Gene Kelly

His mother put him in dance class at eight, and he and his brother spent the next stretch of childhood fighting the neighborhood boys who called them sissies. He quit, and did not dance again until he was 15. The 1929 crash pulled him out of Penn State and back to Pittsburgh, where the family had opened a dance studio in Squirrel Hill and renamed it after him. He taught in it for years, finished an economics degree at Pitt in 1933, and lasted two months in law school before dropping out to teach and perform full time. New York took until 1938. The lead in Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, which opened on Christmas Day 1940, brought Hollywood to him.

Fred Astaire danced in white tie and tails, weightless, shot full-length by a camera that held still. Kelly worked in a T-shirt and loafers, muscular, close to the ground, and he rebuilt the camera around the dancer. He partnered his double-exposed reflection in Cover Girl and an animated Jerry the mouse in Anchors Aweigh. On the Town shot on location in New York. An American in Paris closed on a 17-minute ballet. Singin' in the Rain he co-directed, staging numbers in long unbroken takes with the camera traveling beside him, and danced the title song with a fever of 103.

Debbie Reynolds was 19 and a gymnast, not a dancer, when he cast her in Singin' in the Rain. He insulted her for it, Astaire found her crying under a piano on the lot, and after the 15 hours it took to shoot Good Morning her feet were bleeding. She later called that film and childbirth the two hardest things she ever did. Kelly said afterward that he had not been kind to her and was surprised she still spoke to him. With collaborators he rated he was the reverse, bringing Stanley Donen out from Broadway and insisting he take a co-director credit. Then the form went. Television and the end of the studio system took the movie musical apart in the late 1950s, and he spent the rest of his career without the thing he was best at.

The honorary Oscar came at the 1952 ceremony, cited for his versatility and specifically for his choreography on film. It burned in a house fire in 1983 and the Academy replaced it. The Kennedy Center Honors followed in 1982, the American Film Institute award in 1985, the Screen Actors Guild in 1989. Strokes in 1994 and 1995 left him severely disabled, and he died in Beverly Hills on February 2, 1996, at 83. The genre he perfected never came back. The method did. Music videos, concert films and every filmed dance since move the camera with the body, which was his argument all along.

Gene Kelly's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Cover Girl film
  The alter-ego number, danced against his own double-exposed reflection 1944
• Anchors Aweigh film
  The duet with an animated Jerry the mouse, and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor 1945
• On the Town film
  His first directing credit, shared with Stanley Donen, and shot on location in New York 1949
• An American in Paris film
  Six Academy Awards including Best Picture, and a closing ballet of 17 minutes 1951
• Singin' in the Rain film
  Co-directed and choreographed with Donen. He performed the title number with a fever of 103. 1952
• Invitation to the Dance film
  His solo directing debut, an all-dance feature that won the Golden Bear at Berlin and flopped 1956

• August 23, 1912 aged 0 Born in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh Middle of five children. His father sold phonographs.
• 1931 aged ~19 Enrolls at the University of Pittsburgh to study economics He taught at the family dance studio through his undergraduate years and after.
• December 25, 1940 aged 28 Opens on Broadway in the title role of Pal Joey The part that brought the Hollywood offers.
• October 16, 1941 aged 29 Marries the dancer and actress Betsy Blair They divorced in 1957.
• 1945 aged ~33 Dances with an animated Jerry the mouse in Anchors Aweigh Hanna and Barbera supervised the animation. Kelly was nominated for Best Actor.
• December 8, 1949 aged 37 On the Town takes the movie musical onto the streets of New York Kelly handled the choreography, Donen the staging, and both took director credit.
• March 20, 1952 aged 39 Receives an honorary Academy Award for choreography on film At the same ceremony An American in Paris won six Oscars, including Best Picture.
• April 11, 1952 aged 39 Singin' in the Rain goes into general release Reviews were warm rather than ecstatic. Its reputation caught up later.
• February 2, 1996 aged 83 Dies in Beverly Hills at 83 After strokes in 1994 and early 1995.

• Fred Astaire 1899–1987
  Made dance work on film by winning control of how it was shot. measured against
• Frank Sinatra 1915–1998
  Crooner and actor whose voice and charisma made him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. co-starred with
• Judy Garland 1922–1969
  Actress and singer best known for The Wizard of Oz, whose life and talent became emblematic of Hollywood. co-starred with
• Ginger Rogers 1911–1995
  Actress and dancer of Hollywood's Golden Age contemporary of