gene kelly biography youtube

(1912-1996)

Who Was Gene Kelly?

Gene Kelly was an American film actor and director whose athletic style and classical ballet technique transformed the film musical. He boldly blended solo dancing, mass movement and offbeat camera angles to tell a story in purely visual terms.

Athletic and energetic, Kelly was the king of the musicals in the 1940s and '50s. Not only did Kelly star in some of the genre's most famous films, he worked behind the scenes, breaking new ground with his choreography and direction. Kelly is remembered for his lead role in Singin' in the Rain, regarded by some as the best dance film ever made.

One of five children, Kelly was born on August 23, 1912, and grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While his friends were playing baseball, he was taking dance lessons. Kelly put his lessons to good use in college, teaching at a local studio to help him pay for his education. He also performed with his brother, Fred.

Movies and Career Highlights: 'Singin' in the Rain'

While he often was compared to another famous film dancer, Fred Astaire , Kelly had his own unique style. He brought dance into real life in his movies, performing largely in regular clothes and in common settings. "All of my dancing came out of the idea of the common man," Kelly once explained. He also produced some of film's most innovative and enthusiastic dance numbers, pushing the limits of the genre.

In Anchors Aweigh (1945), Kelly danced a duet with Jerry, a cartoon mouse—a feat that had not been seen before. He had sailors performing ballet moves in On the Town (1949), in which he starred with Frank Sinatra . Working with director Vincente Minnelli, Kelly continued to take dance on film into uncharted territory with An American in Paris (1951). He choreographed the movie, including its groundbreaking finale—a lengthy ballet sequence. For his efforts on the film, Kelly received an 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."

The following year, Kelly co-directed with Stanley Donen, choreographed and starred in Singin' in the Rain (1952), one of his most famous films. As silent film star Don Lockwood, Kelly sang and danced in the rain, cleverly using an umbrella as a prop in what would become one of the most memorable musical performances in movie history. He explained that his inspiration for the famous dance scene was the way children like to play in the rain.

Kelly followed his most celebrated screen role by appearing in more musical films including Brigadoon (1954), Deep in My Heart (1954), It's Always Fair Weather (1955; which he directed with Donen), Invitation to the Dance (1956; which he also directed) and Les Girls (1957). In 1960, he co-starred with Natalie Wood in the romantic drama Marjorie Morningstar.

Later Years

As interest in the movie musical began to fade in the 1960s, Kelly turned to television. He starred in two short-lived programs— Going My Way , an adaptation of the 1944 Bing Crosby movie, and a 1971 variety show called The Funny Side . Kelly fared better with the 1967 television movie Jack and the Beanstalk , which he directed, produced and starred in. The children's telefilm earned him an Emmy Award. In 1973, Kelly also guest starred on Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra , performing a medley with Sinatra that included the songs "Can't Do That Anymore,” ”Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” ”For Me and My Gal” and ”New York, New York.”

Kelly's later films include the 1960 film adaptation of the play Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy and Frederic March, and the 1964 comedy What a Way to Go! , which co-starred Shirley MacLaine , Paul Newman , Dean Martin and Dick Van Dyke . Kelly also co-hosted the documentary series That's Entertainment! in the mid-1970s to help promote and preserve the great film musicals of the past.

In the 1980s, Kelly largely retreated from acting. He made his last film appearance in the 1980 musical fantasy Xanadu with Olivia Newton-John , which proved to be a box-office dud, but a cult classic decades later. On the small screen, Kelly had a few supporting roles and guest spots on such series as The Muppet Show and The Love Boat . He often appeared as himself on tribute specials.

Death and Legacy

In 1994 and in 1995, Kelly suffered a series of strokes. He died on February 2, 1996, at his home in Beverly Hills, California. Many Hollywood stars mourned his passing, including his Singin' in the Rain co-star, Debbie Reynolds . "There'll never be another Gene," she told the press. "I was only 18 when we made that movie, and the hardest thing was keeping up with his energy."

