Gene Kelly Biography
Eugene Curran Kelly, 23 August 1912, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 2 February 1996, Los Angeles, California, USA. An actor, dancer, singer, choreographer, director, producer, and one of the most innovative and respected figures in the history of the screen musical. Kelly took dance lessons at the age of eight - albeit against his will - and excelled at sports when he was at high school. During the Depression he had a variety of jobs, including gymnastics instructor, and, with his brother Fred Kelly, performed a song-and-dance act at local nightclubs. In the early 30s, he spent a few months at law school before opening the Gene Kelly Studios of the Dance, and discovering that he had a real aptitude for teaching, which would manifest itself throughout his career in some of the most creative choreography ever seen on the big screen. In 1937, Kelly moved to New York, and gained a small part as a dancer in the musical comedy Leave It To Me!, in which Mary Martin also made her Broadway debut. A larger role followed in the revue One For The Money, and he also played Harry, the "good natured hoofer", in the Pulitzer prize-winning comedy, The Time Of Your Life. In 1940, after working in summer stock, and serving as a dance director at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe club, Kelly won the title role in the new Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical, Pal Joey. His portrayal of the devious, unscrupulous nightclub entertainer made him a star overnight in New York, but, after choreographing another Broadway hit show, Best Foot Forward, he moved to Hollywood in 1942, and made his screen debut with Judy Garland in For Me And My Gal. He appeared in two more musicals for MGM, Du Barry Was A Lady and Thousands Cheer, before the company loaned him to Columbia for Cover Girl (1944). Co-starring with Rita Hayworth and Phil Silvers, the film was a major landmark in Kelly's career, and an indication of the heights he would achieve during the next 10 years. It was memorable in many respects, particularly for Kelly's sensitive rendering of Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin's "Long Ago And Far Away", and the "Alter Ego" dance, during which Kelly danced with his own reflection in a shop window. Back at MGM, he was called upon to play several dramatic roles as well as appearing in Anchors Aweigh (1945), for which he received an Oscar nomination for best actor. In the film, as a couple of sailors on leave, Kelly and Frank Sinatra were accompanied by Kathryn Grayson, a Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne score - and Jerry - an animated mouse, who joined Kelly in a live-action/cartoon sequence that is still regarded as a classic of its kind. After spending two years in the real US Navy during World War II, supervising training films, Kelly resumed at MGM with Ziegfeld Follies (1946), in which he sang and danced with Fred Astaire for the first time on screen, in "The Babbitt And The Bromide". Two years later he was reunited with Judy Garland for The Pirate, a somewhat underrated film, with a score by Cole Porter that included "Be A Clown". He then choreographed the "Slaughter On Tenth Avenue" sequence in the Rodgers and Hart biopic Words And Music, in which he danced with Vera-Ellen, before joining Sinatra and Jules Munshin, first for the lively Take Me Out To The Ball Game (1949), and again for On The Town, "the most inventive and effervescent movie musical Hollywood had thus far produced". Although criticized for its truncation of the original Broadway score, On The Town, with its integrated music and plot, and the athletic dance sequences on the streets of New York, was acclaimed from all sides. After his triumph in On The Town, Kelly went on to Summer Stock, with Judy Garland again, before turning to what many consider to be the jewel in MGM's musical crown - An American In Paris (1951). Directed by Vincente Minnelli, and set in an idealized version of Paris, Kelly and his partner, Leslie Caron, danced exquisitely to a Gershwin brothers score that included "I Got Rhythm", "Our Love Is Here To Stay", "'S Wonderful" and "I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise". The film ended with a 17-minute ballet sequence, a "summation of Gene Kelly's work as a film dancer and choreographer, allowing him his full range of style - classical ballet, modern ballet, Cohanesque hoofing, tapping, jitterbugging, and sheer athletic expressionism". It won eight Academy Awards, including one for best picture. Kelly received a special Oscar "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". If An American In Paris was MGM's jewel, then Singin' In The Rain (1952), was probably its financial plum - arguably the most popular Hollywood musical of them all. Produced by Arthur Freed, who also wrote the songs with Nacio Herb Brown, the film's witty screenplay, by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, dealt with the Hollywood silent movie industry trying to come to terms with talking pictures. Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor joined Kelly in the joyous spoof, and sang and danced to a score that included "You Were Meant For Me", "Make 'Em Laugh", "Good Mornin'" and "Moses Supposes". The scene in which Kelly sings the title song, while getting completely drenched, is probably the most requested film clip in the history of the musical cinema. For Deep In My Heart (1955), the Sigmund Romberg biopic, Kelly went back to his roots and danced with his younger brother, Fred, in one of the film's high spots, "I Love To Go Swimmin' With Wimmen". Kelly's final major musical projects for MGM were Brigadoon (1954) and It's Always Fair Weather (1955). In the former, "the magical story of a Scottish village long lost to history and coming to life once every hundred years for a single day", Kelly co-starred with Cyd Charisse and Van Johnson in a production that was criticized for being shot in Cinemascope, and in the studio, rather than on location. For the latter film in 1955, Kelly co-starred with Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd for what was essentially a satirical swipe at the cynical commercialism of the US television industry - with music. His next project, Invitation To The Dance (1956), with script, choreography, and direction by Kelly, consisted of three unrelated episodes, all entirely danced, with Kelly accompanied by a classically trained troupe. A commercial failure in the USA, it was acclaimed in some parts of Europe, and awarded the grand prize at the West Berlin film festival in 1958. Following its success there, Kelly choreographed a new ballet for the Paris Opera's resident company, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government. Les Girls (1957) was Kelly's final MGM musical, and Cole Porter's last Hollywood score - the golden era of screen musicals was over. Subsequently, Kelly played several straight roles in films such as Marjorie Morningstar and Inherit The Wind, but spent much of his time as a director on projects such as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's Broadway musical Flower Drum Song, and 20th Century Fox's $24,000,000 extravaganza, Hello, Dolly! (1969), which starred Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau and a young Michael Crawford. In 1974, he was back on the screen in That's Entertainment!, "a nostalgia bash, featuring scenes from nearly 100 MGM musicals". It became a surprise hit, and two years later, Kelly and Fred Astaire hosted the inevitable sequel, That's Entertainment, Part 2. After viewing all that vintage footage, it would be interesting to have known Kelly's real opinions on a more modern musical film, such as Xanadu (1980), in which he appeared with Olivia Newton-John. By then, together with director Stanley Donen, the complete Arthur Freed Unit, and the rest of the talented personnel who produced most of his musicals at MGM, Kelly, with his athletic performance, choreography and direction, had completed a body of work that was only equalled by the other master of dance on film, Fred Astaire - but in a very different style. Whereas Astaire purveyed the image of a smooth man about town, with top hat, white tie and tails, Kelly preferred to appear casual in sports shirt, slacks and white socks. As he said himself: "Astaire represents the aristocracy when he dances - I represent the proletariat!".
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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