Everything about Gene Kelly totally explained
Eugene Curran “Gene” Kelly (
August 23,
1912 –
February 2,
1996) was an
American Academy Award-winning
dancer,
actor,
singer,
director,
producer, and
choreographer.
Kelly was a major exponent of 20th century filmed dance, known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks and the likeable characters that he played on screen. Although he's probably best known today for his performance in
Singin' in the Rain, he dominated the Hollywood musical film from the mid 1940s until its demise in the late 1950s. In 1999, the
American Film Institute named Kelly among the
Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at no. 15.
Biography
Early life
Gene was the third son of James Kelly, a
phonograph salesman, and Harriet Curran, who were both children of
Irish Roman Catholic immigrants. He was born in the
Highland Park neighborhood of
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania,
U.S. and, at the age of eight, was enrolled by his mother in dance classes, along with his older brother James. They both rebelled, and, according to Kelly: "We didn't like it much and were continually involved in fistfights with the neighborhood boys who called us sissies...I didn't dance again until I was fifteen." Kelly returned to dance on his own initiative and by then was an accomplished sportsman and well able to take care of himself. He graduated from
Peabody High School in 1929. He enrolled in
Pennsylvania State College to study journalism but the economic crash obliged him to seek employment to help with the family's finances. At this time, he worked up dance routines with his younger brother Fred in order to earn prize money in local talent contests, and they also performed in local nightclubs. In 1930, his family started a dance studio on Munhall Road in the
Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. In 1932, it was renamed The Gene Kelly Studio of the Dance. A second location was opened in
Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1933. While still an undergraduate student and later as a student at Pitt's School of Law, Gene was a teacher at the dance studio. Eventually, though, he decided to pursue his career as a dance teacher and entertainer full-time and so dropped out of law school after two months. He began to focus increasingly on performing, later claiming: "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 sixteen the dropout rate was very high." Early in 1960 Kelly, an ardent Francophile and fluent French speaker, was invited by A. M. Julien, the general administrator of the
Paris Opera, to select his own material and create a modern ballet for the company, the first time an American received such an assignment. The result was
Pas de Dieux, based on
Greek mythology combined with the music of
George Gershwin's
Concerto in F. It was a major success, and led to his being honored with the Chevalier of the
Legion d'Honneur by the French Government.
Film career
1941-1944: Becoming established in Hollywood
Selznick sold half of Kelly's contract to
MGM and loaned him out to MGM for his first motion picture:
For Me and My Gal (1942) with
Judy Garland. Kelly was "appalled at the sight of myself blown up twenty times. I'd an awful feeling that I was a tremendous flop" but the picture did well and, in the face of much internal resistance,
Arthur Freed of MGM picked up the other half of Kelly's contract. 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.
1953-1957: The decline of the Hollywood musical
Kelly, at the very peak of his creative powers, now made what in retrospect is seen as a serious mistake. He experimented with lighting, camera techniques and special effects in order to achieve true integration of dance with film, and was one of the first to use split screens, double images, live action with animation and is credited as the person who made the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences.
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've tried to develop a style which is indigenous to the environment in which I was reared." In particular, he wanted to create a completely different image from that associated with Fred Astaire, not least because he believed his physique didn't 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 truckdriver." He used his position on the board of directors of
The Writer's Guild of America on a number of occasions to mediate disputes between unions and the Hollywood studios, and although he was frequently accused by the Right of championing the unions, he was valued by the studios as an effective mediator.
A gregarious and highly articulate individual, he retained a lifelong passion for sports and relished competition. With his first wife, he organised weekly parties at his
Beverly Hills home which were renowned for an intensely competitive and physical version of
charades, known as "The Game".
Kelly died in his sleep on
February 2,
1996, in
Beverly Hills, California, after suffering two
strokes, at the age of 83.
Awards and honors
Work
Filmography
Note: Film choreography credits as per Billman.
Stage
Leave It to Me! (1938)
One for the Money (1939)
The Time of Your Life (1939)
The Time of Your Life (1940)
Pal Joey (1940)
Best Foot Forward (1941)
Flower Drum Song (1958)
Coquelico (1979)
Television
Dancing: A Man's Game, aired 21 December 1958 on Omnibus
Going My Way (1962-1963)
(1965)
Jack and the Beanstalk (1967)
The Funny Side (1971)
Frank Sinatra: Ol' Blue Eyes is Back (1973)
(1978)
North and South (1985)
Sins (1986)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Gene Kelly'.
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