In July 2012, New York City's Film Society of Lincoln Center hosted a month-long program in honor of Kelly, showing nearly two dozen of Kelly's films.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Gene Curran Kelly
• Birth Year: 1912
• Birth date: August 23, 1912
• Birth State: Pennsylvania
• Birth City: Pittsburgh
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Gene Kelly was a dancer whose athletic style transformed the movie musical and did much to change the American public's conception of male dancers.
• Theater and Dance
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Pennsylvania State College
• University of Pittsburgh
• Death Year: 1996
• Death date: February 2, 1996
• Death State: California
• Death City: Beverly Hills
• Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Gene Kelly Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/gene-kelly
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 5, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• I didn't want to be a dancer. What I really wanted to be was shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pittsburgh Pirates lost a hell of a shortstop.

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A Man Who Was More Than His Feet

By Brian Seibert

• July 11, 2014

When Patricia Ward Kelly met her future husband, Gene, in 1985, she had never heard of him. Somehow she — a “nerdy Melville scholar” who had been hired as a writer on a television documentary for which he was narrator — had missed all the films. Writer and narrator bonded over poetry and etymology. She fell in love with the man before she had ever seen the on-screen image beloved by millions.

The greatest appeal of “ Gene Kelly: The Legacy ,” the touring presentation that Ms. Kelly brought to Symphony Space on Wednesday as part of the New York City Tap Festival , is the balance between the man and his movies. She now knows a lot about both. During the last 10 years of Kelly’s life — he died in 1996 — she captured his stories and opinions on tape recorders and cocktail napkins. Her solo show, more than two hours long, mixes plentiful film clips with a mass of anecdotes and quips, all well honed but not all equally illuminating.

A controlled speaker, Ms. Kelly has quips of her own. When, after a coy delay, she addresses the 47-year age gap between her and her husband, she says, “I got applause for that line in Palm Springs.” Her show is organized by the logic of a list, addressing the questions that people ask her most often: How tall was he? (5’8”); where did he get that scar? (a childhood tricycle accident).

Within the pile, the show does have an argument, correcting Internet “mythology” while forwarding the man’s perspective on himself. It honors his desire to be remembered not just as a dancer, but also as a singer, an actor and especially a director who advanced the filming of dance.

The film clips make a good case for all, save the acting — pitting his heavy effort against Spencer Tracy isn’t the best choice — but in Ms. Kelly’s aim to round out the erudite man from working-class Pittsburgh, she makes too many mentions of his fluency in French and falls into name-dropping: his Hollywood friends, the Kennedys, Samuel Beckett.

Some of that strain is there in the movie numbers, too, along with the large achievement and the imperishable pleasure. The show is something of an awkward fit for a tap festival, since, as Ms. Kelly points out, her husband resented being identified solely as a tap dancer. Rhythmic invention wasn’t his strength: His charm, along with the play of virile force against light-footedness, electrified standard steps and clichéd cadences.

Disappointingly, Ms. Kelly reveals no footage you can’t find on YouTube or DVD. She saves her treasures for the end, standing amid cardboard boxes as she pulls out mementos like her husband’s hats and egg collection. The 1940s letter of encouragement from Fred Astaire is a treat, and the choreographic notes for “Singin’ in the Rain” would be revelatory if Ms. Kelly actually showed them.

Instead, she holds a copy close to her chest and shares her husband’s love notes. Underneath the tribute to the master is her love for a romantic older man, one who believed in courtship and was upset that men had walked on the moon.

Stepping Into the World of Dance

As Black roller skaters from around the country bring their styles to Atlanta, some locals look for space to preserve the moves the city  is known for.

A gala-style piece can be done in a rote or fresh manner, and at New York City Ballet’s spring gala, the two premieres — one by Justin Peck, one by Amy Hall Garner  — were fresh enough.

Eduardo Vilaro celebrates his 15th year as artistic director  of Ballet Hispánico with a premiere exploring the life of the painter Juan de Pareja.

The spring season at New York City Ballet  opened with an all-Balanchine program and a vintage miniature from 1975: “Errante,” staged for a new generation.

Under the banner “American Legacies,” the Martha Graham Dance Company dusted off a classic, “Rodeo,” premiered a companion piece  and welcomed FKA twigs for a guest solo  at City Center.

As Harlem Stage’s E-Moves dance series turns 25, Bill T. Jones and other major choreographers discuss its impact on Black dance  in New York.

