Gene Kelly, Creative Genius

This page will feature some of the many people whom Gene helped, encouraged and inspired along the way, either on their career path or in their personal lives. He had a great eye for talent and was often willing to go out on a limb to give individuals a chance to further or even start their careers in showbusiness. Many of them are mentioned as part of Gene's life and work elsewhere on the site but I want to highlight just how effective Gene was as a mentor and encourager.

Leslie Caron

He wanted to be remembered for more personal accomplishments. He gave opportunity to enter this career for quite a lot of people.

Los Angeles Times. July 25^th 1954. Hedda Hopper.

What advice have you for youngsters who want to get into show business?

“Be a teller in a bank or go into the barn business,” he quickly replied. “I always discourage people from entering this business. If they knew about the disappointments, heartbreak and hard work, and realise the slim chance of ever reaching the top and still want to go ahead, that’s okay. You can’t discourage people who really want to do something.”

Gene: (Quoted in: Burt Prelutsky, The Secret Of Their Success. 2008). " I helped persuade MGM to hire a lot of great young dancers, like Tommy Rall, Bobby Van, the Champions and Bob Fosse."

Modern Screen. August 1944

Gene’s always anxious to see youngsters get a break. When he made Christmas Holiday, he spied talent in his stand-in, Joe Thornton, and promptly staked him to tuition in the Actors Laboratory, a swell dramatic training school in Hollywood, and talked Director Siodmak, too, into giving Joe a bit in the picture.

Lois McClelland, (Gene's lifelong friend and secretary). Motion Picture magazine 1950

While Gene is not exactly a pushover for a touch, he finds it hard to turn down legitimate requests for loans and outright gifts. Look how he is about free room and board for anyone who needs it.

Friends of Gene’s from New York or Pittsburgh or the Navy? New in Hollywood with no place to live? Well, head straight for the Kelly place. They’ll put you up. The neighbours are talking now about their house which is already full to bursting with  short-term and long-staying victims of the housing shortage. But there’s always room for a few others.

Going Strong,  Pat York. A series of interviews with people over 75

STANLEY DONEN

Saul Chaplin: The Golden Age Of Movie Musicals And Me. 1994

Stanley Donen, who had been a chorus boy in New York, owed his entire career as a director to Gene. As Gene became more influential, many opportunities opened up for him, and when he was given his first picture to direct, On The Town, he insisted that Stanley be his co-director…In every case Gene was the prime mover and Stanley an eager and talented pupil.

Screen Album. Winter 1952

I first met Gene Kelly in New York while dancing in the chorus of Pal Joey in which Gene was starring. In 1944 I began to work with Gene – as a dance director… Kelly is the most stimulating person to work with I have ever known. When Gene’s on the job there’s no kidding around. He’s a perfectionist in his work. Gene has a creative genius that is never satisfied with a first attempt. He is constantly striving for new heights. He loves to work – and people love to work for him. I guess I was one of the happiest guys in town when An American In Paris won an Academy Award. A lot of people thought the picture had too much ballet – but Kelly proved them wrong. The public loved it. Right now Gene is in Europe working on Invitation To The Dance and Brigadoon. Pier Angeli came back from Germany a little while ago and you should have heard her rave. “He’s wonderful,” she said, “terrific.” She hopes to study dancing very hard for the next couple of years and some day do a musical with Gene. I’m all for it – I feel exactly the same way! He’s the most talented man I’ve ever known.

Interview Magazine 1994

Stanley was a chorus boy in two of my Broadway shows and came out here as a chorus boy for MGM. When they fired him I said, “Come on down to Columbia and work as my assistant on Cover Girl.” He was like a son to me. He…practically lived here at my house.

Magazine article 1980, Gene, talking to Iain McAsh

Stanley was a chorus boy. I was the captain, but he had a great faculty for criticising and more. He was not a constructive choreographer, but he could invent. He would always say if he didn’t like something and he was usually right. It was good to have another opinion from a dear friend who was not a ‘yes man’…. I eventually made him a partner. Stanley had a good camera sense and a quick sense of invention. I was very proud when he became so fine a director.

Gene: Guardian Lecture. London 1980

On being asked about his relationship with Stanley Donen, who was ‘captain’?

