A Man in Motion

Freed’s keen eye saw that a Broadway hoofer named Gene Kelly could be a star—and that his charm could create screen magic with Judy Garland. And so began, with the 1942 film For Me and My Gal, Kelly’s prolific MGM career, glittering prominently even in an age of gold. The Freed Unit was a rotating team that included directors Busby Berkeley and Vincente Minnelli, plus a roster of stars from Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra to Kathryn Grayson, Esther Williams, and of course Garland. Kelly could sing and dance—and write—but he also choreographed and directed films, most memorably On the Town (1949) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952), with Stanley Donen.

From this creative hotbed came the hit movie musical An American in Paris (1951)—produced by Freed, directed by Minnelli, choreographed by and starring Kelly. The picture, with Gershwin tunes and an original screenplay by the celebrated Broadway pen Alan Jay Lerner, was a hit: It grossed nearly $7 million and was nominated for eight Oscars, more than any other musical before it, of which it won six.

Three years later, another Freed-Minnelli-Kelly collaboration hit the big screen with a proven story by Lerner, who wrote the show’s songs with Frederick Loewe. But the film version of Brigadoon, based on Lerner and Loewe’s 1947 Broadway hit, was an unmitigated flop, losing the studio $1.5 million.

How could proven material and an all-star team possibly fail? How! (Bartender, make it a double.) The reasons—behind this and other fluctuations in Kelly’s career—are detailed with care by the sisters Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson in their new Kelly biography, He’s Got Rhythm.

While the Bridesons don’t ignore his missteps, they focus so tightly on Kelly’s lesser projects that the deciding factor in whether a show was a hit or flop seems, in their telling, generally just to be the timing: Was the audience in the mood for what even at the time seemed like nostalgia?

The taste for the good old days (whatever they were) matters a great deal to the Kelly legacy. He so often portrayed wide-eyed, cornball optimism that no matter the setting of the film, his characters seem to hail from a more blissful bygone era. Singin’ in the Rain looks back at the transition between silent films and talkies; An American in Paris uses music Gershwin premiered in 1928; Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) harks back to turn-of-the-century baseball (though curiously only the women seem to be dressed for 1910).

Kelly was born in Pittsburgh in 1912, the third of five children to parents James, a phonograph salesman, and Harriet, who sent the children to dance classes and later turned them into an act called the Kelly Five. Gene was an athletic, if accident-prone, child whose energy for dance and sports was initially about equal.

Decades later, Kelly would recall that “every day was a happy day when I was growing up.” While every day may or may not have been happy—he was beaten up for taking dance class, and his father, a heavy drinker, was wearied by the Great Depression—he worked hard to jump onto the show-biz ladder.

During Gene’s college years he performed in a duo with his younger brother Fred. This was with the encouragement of their mother, who once scored them a gig filling in for the dancing Nicholas Brothers, who were to perform with Cab Calloway at an all-black club in Altoona, Pa. The club manager was surprised to discover two white tap dancers on his doorstep.

Kelly also taught dance as a college student and, with family members, ran a dance school in Johnstown, Pa., all of which diverted him from his original plans to attend law school.

By the late 1930s, he had exhausted Pittsburgh and was ready for Broadway, where he struggled initially before landing the lead in Pal Joey (1940). Along the way, he met his first wife, the actress Betsy Blair, and they were soon Hollywood-bound.

Kelly and Blair had one child and for several years enjoyed an idyllic Los Angeles lifestyle, though they later grew apart and divorced in 1957 after 16 years of marriage. He married twice after Blair and had two more children.

The Bridesons take care to emphasize that Kelly was more than just a dancer, and they extol his bristling against racial and ethnic prejudice. They also correct the assumption that because he and Fred Astaire were constantly compared, they were necessarily rivals. The two were different—Astaire known for ethereal ease, Kelly for a muscular energy—and they worked together in their heyday on only one feature film, Ziegfeld Follies (1946). But they were friends, and Kelly was responsible for bringing Astaire into projects twice. When Kelly dropped out of Easter Parade, he suggested Astaire replace him in the 1948 film. Much later, when Kelly was directing his last film, That’s Entertainment! Part II (1976), a nostalgic look at classic dance numbers, he brought Astaire, who was 13 years older, out of retirement to star in the film alongside him. Producer Daniel Melnick is quoted as describing the two as close: “Gene was devoted to him.”

When covering Kelly’s flaws, the Bridesons let playwright Arthur Laurents do much of the dirty work, quoting his bitter takedowns and general puncturing of lore. Laurents’s sourest juice is saved for, of all things, Kelly’s backyard volleyball games. Kelly and his first wife Betsy Blair disliked formality and glamour, so they created a relaxed, clubby scene at home for their clever friends. At one point, Kelly wanted to put in a swimming pool, but Blair rejected it as too Hollywood. They installed a volleyball court instead. And Kelly proceeded to terrorize friends with his McEnroe-esque competitive streak. Here is Laurents describing Kelly when angered by sudden frivolity on his team:

Dancer-choreographer Bob Fosse was also not a fan: “I’d never seen anyone so fierce about a so-called friendly game in my life.” No matter. Kelly found willing sportsmen by bringing in local college basketball players for his backyard volleyball games.

Such vignettes are plentiful in He’s Got Rhythm, which sweeps along from Kelly’s days as a dance teacher in western Pennsylvania to his status as an international symbol of American spirit. The Bridesons give special attention to his World War II years, which may be the most interesting part of the book. In the Navy, Kelly was commissioned to create instructional films, such as Combat Fatigue Irritability (1945). To explain the symptoms of what would today be considered post-traumatic stress disorder, the song-and-dance man found an opportunity to stretch and use real dramatic skill playing a returning solider, Bob; he lashes out brutally at his family, then in a therapy session shakes with anger as he confronts memories and collapses.

For fans of musical theater and dance, He’s Got Rhythm is an enthusiastic guide to Kelly’s career beyond his best-known hits. The Bridesons clearly relish sharing observations about what makes Kelly’s cinematic choreography so successful. The authors lavish attention on the “Nina” number from The Pirate, a 1948 film with Garland. They’re right to call attention to the scene: Kelly roves around the set using props and platforms so much that it would be impossible to re-create the dance on a flat stage.

The Bridesons’ book handles unpleasant realities in Kelly’s life as distant dots on a timeline. He had a few brushes with an untimely end that apparently had no psychological effect. Betsy Blair was an open Communist, but if that had an impact on her husband’s career, it is not apparent. Kelly’s final years were curiously controlled by his much-younger third wife, Patricia Ward Kelly, who in the years since his 1996 death has functioned as a self-appointed custodian of his legacy.

And then, there’s Xanadu. Which is maybe best left a dot on the timeline anyway. They can’t all be hits.

Pia Catton is editor of Dance.com