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He's got rhythm : the life and career of Gene Kelly

The legacy of Gene Kelly, the legendary dancer, singer, actor, director and choreographer, is celebrated in this extensive biography by two young film buffs. Kelly emerges as the “Sinatra” (or “Brando”) of dance, an artist whose exacting standards coupled with an athletic, masculine energy produced some of the greatest masterpieces in the history of the film musical, including Singin’ in the Rain , An American in Paris and On the Town . As a dancer, Kelly drew on a distinctly American vernacular for his choreography, in contrast to Fred Astaire’s facsimile of Continental elegance. While Kelly’s influence on American cinema waned after the 1960s, his importance in the development of American dance as popular entertainment cannot be overstated.

Gene Kelly grew up under modest circumstances in Pittsburgh. An educated man, he dropped out of law school when he realized he could make more money teaching dance than being a lawyer in the middle of the Great Depression. After some success on Broadway, he moved to Hollywood in the early 1940s. He quickly became an in-demand dancer and choreographer, co-starring with Frank Sinatra in three films in the late 1940s ( Anchors Aweigh , Take Me Out to the Ball Game ,  On the Town ). This period of his life also included his marriage to the actress Betsy Blair, his collaboration with a young dancer named Stanley Donen, a brief stint in the Navy, and the birth of his first child.

The early 1950s brought further triumphs, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Best Picture win for An American in Paris (directed by Vincente Minnelli) and the release of Singin’ in the Rain (codirected by Stanley Donen), which many consider the greatest film musical of all time. Unfortunately, Gene Kelly had a few flops at the end of the decade. His career recovered in the  the 1960s, his last full decade of work, with a dramatic turn in Inherit the Wind , a leading role in the French musical, The Young Girls of Rochefort , and directing Barbra Streisand in Hello Dolly !

After the 1960s, Kelly’s career took a back seat to family matters. His second wife, Jeanne Coyne, died in 1973. He received multiple career honors in the last two decades of his life before his death in 1996. He’s Got Rhythm is a wonderful tribute to Gene Kelly’s vast accomplishments. 

Here is another book that provides more detailed information about the contributions of three extraordinary talents who were dancers, choreographers, actors and directors:  Dance me a song: Astaire, Balanchine and Kelly, and the American Film Musical .

This book is available on e-Media .

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Gene Kelly Biography

Born: August 23, 1912 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Died: February 2, 1996 Beverly Hills, California American dancer, actor, and choreographer

Although Gene Kelly established his reputation as an actor and a dancer, his contribution to the Hollywood, California, musical also includes choreography (creating dances) and movie direction.

Athletic childhood

Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 23, 1912, the middle son of five children. His father was Canadian-born and loved sports, especially hockey. Every winter Kelly Sr. would flood the family backyard and make an ice rink for hockey.

Kelly Jr. later credited hockey for some of his dance steps, which he described as "wide open and close to the ground." At fifteen Kelly played with a semiprofessional ice hockey team. He also played football, baseball, and participated in gymnastics.

Turns to dancing

Kelly's other major influence was his mother, who loved the theater. She was the one who sent him to dancing lessons. At first Kelly did not want to continue with his dance lessons because the other students made fun of him. But then he discovered that the girls liked a boy who could dance, so he decided to stick with the lessons.

In 1929 Kelly left for Pennsylvania State College, but because of the Great Depression, his family lost their money. The Great Depression (1929–39) was a time of worldwide economic trouble that led to global unemployment and poverty. Kelly had to move back home and attend the University of Pittsburgh in order to save the cost of room and board. While at the university, Kelly worked at a variety of odd jobs to pay his tuition: he dug ditches, worked at a soda fountain, and pumped gas. Kelly's mother began to work as a receptionist at a local dance school. She came up with the idea of the family running its own dance studio. They did and the studio was a big success.

After Kelly graduated from the University of Pittsburgh he taught dance for another six years. In 1937 he left for New York City. He believed that he was talented enough to find work and he was right. He got a job in theater his first week in New York. Kelly's big break came in 1940, when he was cast as the lead in the Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey.

Goes to Hollywood

Producers from Hollywood saw the show in New York and offered Kelly a contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM). He worked for MGM for the next sixteen years. His first Hollywood film was For Me and My Gal (1942), in which he starred opposite Judy Garland (1922–1969). Garland was only twenty, but already a major star. She had seen Kelly's work and insisted that Kelly have the role. She tutored (taught) him how to act for the movies.