I was captain, I was the senior. ..He was never a real choreographer in the inventive sense but he had a great faculty for criticising…I would call Stanley and say “Look at this, is there anything wrong with it?” Often he’d say “No”, then we’d talk about how we’d shoot, how fast we’d move the camera. It’s  good to have another opinion from a dear friend and a trusted colleague who’s not a yes-man. This kind of partnership exists usually with every film dancer. Fred has Hermes, I had Stanley. If I didn’t have Stanley I would have Carol Haney or Jeannie Coyne. It’s very important to have someone whose critique you can rely on.

Gene. 1994 interview.

He came to me for a job and I said I needed someone. I had taken over the choreography on Cover Girl. I was doing a number called the Alter Ego, dancing against myself, and I needed someone to count for the camera while the ‘other’ fella was dancing….none of this had ever been done before. So Stanley grasped the idea and…you needed someone not only adequate but who was trained in your style…I said, “Stanley, if you stay with that, you’ll be on every show that I do, I’ll give you equal billing. It’ll be ‘choreographed and directed’ by the two of us”. Well, he was on air. The next picture we did, we did together, we were fast friends – you have to be, to work like that. Then we got Stanley a picture of his own, which we all wanted to do. Then he came back to me in Singin’ In The Rain and It’s Always Fair Weather, and that’s how we worked so well together.

Gene. Dialogue on Film. Interview 1979. AFI Center For Advanced Film Studies.

When  we made Cover Girl at Columbia, I got him a job there. Unfortunately he lost it because he didn’t get along with his first producer – but fortunately for me.

I told MGM to re-hire him because I couldn’t get along without him. I said he must get co-director with me because I’m helpless without him.

If I was in a scene…at the end I would just look at Stanley, and he’d say “Ok”, so I always felt he should get credit as co-director. As a choreographer Stanley actually did not make up any steps. But his value was just as great as if he had made up half the steps.

I thought we were a good team…it was advantageous for both of us – for Stanley because it actually gave him a leg-up on his career, and for me because I knew when he said the shot was in the can, I didn’t have to retake it the next day.

Michael Singer. A Cut Above. 50 film directors talk about their craft. 1998

I’ve often had someone to work with me behind the camera, and it just happened that I was lucky enough to have Stanley working with me on our first picture as co-directors…Stanley had been in Pal Joey with me on Broadway and also worked with me in Best Foot Forward. He turned out to be one of the best things that happened to me professionally…We finally got Stanley to do his own pictures, which was a blessing, I think, for the cinema in general.”

Saturday Evening Post July 1950

Donen:  "Just calling Gene a dancer with the idea that that label means a lack of virility is a lot of poppycock. I’d like to see any of Hollywood’s so-called he-men or night-club pugilists try to stay with Gene for a week…even a day. My guess is they’d be carted off to a sanatorium to be treated for utter exhaustion."

Pittsburgh Post Gazette. January 18^th 1985

When I started to direct my own films, I used Stanley Donen as my mirror…he apprenticed himself to me, and a good working relationship evolved. I would stage the numbers two weeks ahead and he’d be behind the camera while I was in front. He wasn’t a choreographer, but he always knew when a dance was good

Los Angeles Times. October 7^th 1951

Donen and Kelly work in the same office, and it is of record that they get along most harmoniously, except when they both need a rest from those ‘strenuous musicals’. They used to fight over a davenport that was part of the furniture. But it hasn’t been determined yet when and whether the battle is to be carried over to Kelly’s new contour chair, an anniversary gift from Betsy.

Betsy Blair. The Memory Of All That. 2002.

He was a very attractive figure, eager to learn, ambitious and funny. And he had become our close and dear friend, an intimate in our household. Although he had an apartment he practically lived with us.

Stanley had been put under contract by Metro as a dancer…when the studio tried to use him as an extra he refused. He was suspended, but he couldn’t work anywhere else.

So when Gene asked Stanley to be his assistant choreographer, it wasn’t only a friendly gesture. The main reason was that Gene knew and liked him, he considered Stanley bright and talented. Of course Gene was the central creative force in this initial collaboration, but he was always generous about Stanley’s contribution.

…Unfortunately and mysteriously for me, Stanley, over the years, has been less than generous about Gene. As someone who was there during the early period, and as a fellow student at the ‘Kelly university’, I find myself surprised and bemused.

