Gene kelly

Eugene Curran Kelly was born on August 23, 1911 in a humble neighborhood of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) into a working family. As he was not enough for them with the salary of his father, a phonograph seller, his mother interested the five brothers in dance to set up the group “The Five Kellys” with them. After performing for some time, the quintet disbands, but Gene continues to perform along with his brother Fred. Both prepared their performances for hours and amazed the public.

Although he enrolled in Economics at the University, the Great Depression leaves his family with very few resources, so he combines his studies with work in small trades. When he graduates, he helps his family open a dance academy in Pittsburgh, where he teaches young promises to dance for a while.

Once she was sure the academy was going well, Kelly headed off to New York to fulfill her dream of becoming a huge dance star. By then her technique was so impressive that as soon as she showed up for some auditions they raffled her off. Before long, she was already the lead in the musical “Pal Joey” on Broadway. He strikes up a great friendship with one of his stage partners, Stanley Donen , whom he makes his assistant. In addition, Kelly falls in love with the actress Betsy Blair ( Marty ) with whom he married in 1941.

The musical was a success and Hollywood greats went to see him perform, such as producer David O. Selznick , who offered a contract to Gene Kelly to work as an actor in dramatic films, since he did not want to produce musicals. But Kelly opted for the offer of another boss who had also been dazzled by his work, the no less legendary Louis B. Mayer, then director of MGM. Mayer wanted him to exploit his qualities as a dancer in For Me and My Girl , where he would share the screen with Judy Garland . Kelly agreed to go to Hollywood, just to shoot that film, which was going to be directed by the choreographer Busby Berkeley , responsible for 42nd Street .. The plan was to return immediately to New York to continue in the theater…

However, Kelly was dazzled by the multiple talents he found in the Mecca of Cinema in the years when Europe had entered World War II, and many artists had chosen to take refuge in the United States. He decided to stay, and despite the fact that his first film was not very well received by the public, the actor’s chemistry with Garland was evident, and the charm that flashed on the screen, for which MGM offered him a permanent contract. In this way, he shoots great hits such as The Models , with Rita Hayworth , and Lifting Anchors , by George Sidney , with Frank Sinatra ., where Kelly is given free rein for the first time to organize the choreography. Eager for attention, he told his friend and collaborator Stanley Donen that he had to do something that had never been done before.

-How about a dance with a cartoon? Donen suggested.

-And why not? Kelly responded excitedly. Obviously the MGM executives nearly had a heart attack when he proposed it. Not only did they not see it as going to look good, but in those days – long before Alvin and the Chipmunks – no one thought it was possible. But Kelly talked to Hanna-Barbera, who had created Tom and Jerry for the company, and managed to find the technique that would allow her to dance with the famous mouse. The actor earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his work.

As a child he had suffered a bicycle accident that left an ostentatious scar on his face. MGM’s publicity department forced him to cover it up with makeup, but he protested, not wanting to look like an absolutely perfect star. He wanted to look like one of the ‘boys’ from his hometown, without any big fanfare.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he enlists in the Navy to fight in World War II. Around him he shoots films like Zigfield Follies , again with Judy Garland and also with the inimitable Fred Astaire .

Gene Kelly was a great anti-racism activist, long before the famous Rosa Parks refused to get up from her bus seat to give it to a white man. In 1948, when he was preparing The Pirate , directed by Vincente Minnelli and again with Judy Garland, he introduced a number with two great dancers he had seen perform, the brothers Harold Nicholas and Fayard Nicholas . The little ‘problem’ is that the Nicholases were black, and the MGM bosses told him they were afraid that the movie theaters would cut the part in which they appear. But Kelly was pretty insistent and eventually got them on the tape. This feat opened the doors of cinema to great artists.

Outside of the musical, Kelly was encouraged to become D’Artagnan, in The Three Musketeers (1948) , where the sword fights were imaginatively choreographed almost to dance. He made his directorial debut, alongside Stanley Donen, with the memorable One Day in New York . Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin and Kelly himself play three sailors who spend a day in the Big Apple. The film made history, especially since until then musicals were shot in the studio, sometimes on spectacular sets, but Kelly and Donen filmed on the street, turning the city into one of the great protagonists of the film. The tape changed musicals forever.

Along the same lines is An American in Paris , directed again by Minnelli, which was one of Kelly’s greatest successes. She garnered six Oscars, including an honorary dancer award for her contribution to the musical genre. Minnelli would turn to him again for the mythical Brigadoon .

“One day the bosses at MGM proposed to Kelly and me to shoot a film that would take advantage of a series of musical themes to which they had the rights,” Stanley Donen told me in person during an interview, to tell me the genesis of their best joint work. , Singin’ in the Rain , one of the most famous musicals in movie history, in which Kelly starred with Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds . With a hilarious script, it documents the transition from silent to talkies.

The very personal Invitation to dance , made up of three fragments, did not achieve the expected success. In the 1960s his star declined but he took the opportunity to try his luck in dramatic cinema, and came out on top in an acting duel with none other than Spencer Tracy and Fredric March in Stanley Kramer ‘s Inheritance of the Wind .

Divorced from Blair (who jilted him out of “a need for personal growth”), he joined the dancer Jeanne Coyne, who died of cancer in 1973. The actor withdrew from the cinema in the last days of his illness to be with her . He later reduced his activity to care for the young children he had with Coyne, Tim and Bridget. He had already fathered another child, Kerry, with Blair. In order to be with them as long as possible, he turned down movies that required him to leave Los Angeles. He garnered good audiences directing Barbra Streisand and Louis Armstrong in Hello, Dolly , and James Stewart and Henry Fonda in The Cheyenne Social Club.. He was also responsible for That’s Entertainment, Part II , part of a series that compiled the best moments of golden age musicals.

He last appeared on film in the musical Xanadu , with Olivia Newton-John , which failed at the box office. However, the soundtrack sold very well, in which she sang the song “Whenever You’re Away”. She subsequently appeared in the television series Holidays at Sea , North and South , and Sins .

In 1985 he served as the narrator for a television special about the Smithsonian Museum, and fell in love with the screenwriter, Patricia Ward Kelly, who offered to write his memoirs. The two were married in 1990. Unfortunately, Kelly passed away a few years later, on February 2, 1996, as a result of complications from two strokes she had suffered.