Kelly made a breakthrough with Cover Girl (1944). At one point in the film, his character dances with a mirror image of himself. It caught all the critics' attention. Kelly told Interview magazine, "[That is] when I began to see that you could make dances for cinema that weren't just photographed stage dancing. That was my big insight into Hollywood, and Hollywood's big insight into me."

Experiments with film

Kelly's experiments with dance and with film technique included combining the two, as demonstrated in such films as Anchors Aweigh (1945), where he danced with a cartoon mouse, An American in Paris (1951), and Invitation to the Dance (1956). His first attempts at film choreography relied on the established formulas of the film musical. Later he developed a system of choreography made for the camera that took into account camera setups, movement, and editing. Many people believe that he was the major influence in creating a new form of American dance, one that was different from the more formal and ballet styles of European dance. Kelly danced in a more energetic, athletic way.

Kelly often played a guy who felt that the best way to get what he wanted was to impress people. However, he learns that his brashness (self-confidence without politeness) offends people. In the end he succeeds by being himself. Kelly's characters had much of the "average guy" in them and this quality appealed to audiences. His characters seemed so natural that people who saw his films did not always realize how very sophisticated (complex) his dancing and choreography were.

Singin' in the Rain

Nowhere was Kelly more engaging than in 1952's Singin' in the Rain. One of the all-time great movie musicals, and perhaps the film most associated with Kelly, this comedy is about late-1920s Hollywood and the change from silent pictures to "talkies" (movies with sound). Singin' in the Rain showcased the considerable acting, singing, and dancing gifts of Debbie Reynolds (1932–) and Donald O'Connor (1925–), but it was Kelly who danced away with the movie. His dance to the title song has become an icon (something that is regarded as the ideal) of American entertainment. Kelly made a drenching rainstorm and umbrella his partners, and communicated the joy in movement at the heart of all of his performances.

Gene Kelly died on February 2, 1996, in Beverly Hills, California. He will always be remembered for his incredible contribution to the movie musical through dance performance, choreography, and photography.

For More Information

Hirschhorn, Clive. Gene Kelly: A Biography. Chicago: Regnery, 1975. Reprint, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984.

Kobal, John. Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance. Feltham, New York: Hamlin, 1970.

Springer, John. All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing. New York: Citadel Press, 1966.

Yudkoff, Alvin. Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams. New York: Back Stage Books, 1999.

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Singin' in the Rain

A silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his delusionally jealous screen partner are trying to make the difficult transition to talking pictures in 1920s Hollywood. A silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his delusionally jealous screen partner are trying to make the difficult transition to talking pictures in 1920s Hollywood. A silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his delusionally jealous screen partner are trying to make the difficult transition to talking pictures in 1920s Hollywood.

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• Trivia For the "Make 'em Laugh" number, Gene Kelly asked Donald O'Connor to revive a trick he had done as a young dancer: running up a wall and completing a somersault. The number was so physically taxing that O'Connor, who smoked four packs of cigarettes a day at the time, ended up in a hospital bed for a week after its completion. He suffered from exhaustion and painful carpet burns. Unfortunately, an accident ruined all of the initial footage, so after a brief rest O'Connor agreed to do the difficult number all over again.
• Goofs During the Cyd Charisse nightclub dance number, when she's wrapped around Gene Kelly , her body completely changes position between frames due to a clumsy edit. According to commentary on the special edition DVD, this cut of only a few frames' duration dates back to the original release of the film and no one knows why it exists.

[Don Lockwood is being mobbed by several fans on the street]

Don Lockwood : [desperately] Hey, Cos! Do something! Call me a cab!

Cosmo Brown : OK, you're a cab.

Don Lockwood : [unimpressed] Thanks a lot!