Barry Monush. The Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors. 2003

Following his death, Donen was quick to paint Kelly as an egotist and difficult collaborator, an assessment that was irrelevant in light of all the high spirits he brought to the screen and the even higher spirits he left audiences in as a result.

THE NICHOLAS BROTHERS

American Film Institute tribute to Gene. 1985

Harold Nicholas: “It was a pleasure to work with Mr Kelly in The Pirate, and I must say that wonderful and exciting things happened to us since that film, and I must say that this gentleman had a lot to do with it, Gene Kelly.”

Fayard: “Gregory Hines, don’t worry about stealing Gene Kelly’s steps, because he stole them from us!”

 Fayard was born in 1914 in Alabama, Harold in 1921 in Philadelphia.. They were sons of Vaudeville performers so they started very young. They were popular in nightclubs and on radio, and at the Cotton Club in New York. They appeared on Broadway and in film musicals working for 20^th Century Fox. But their speciality act was always done so that it could be easily cut from the movie, for showing in the Southern States.

Their contracts were allowed to lapse after the war, then they went to MGM to work with Gene. It was almost unheard of for a white man to work so closely in performance with African Americans. And of course the scene was cut in some places in the South.

Gene, on dancing with the Nicholas Brothers

I was instructed not to do it by the studio. They told me the number would be cut from the film in the South. I insisted, we did the number, and it was cut out in a lot of Southern cities.

Gene. Reflections On The Silver Screen. TV interview 1994.  With Professor Richard Brown

The reason I got the Nicholas Brothers on the movie – L.B. Mayer didn’t want any blacks in the troupe – Minnelli and I said look, this is a Caribbean island, mostly black, and also no two other dancers working now can do all the things Fayard and Harold can do. So they became part of my troupe and I eased them into a number.

The mistake we made, was that they were so good the three of us decided we should use up every flash ending that was in the book. So we got the number a little bit too long. But we had such fun and enough bravura endings for fifty numbers.

Gene; (Prelutsky, 2008. The Secret Of Their Success). "You can't believe how hard it was for me to get them in the movie. MGM just hated the idea of my dancing with two black men. It was strictly taboo in those days. LB Mayer was really upset about it."

Lisa Minnelli. The Pirate DVD 2007.

The Nicholas Brothers could do anything, and the great thing about them was that they didn’t dance exactly alike. They complimented each other.

Fayard Nicholas. The Pirate DVD 2007.

Gene  said “Harold, what are you doing? Your brother and I are rehearsing like mad and you are just there moping around.” My brother would say “Oh, I already got it.” And Gene would say “Alright Harold, let me see you do it.” And so my brother went through the entire routine without one mistake, and would say “Howzat!” And Gene was so mad. He’d say “Stop everything, let’s go to lunch.”

Terry Monaghan. Obituary for Fayard. The Guardian. 2006

... Incorporating progressively more complicated acrobatic leaps set among their superbly stylish "freeze and melt" poses laced with intricate footwork and lyrical arm movements, the brothers' claim to be "classical" tap dancers found major expression...

After this series of easily excisable performance clips - they could be removed from the films to avoid offending southern racist sensibilities - the brothers got to appear alongside a stunning array of black artistry. Their tour-de-force finale in Stormy Weather (1943) reduced even Cab Calloway to the status of a mere band leader. They turned the lid of a grand piano into a drum, and their sequence of flying leapfrogs down a staircase, each one ending in the splits, has become an iconic film image...

Fayard recalled being refused admission to the segregated studio restaurant - until director David Selznick got on the phone and told the maitre d' that the brothers' art had effectively paid for the studio....

VERA ELLEN

SAUL CHAPLIN

Gene: Cover of Saul Chaplin’s autobiography:

“Saul Chaplin really knows the score...He's one of those fellows behind the scenes that has made so many fine musicals work.”

Saul Kaplan was born in the same year as Gene, 1912, and after collaborating with Sammy Cahn in New York they moved to Hollywood in 1941. Working for Columbia, he was an uncredited composer on Cover Girl.

He credits Gene with bringing him to MGM in 1949, when Gene wanted him to work on On The Town. (Gene said on the Mike Douglas show, 1976, “It was the best move I ever made”.) He was responsible for the vocal arrangements.

