Oscar Profile #359: Gene Kelly

Born August 23, 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Eugene (Gene) Kelly was the third son of a phonograph salesman and his wife. His father had once been Al Jolson’s road manager. Although it was Gene’s dream to play shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, his mother enrolled Gene and his older brother James in dance classes when he was 8. Both boys rebelled and Kelly didn’t dance again until he was 15. By the age of 17, he was inventing dance routines for his younger brother Fred to perform to earn money for the family in the early days of the Depression. At 19, he enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh and was later admitted to the University of Pittsburgh Law School. He was also involved in the University’s Cab and Gown Club which staged original musical productions. After graduation, he taught dance for a while before deciding to become a full-time entertainer.

Kelly’s first Broadway assignment was in Cole Porter’s 1938 Leave It to Me! in which he supported Mary Martin. In 1939’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life, he devised his own choreography and met first wife, Betsy Blair, who he married in 1941. He was propelled to stardom in the lead role in Rodgers & Hart’s 1940 musical, Pal Joey. During the run of the play, he also choreographed Best Foot Forward before going to Hollywood to make For Me and My Gal opposite Judy Garland, the success of which kept him in demand at MGM as well as other studios on loan-out.

Although Kelly’s career in the 1940s and 50s was spent mostly in musicals, he did make an occasional dramatic film in which he neither sang nor danced. His 1940s films included Du Barry Was a Lady, Thousands Cheer, The Cross of Lorraine, Cover Girl, Christmas Holiday, Anchors Aweigh (for which he received his only Oscar nomination), The Pirate, The Three Musketeers and On the Town, his first film as director, co-directed with Stanley Donen. His early 1950s films included Black Hand, Summer Stock, An American in Paris (the impetus for his honorary Oscar), Singin’ in the Rain, Brigadoon and It’s Always Fair Weather.

In 1955, Kelly’s wife Betsy Blair temporarily eclipsed him in popularity, earning an Oscar nomination of her own for Marty. They would divorce two year later. In 1960, Kelly would marry second wife, Jeanne Coyne, ex-wife of Stanley Donen. Kelly’s last starring role in a musical was in 1957’s Les Girls, after which he appeared in either dramatic roles or in cameos in other people’s musicals.

Kelly returned briefly to Broadway to direct 1958’s Flower Drum Song. He was back on screen in 1960’s Inherit the Wind, which provided him with his best known dramatic role. He later reprised Bing Crosby’s Oscar-winning role in the 1962 TV series, Going My Way. Later in the decade he directed the Oscar nominated Hello, Dolly! . He had his last major on screen role in 1973’s 40 Carats.
After Coyne’s death in 1973, Kelly remained unmarried until 1990 when he married third wife Patricia Ward. He died on February 2, 1996 at the age of 83.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951), directed by Vincente Minnelli

The second Kelly musical directed by Minnelli following The Pirate, this beguiling ode to the music of George Gershwin was a cultural phenomenon and a surprise Oscar winner over A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun. Kelly himself received an honorary Oscar at the 1951 Oscars based largely on his performance in the title role. The film also provided Leslie Caron with her first screen role and veteran French entertainer George Guétary with his first role in a Hollywood film when he replaced originally cast Maurice Chevalier who later worked for Minnelli in Gigi.

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952), directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly

The second of three musicals co-directed by Donen and Kelly, the others being On the Town and It’s Always Fair Weather, this one has long been revered by film buffs as their favorite of all Hollywood musicals. Set in the late 1920s transition from silent film to talkies, the film scores on many levels, from Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds singing and dancing their hearts out to Jean Hagen’s uproarious Oscar nominated portrayal of a silent star with a squeaky voice who is anonymously dubbed by Reynolds. Who can not relate to Kelly performing the title song in a sudden downpour?

BRIGADOON (1954), directed by Vincente Minnelli

The last collaboration between Kelly and Minnelli was not a pleasant one for Minnelli who was hamstrung by MGM head Dore Shary’s tight-fisted control over finances, forcing Minnelli to film on MGM soundstages instead of on location. He and his cast and crew had to film the production twice, alternately in cinemascope and non-widescreen for theatres not yet equipped with the then new widescreen process. Worst still, was the elimination of two of the great score’s best songs, “My Mother’s Wedding Day” and the filmed, but not used “Come to Me, Bend to Me” thanks to the Hollywood censors.

INHERIT THE WIND (1960), directed by Stanley Kramer

Despite his many successes, Kelly was always in the shadow of Fred Astaire, who the previous year turned dramatic actor to strong reviews in Kramer’s On the Beach. Kelly, however, was out of his depth both as a cynical newsman based on H.L. Mencken and as an actor up against the towering performances of Spencer Tracy as a fictionalized Clarence Darrow and Fredric March as a fictionalized William Jennings Bryan. The film revolved around a fictionalized version of the notorious Scopes Trial of 1925 in which a Tennessee schoolteacher was put on trial for teaching evolution.

HELLO, DOLLY! (1969), directed by Gene Kelly

The only films that Kelly directed to receive critical acclaim were the three he co-directed with Stanley Donen. None of the films he directed on his own could hold a candle to them, including this one that was nominated for seven Oscars and won three. None of the nominations went to Kelly or any of the film’s actors. Barbra Streisand, at 28, was ridiculously too young for the part originated by Carol Channing and later played by the likes of Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, Ethel Merman and more recently, Bette Midler, all of whom made the part their own. The film’s Oscars were for Art Direction and Set Design, Sound and Adapted Score.