• Connections Edited from The Three Musketeers (1948)
• Soundtracks Fit as a Fiddle (1932) Music by Al Hoffman (uncredited) and Al Goodhart (uncredited) Lyrics by Arthur Freed Originally from the 1932 stage revue "George White's Music Hall Varieties" Sung by Gene Kelly (uncredited) and Donald O'Connor (uncredited)

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An immersive, theatrical experience to escape to the glamour and grace of Paris in “Starstruck: Gene Kelly’s Love Letter to Ballet” – Feb. 17 at 9 pm

Posted on: Sunday, February 11, 2024

The Scottish Ballet Revives Gene Kelly’s Iconic Work in U.S. Premiere:

“starstruck: gene kelly’s love letter to ballet”.

Saturday, February 17 at 9 pm

One of the first choreographers to bring the ‘American style’ to Europe, the legendary entertainer Gene Kelly ( Singin’ in the Rain, On the Town ) was invited to create an original work for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1960. His jazzy, joyful Pas de Dieux was highly acclaimed at the time but has been rarely performed since.

Gene Kelly’s wife and biographer Patricia Ward Kelly commented, “Gene is so often remembered for his brilliant performances on screen that people forget—or do not know—that he directed and choreographed the pieces as well. The Scottish Ballet production of STARSTRUCK shines a light on Gene as he most wished to be remembered—as a choreographer who created a particularly American style and changed the history of dance forever.”

This Pas de Dieux tells the story of Aphrodite and Eros, who descend to earth. On the beach where they have landed, the ardent goddess and mischievous god seduce respectively a lifeguard and his fiancée. Just when the beautiful Aphrodite is dancing with her suitor, Zeus arrives to win back his fickle wife, and everything returns to normal. The reconciled immortals return to Olympus, leaving the humans to their earthly loves.

Gene Kelly Dies; Legendary Dancer Was 83

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Gene Kelly, the exuberant, charismatic hoofer who danced, sang, smiled and splashed his way into the hearts of generations, died Friday after several years of declining health. He was 83.

As respected as he was likable, Kelly “died peacefully in his sleep” in his Beverly Hills home with his wife, Patricia, at his bedside, according to his publicist, Warren Cowan. Kelly had suffered strokes in 1994 and 1995 and had been in ill health since then.

His life was the stuff of a Hollywood musical. Kelly was a would-be baseball player and failed law student who once made money teaching basic dance steps in the basement of his parents’ Pennsylvania home. After a few Depression-era amateur contests, he conquered Broadway and then Hollywood, starring in such films as “Singin’ in the Rain,” “On the Town” and “An American in Paris.” Along the way, he revolutionized motion picture choreography and achieved success as a director and producer as well.

Debbie Reynolds, who co-starred in “Singin’ in the Rain,” remembered Kelly on Friday as “a great dancer . . . a cinematic genius [whose] work will influence films forever.”

“He made me a star,” she said after hearing news of his death. “He taught me how to dance and how to work hard, to be dedicated and yet still loving, as he was to his family and friends.”

Charles Champlin, former arts editor of The Times, called Kelly’s classic swing around a lamppost in the film with Reynolds “the high point of solo screen dancing . . . an absolute masterpiece of the dance form.”

Judy Garland, in 1942, was Kelly’s first dance partner on the big screen. Later came Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Leslie Caron, Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, Shirley MacLaine and many others.

But of all Kelly’s dance partners, none was more memorable than an umbrella.

“Singin’ in the Rain,” the beloved, campy 1952 Hollywood spoof with Reynolds and O’Connor, provides the lasting image of Kelly’s winning screen persona: an affable, optimistic man with a crooked Irish grin and soft spot in his heart. Often called the best musical ever made, the film also showcased Kelly as a virile heartthrob, opposite the leggy Cyd Charisse in the sultry “Broadway Ballet.” Another classic number from that film--”Gotta Dance”--said much about the man.

“At 14 I discovered girls,” Kelly told his entertainment peers when the American Film Institute honored him with its life achievement award in 1985. “At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship.

“Only later did I discover that you dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams.”

Kelly’s most memorable credits show a pattern of American archetypes: Runyonesque entertainers, sailors on leave, and an expatriate artist in love with a French girl. Kelly also won praise for straight drama, such as his portrayal of a glib, cynical newspaperman based on the legendary H.L. Mencken in “Inherit the Wind,” the 1960 film with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March.