They became very close friends, and according to Saul it was Gene who had him work on Summer Stock and An American In Paris. For Summer Stock he wrote All For You, and You Wonderful You, specifically for Judy and Gene. So thank you Mr Chaplin!

For An American In Paris he won an Oscar for best scoring of a musical picture. He also won Oscars for musical scoring on Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and West Side Story.

He was a very talented pianist, composer, arranger, musical director, writer and producer. He co-produced That’s Entertainment Part Two, and was associate producer of Les Girls, so his life is intertwined with Gene’s in many areas. He also seems to have been a gentle, modest man. He wrote the lyrics to the famous Anniversary Song

According to Hirschorn, Gene's 1974 biographer, Gene arranged for Lois to live with the Chaplins when she first came out to Hollywood to work as his secretary, and also Gene moved in with them briefly during the difficult period before he and Betsy divorced.

So the career lift which Gene gave to Saul was amply repaid in the ensuing years in friendship and kindness.

 During the making of Cover Girl, Saul  had been given the chance to write what turned out to be Put Me To The Test, the comic version done by Gene and Phil, and describes his first meeting with Gene:  “ I had become accustomed to reading a few pages of script and then writing the required material. No way with Gene. He laid out everything he thought might affect the number…everything. I recall thinking to myself, ‘This is impossible. I can’t write anything that has to take all those elements into consideration.’ I…was getting more and more concerned when Gene suddenly said: “Look – make Phil as funny as you can and don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of myself.” I was amazed. I had never met such an unselfish actor He…was interested in the picture as a whole. I’ve worked with Gene many times since then, and his attitude has never changed."

From Saul Chaplin's autobiography: "At my very first meeting with Gene, he invited me and my wife to a party at his home in Beverley Hills the following Saturday night.

"The night before Gene left for the navy, of course there was a party. Phil and I improvised a forty-five minute cantata tracing Gene’s life from his birth to his triumphant return from the navy. It was followed by everyone singing Auld Lang Syne. It was very touching."

Gene slept in Saul’s spare room when on leave from the Navy.

 American Filming 1985. Interview with Gene and Saul

Gene:  "At MGM, there were these great Rocks of Gibraltar who were sitting up at the top of the studio who had had millions of dollars of success with the musicals that they’d made…I begged MGM for six months to get Saul Chaplin and his wisdom before they would bring him in there. And the reason I did that was not just because I had gotten to know and love Saul as a friend and adviser on Cover Girl, but that there wasn’t enough of that particular kind of talent, the fellows who could transliterate music for dancers or singers. Saul was a landmark at MGM, you know. He still is, and every actor there who ever got near him will tell you that."

Saul:  "When I was hired it was as a vocal arranger for On The Town, but from the first day I arrived, I was on the rehearsal stage with Gene, adapting Leonard Bernstein’s music primarily for the ballets…that was the least part of my job. I adapted all the music you hear, besides doing the vocal arranging…"

Gene: "There was a simple reason for my pressuring Saul into doing all that. Nowadays if a guy comes under contract, he probably would have said “No, renegotiate my contract.” He was not only a friend of mine and of Comden and Green…he understood Lenny Bernstein’s music as well as anybody in the world, and so the main thing was to get him in there, whether under the title vocal arranger or wardrobe lady. I could have cared less."

Saul: "I have worked with every dancer in the whole world, with the exception of Astaire, I suppose, and the one thing about working with Gene is hat he, of all dancers, knew exactly what he wanted, which most dancers did not."

ALEX ROMERO

LESLIE CARON

Gene first saw Leslie Caron in Paris working for the Roland Petit ballet company. She was a fifteen year old dancer in a show called The Sphinx, with  Helene Constantine, (the wife of Eddie Constantine) whom Gene had worked with at MGM.  When they were casting An American In Paris, Gene remembered her and went to Paris to test her. There are various versions of this event. One is that Gene went to test a different French dancer named Versois, and according to Leslie, 'he snuck me in’, saying he might get into trouble for doing so. Another version is that Arthur Freed specifically asked him to test Leslie as well as the other girl, having remembered a photograph Gene had shown him some time before. Whichever way it happened, she got the job!

