Blair said:
A sailor suit or his white socks and loafers, or the T-shirts on his muscular torso, gave everyone the feeling that he was a regular guy, and perhaps they, too, could express love and joy by dancing in the street or stomping through puddles ... he democratized the dance in movies.[42]
In particular, he wanted to create a completely different image from that associated with Fred Astaire, not least because he believed his physique did not suit such refined elegance: "I used to envy his cool, aristocratic style, so intimate and contained. Fred wears top hat and tails to the Manor born—I put them on and look like a truck driver."[13]
From the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, his wife Betsy Blair and he organized weekly parties at theirBeverly Hills home, and they often played an intensely competitive and physical version ofcharades, known as "The Game".[43]
Late in life, Kelly was awarded Irish citizenship under Ireland's Citizenship by Foreign Birth program. The application was initiated on his behalf by his wife Patricia Ward Kelly.[44]
On December 22, 1983, the actor's Beverly Hills mansion burned down.[45] Faulty Christmas tree wiring was blamed. His family and pets escaped and he suffered a burned hand.
Kelly married three times. His first marriage was to 17-year-old actressBetsy Blair in 1941. They met the previous year in 1940 at an audition where Kelly hired Blair to work as a dancer for a nightclub revue.[46] They had one child, Kerry (b. 1942), and they divorced in April 1957.[47]
In 1960, Kelly married his choreographic assistantJeanne Coyne. She had previously been married to Stanley Donen between 1948 and 1951. Kelly and Coyne had two children, Timothy (b. 1962) and Bridget (b. 1964). This marriage lasted until Coyne died in 1973.
Kelly married Patricia Ward in 1990, when he was 77 and she was 30.[48] Their marriage lasted until his death in 1996, and she has never remarried.[49]
Kelly was a lifelong supporter of theDemocratic Party. His period of greatest prominence coincided with theMcCarthy era in the US. In 1947, he was part of theCommittee for the First Amendment, the Hollywood delegation that flew to Washington to protest against the first official hearings which were held by theHouse Committee on Un-American Activities. His first wife, Betsy Blair, was suspected of being a communist sympathizer, and whenUnited Artists, which had offered Blair a part inMarty (1955), were considering withdrawing her under pressure from theAmerican Legion, Kelly successfully threatened MGM's influence on United Artists with a pullout fromIt's Always Fair Weather unless his wife was restored to the part.[16][43] He used his position on the board of directors of theWriters Guild of America West on a number of occasions to mediate disputes between unions and the Hollywood studios.
He was raised as aRoman Catholic and he was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild inBeverly Hills, California.[50] After he became disenchanted with the Roman Catholic Church's support forFrancisco Franco's opposition to theSecond Spanish Republic during theSpanish Civil War,[51] he officially severed his ties with the church in September 1939. This separation was prompted, in part, by a trip which Kelly took to Mexico in which he became convinced that the church had failed to help the poor in Mexico.[51] After his departure from the Catholic Church, Kelly became anagnostic, as he had previously described himself.[52]
Kelly's health steadily declined in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In July 1994, he suffered astroke and stayed in theRonald Reagan UCLA Medical Center hospital for seven weeks. In early 1995, he suffered another stroke which left him severely disabled. Kelly died on February 2, 1996.[53][54][55]
A plaque honoring Gene Kelly at hisalma mater, the University of PittsburghGene Kelly's Star on theHollywood Walk of Fame.
1942 – Best Actor award from the National Board of Review for his performance inFor Me and My Gal
1946 –Academy Award nomination for Best Actor inAnchors Aweigh (1945)
1951 – Nominated for aGolden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy forAn American in Paris
1952 – Honorary Academy Award "in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film." This Oscar was lost in a fire in 1983 and replaced at the 1984 Academy Awards.
1953 – Nomination from the Directors Guild of America, Best Director forSingin' in the Rain, 1952 (shared with Stanley Donen).
1994 – TheThree Tenors performed "Singin' in the Rain" in his presence during a concert atDodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
1996 – HonoraryCésar Award, the César is the main national film award in France.
1996 – At the Academy Awards ceremony, directorQuincy Jones organized a tribute to the just-deceased Kelly, in whichSavion Glover performed the dance to "Singin' in the Rain".
1997 – Ranked number 26 inEmpire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list
1999 – Ranked number 15 in the American Film Institute's "Greatest Male Legends" of Classic Hollywood list
2013 – "Singin' in the Rain" ranked number one in "The Nation's Favorite Dance Moment".[clarification needed]
Kelly appeared as actor, singer and dancer in musical films. He always choreographed his own dance routines and often the dance routines of others and used assistants. As was the practice at the time, he was rarely formally credited in the film titles.[10]
^"Gene Kelly 1-A".The Greenville News. International News Service. October 15, 1944. p. 2.Archived from the original on September 27, 2022. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2022 – viaNewspapers.com.
^"Gene Kelly Drafted".The Tennessean. Associated Press. November 16, 1944. p. 11.Archived from the original on September 27, 2022. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2022 – viaNewspapers.com.
^According to Blair, p. 111, he directedJocelyn Brando in a semidocumentary about war-wounded veterans.
^Astaire, Fred (1959).Steps in Time. London: Heinemann. p. 291.ISBN0-241-11749-6.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^Blair, p. 104: "Gene was the central creative force in this initial collaboration, but he was always generous about Stanley's contribution ... Unfortunately, and mysteriously for me, Stanley, over the years, had been less than gracious about Gene."
^In an episode foreshadowing his later conflicts with the studio,Elia Kazan in the late 1940s offered Kelly the role of Biff inDeath of a Salesman on Broadway, but MGM refused to release him. cf. Blair, p. 112
^Ciccone, Christopher; Leigh, Wendy (2008).Life with My Sister Madonna. Gallery Books. p. 211.ISBN9781439109267.
^abcdefDelamater, Jerome (2004). "Gene Kelly".International Encyclopedia of Dance. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 38–40.
^cf. Hirschhorn, pp. 25, 26: "What impressed Gene was the originality of the man's [Dotson's] dancing, as it was quite unlike anything he had seen before. The tricks Dotson was doing were absolutely fresh. He went back to see that act a few times and admitted pinching several steps for his own use ... Just as he had done with Dotson, Gene made up his mind to 'steal' as much as he could from numerous touring shows ... both Fred and he were absolutely shameless when it came to pilfering, and very good at it."
^"National Medal of Arts".www.nea.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Archived fromthe original on July 21, 2011. RetrievedMay 23, 2011.1994-Gene Kelly – dancer, singer, actor. One website,Movie TreasuresArchived July 14, 2011, at theWayback Machine, refers to this award as the "National Medal of Freedom" causing some people to mistake the award for the entirely unrelated "Presidential Medal of Freedom." The award Gene Kelly received was the National Medal of the Arts. Kelly's name does not appear on the list ofPresidential Medal of Freedom WinnersArchived July 14, 2004, at theWayback Machine.
^Warga, Wayne. "Gene Kelly ready once more to put on his dancing shoes,"The Boston Globes May 23, 1974.
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