Unlike Astaire, the older friend with whom Kelly was frequently compared, top hat and tails were not his style. Rather, Kelly, who stood 5-foot-9 and weighed 165 pounds, presented the dancer as the common man--a regular guy who looked good in a sailor’s uniform, or all wet, stomping in a puddle and splashing a beat cop. Most typically, his screen image was casual: sport shirts and slacks, with white socks to draw attention to those dazzling feet.

For all the casualness, Kelly was a serious student and teacher of his art.

“My own style [of dance] is strong, wide open, bravura,” Kelly said in a 1969 interview. “I tried to base it all on male movements, athletic movements.

“I wanted to do new things with dance, adapt it to the motion picture medium. Once I broke the ice, they let me do pretty much what I wanted.”

Born in Pittsburgh on Aug. 23, 1912, Eugene Curran Kelly was the middle of five children of Irish Catholic parents. They had a faint trace of show business in their blood: his father sold gramophones and his mother acted with a local stock company. It was his mother who insisted that 8-year-old Eugene take dancing lessons.

“My mother sent my brother and me to dancing school in those Buster Brown collars, and we had a minimum of three fights every week walking between our house and the school,” Kelly once said. “The funny thing is that nobody called us sissies when we served Mass in those collars, only when we went to dancing school.”

After a year of lessons, young Gene persuaded his mother to let him play ball instead. In high school he was a four-sport star--baseball, football, hockey and gymnastics--but he also discovered that dancing impressed the girls.

“I was a little short then and looking back I can see it was pure self-aggrandizement,” Kelly once said. “I wanted everybody to say, ‘Gee, he’s clever.’ And they did, too. It worked. I’d do a buck-and-wing”--a style of tap dance where the legs fly out to the side--”and they all thought it was nifty. But I hated it at the time.”

He entered Pennsylvania State College, but soon he left school and helped support the Kelly clan by pumping gas, working in construction and teaching gymnastics at a summer camp. Resuming studies at the University of Pittsburgh, he majored in journalism and participated in student theater. To make a little extra money, he and his brother Fred created a song-and-dance act for local nightclubs and talent contests.

After graduation, Kelly spent some discouraging months in law school. Abandoning that notion, he and Fred founded the Kelly Studios of the Dance in the basement of the family home. It was such a success that they opened a second studio in nearby Johnstown.

The lure of Broadway ended those ventures. After some small stage roles in the late 1930s, Gene Kelly got his big break in William Saroyan’s “The Time of Your Life”--a natural as Harry, the good-natured hoofer. Then came his title role performance as the shifty nightclub entertainer in “Pal Joey,” the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical. He also won praise for choreography in George Abbott’s “Best Foot Forward,” a Broadway hit of 1941.

The next year, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, churning out its sumptuous musicals, gave Kelly an auspicious screen debut opposite Garland in “For Me and My Gal.” He made seven more films in the next three years, earning an Oscar nomination for his role as a brash sailor in “Anchors Aweigh,” a 1945 box office hit with Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson.

Kelly then served a two-year stint in the real Navy as a lieutenant, making training films. Returning to MGM, he signed a three-way deal as a performer, director and producer.

Two swashbuckling 1948 roles, as the acrobatic D’Artagnan in George Sidney’s opulent production of “The Three Musketeers” and, especially, as the lead of Vincente Minnelli’s “The Pirate,” gave Kelly a reputation as the Douglas Fairbanks of dance. Another 1948 film, “Words and Music,” a fictionalized biography of the musical team Rodgers and Hart, won Kelly acclaim for his ballet to the tune “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” performed with Vera-Ellen.

His artistic reputation was assured over the next few years, due in part to a winning collaboration with writer-director Stanley Donen. Kelly and Donen wrote the original story for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” a turn-of-the-century musical starring Kelly, Sinatra, Esther Williams and Jules Munshin. Next came the artistic breakthrough “On the Town,” featuring Kelly, Sinatra and Munshin as three sailors on a 24-hour leave in New York City.

Co-directed by Kelly and Donen, “On the Town” was an unprecedented merger of ballet and Hollywood musical. Away from sound stages for a change, Kelly and Donen produced several dance numbers on location in New York, an unusual method for its time, and pioneered a variety of cinematic techniques in the process.

Then, in 1951, Kelly worked with Minnelli again on “An American in Paris,” co-starring with then-18-year-old Leslie Caron. The film won eight Academy Awards, including best picture. Kelly was awarded 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.”