Silver Screen June 1954

Then there was Leslie Caron, whom Gene discovered when he was in Paris making “An American In Paris.” He wanted a girl who had a fresh, new quality about her – he’s always looking for something different either in new talent or in already established stars. When he saw Leslie in a ballet her unique personality, her pixie-like face intrigued him and he immediately chose her…He was so impressed with her work that he had a test made of her and sent it to MGM in Hollywood. This brought about her contract – and stardom.

But he had no intention of merely putting her into a picture without giving her every chance to show off her ability… he wanted a new way to introduce her to the public, so he worked out a choreography for her as her first scene. You may remember the exciting dance Leslie did in which she portrayed several different moods. It was the most concentrated introduction of a new star imaginable. Once it was over, Leslie was a solid hit. 

Gene: Donald Knox. The Magic Factory 1973

"Leslie was seventeen, but I knew she wouldn’t look that young. So I asked Freed to get permission to go and make a test…I felt that we just couldn’t make the picture without a real French girl…"

Leslie Caron. The Making of An American In Paris DVD 2008

…he was very charming, very respectful…He called me Lester the Pester. He loved me a lot. Gene was my guide…Gene was like big brother.

Leslie arrived in L.A. in June 1950 with her mother, and:  "The very next day Gene Kelly invited us for the afternoon on Sunday. We arrived at his house and everybody was terribly nice….Gene’s house was open and inviting and very hospitable….

"My first days were taken up with studying, and then rehearsing with Gene and his two assistants…Carol Haney…and Jeannie Coyne…Gene was very clever as a choreographer…he took advantage of my good points…he called me Lester de Pester.

"…We would be rehearsing all day, and I would say “Listen Gene, we’ve worked four hours. I’m very tired; don’t you think I could go home?” He would explain to me very cleverly, very diplomatically, that in the studio you have to look like you’re working a full day. He said; “We have to fool around for a good part of the day and stay around; otherwise they won’t be pleased.”

"I arrived late one day, and Gene was very stern with me. I said: “I’m sorry, I don’t have a watch or a clock.” And he gave me this very simple answer: “Buy one”. I was so amazed, it hadn’t occurred to me that one could afford to buy a clock….

"In order to keep slim I would just eat nothing. Consequently I was very weak and very much anaemic, but Gene was my defender, he’d say to me: “If you’re too ill just tell me and stand by me, and I’ll say you’re too ill, and we will collect insurance and go off one day, and you can lie in bed all day and rest up."

Leslie Caron. Biography of Gene Kelly, Biography Channel 1996.

It was very difficult but very exciting, and I can remember Gene forever yelling at me “Keep your feet straight, bend your knees”. He was very exacting but I have never known a ballet teacher or choreographer who wasn’t exacting. They have to be.

He was a sort of a father figure, a brother figure in my life.

Leslie Caron. Taken from Foreword to: Sheridan Morley & Ruth Leon. Gene Kelly, A Celebration. 1996

 There was hardly time before or during a film to correct defects, so he would make the best of his partner’s qualities. He was a leader. Wherever he was, he automatically took command. He was fair and generous when mentioning, in measured tones, his approval. His disapproval was just as straightforward…. He felt responsible for me – my success or failure in the film. He guided me in front of the camera with a good deal of humour…He looked after my health, and when I came down with mononucleosis he defended me against the studio powers …He arranged it so that I should stay in bed one day and work the next…

…We went downtown to see the sneak preview. After the viewing Gene came to me and asked:”Well, kiddo, how did you like it?”. I answered: “Gene, I think I have the flu.” He said: “You haven’t got the flu, you’ve just seen yourself on the screen for the first time.”

We remained friends ever since. My bond of friendship tightened with the years. Very few girls had the luck to meet their Gene Kelly.

About a year ago.. [1995] Gene was invited to present me with an honor, during a charity gala. Already very ill, he came nevertheless – to whisper a few words in a voice that had lost all its strength. I followed him backstage, where he said : “Only for you Lester.” …I was never to see him again.

DEBBIE REYNOLDS

TCM

Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen convinced the executives that the pert young starlet could hold her ground

Donald O'Connor 2002:

"Debbie was scared because she had never worked with two guys like Kelly and myself," O’Connor said in a recent interview. "There was a lot of fear there. But Gene was just marvelous to her."