Thirty-four years after the fact, Caron recalled spending her first night in America at Kelly’s Beverly Hills home:

“All the hoofers from the MGM lot would come to Gene’s for the Saturday jam sessions. I shall never forget Gene doing his Irish best behind the bar, while Lena Horne--and then it was Judy Garland--sang, and Andre Previn played piano. Oscar Levant taught me how to smoke, nervously, and Stanley Donen slept.”

For all the accolades for “An American in Paris,” it was the next film that would define Kelly for years to come. “Singin’ in the Rain” became such a classic that, a generation later, the bleakly futuristic “A Clockwork Orange” featured its anti-hero doing a sadistic parody of Kelly’s umbrella dance. And still later, at the 1985 AFI tribute, the cake was adorned with little chocolate umbrellas.

The umbrella had become Kelly’s trademark, but dance aficionados had always appreciated his use of so-called “found” objects--newspapers, lampposts and puddles. The 1955 film “It’s Always Fair Weather” opens with the unlikely scene of Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd doing a kind of soft-shoe with garbage can lids attached to their feet.

His first solo effort as a director, “An Invitation to the Dance” in 1956, demonstrated Kelly’s predilection toward artistic experimentation. Performed completely without dialogue, the film consists of three unrelated episodes with Kelly accompanied by classically trained ballet dancers.

Age slowed Kelly as a performer, but did nothing to diminish his creative drive. Increasingly, the self-described “jack of all trades” turned more to choreography, directing and producing--but still found time for occasional performing roles.

On stage, his credits included the direction of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song” in 1958. Kelly also accepted the Paris Opera’s invitation to choreograph a new ballet for its resident company. His pas de deux to George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” was, to say the least, a success. It received 27 curtain calls on its premiere in 1960, and the French government later made Kelly a chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

On the big screen, he directed six films between 1957 and 1969, ranging from the experimental “Gigot” with Jackie Gleason in 1962 to the big-budget box office hit “Hello, Dolly!” with Barbra Streisand in 1969. He also found time for the small screen, hosting and performing in numerous television specials and variety shows, as well as occasional dramatic roles.

Fans who grew old with Kelly--plus a new generation weaned on rock ‘n’ roll--were dazzled anew when MGM celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1974 with the release of “That’s Entertainment!” a documentary compilation of scenes from the studio’s musicals. Its success spawned “That’s Entertainment, Part 2.” Kelly directed bridging sequences for the sequel--and choreographed a special number for himself and Fred Astaire.

“I’ll never starve,” he told an interviewer in 1976. “My only problem is learning how to loaf. . . . I still find it almost impossible to relax for more than one day at a time.”

His last dance for the cinema was in “Xanadu,” a 1980 musical fantasy with Olivia Newton-John that was a box office flop.

In the 1980s, Kelly did what many other aging stars do: television commercials. He also went on tour offering “An Evening With Gene Kelly” to his legion of fans. In 1985, he was executive producer of the film “That’s Dancing!”

Kelly was married three times and fathered three children. He and his first wife, actress Betsy Blair, were married 17 years before divorcing in 1957. They had a daughter, Kerry. In 1960, he married Jeanne Coyne. They had a son, Timothy, and a daughter, Bridget. Kelly was widowed in 1973.

In 1984, fire struck the Kelly home on Rodeo Drive. He and his children stood outside and watched the massive Craftsman-style home burn to the ground, destroying a career of memorabilia, including his only Oscar. Kelly rebuilt the home on the spot.

In 1990, at the age of 77, Kelly married writer Patricia Ward, 41 years his junior. They were collaborating on a book at the time of his death.

Kelly’s dual achievements in show business and high art were noted in the 1985 AFI tribute, as such contemporary dance figures as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines offered testimonials.

“One night I invented a dance step,” recalled Hines, the tap dancer. “And then a few weeks later I turned on the TV and saw ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’ Suddenly I saw Gene doing the step I’d made up.”

When Kelly took the dais, the tone briefly took that of a confessional.

“It’s all true,” he said. “It’s true I didn’t want to be a dancer. What I really wanted to be was shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.”

“The Pittsburgh Pirates,” he added with a grin, “lost a hell of a shortstop.”

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