Debbie Reynolds

Gene Kelly was a great dancer and a cinematic genius. He made me a star in Singin’ In The Rain. He taught me how to dance and how to work hard, to be dedicated and to be loving – as he was to his family and friends.

TV Radio Mirror. 1962

Debbie Reynolds. "I couldn’t dance around my own big toe – and only two months to learn. He had me on sound stages day after day, studying modern dancing with Carol Haney and tap and ballet with Ernie Platt…but when Gene would come…to see what progress I was making, I was scared to death of him! I couldn’t dance a step, and he’d just smile and say ‘I guess we’ll have to work a little harder’…I owe more to him than I can ever repay. He literally willed me to dance."

"The wonderful thing about Gene Kelly was that he made you feel you were capable of more than you had ever done."

MICHAEL CRAWFORD

To hear Michael's own words describing his first meeting with Gene, listen to the background track on the 'It'll be work...' page.

Michael Crawford. Autobiography.

Gene believed in a lot of rehearsal, more than I’d ever experienced before, but I knew right away that I loved it, and it’s the way I’ve worked ever since.

Roger Edens arranged for me to audition with Dolly director Gene Kelly, which completely changed my life….the words look so matter of fact…Gene Kelly. But let me tell you, just the anticipation of meeting that great American dancer was enough to tie me in knots.

The romantic ‘It only takes a moment’, was my big song in Dolly…. I looked up at Gene when I finished and saw he was in tears. He came over and put his arm around me. “That’s my boy”, he said.

While we were filming in New York, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in LA….Gene was crushed; he had been a friend of the Kennedy family. …The set was closed down the day after the tragedy….When production started up again…the mood was bleak for cast and crew. Yet Gene Kelly was able to handle it all with great equanimity. He was enormously understanding and empathetic to his artists.

FRANK SINATRA

Frank:  He taught me everything I know. I couldn’t walk, no less dance. He is one of the reasons I became a star.

Frank: Not even a major sociological earthquake could dislodge me from my position as Gene Kelly's number one fan.

Foreward to Hirschorn 1974.

...when Gene volunteered to be my dance instructor, I accepted - with humble gratitiude yet! Cut to eight weeks later, I've got seven hundred torn ligaments, compound fractures in every bone in my body,,,I'm down to 116.5 ounces. But my wild Irish slavedriver paid me th eultimate compliment.

'Francis', he said, 'you've worked your way up from lousy to adequate - I'm ready to dance on camera with you.'

Photoplay 1945.

Frank will tell you that ‘Teacher Kelly’ is plenty okay. “He has one of the greatest talents in the country. Nobody can match him. And he’s so patient.”

Screenland 1947

Gene: “I met Sinatra [when they made Anchors Aweigh together] who became one of my best friends. And if I thought I looked odd in a gob’s uniform, all I had to do was look at Sinatra, and I felt fine again. Just wait till Sinatra sees that in print…But seriously I think he’s a terrific character, especially with all that wonderful tolerance work he’s doing.”

Dallas Times Herald. June 1980

Speaking of On The Town:   It also changed the way people looked at one of his co-stars, Frank Sinatra…

“Frank worked very hard on his dancing," said Gene. "He had had two bad pictures at RKO before he came over to work with us. We worked very hard. I guess he has the best sense of rhythm of anyone in the world. He’s a fighter…We built numbers around him. It worked out very well."

Seventeen magazine. September 1946

"Most people under twenty are reasonable. That’s why Sinatra is so popular. He’s reasonable too and knows that the kids are. He’s doing a great job. Please believe me, Frankie’s great.”…

Experts say that although Kelly is already one of the biggest motion picture stars and that the Sinatra-Kelly teaming has immense possibilities rivalling the Hope-Crosby combine, the dancer is only beginning. Sinatra, by the way, wants very badly to make a picture with Gene for which the dancer not only does the choreography and performs, but also directs the whole show. A great believer in the Kelly brain, Frank agrees with the people who keep saying that Gene’s career may turn out to be one of the most fantastically successful in show business.

Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post November 2008.

On Sinatra in Hollywood.

He made 10 movies between 1935 and 1945, but did not distinguish himself until the release that same year of Anchors Aweigh, a good-natured wartime diversion in which he had the good fortune to be paired with Gene Kelly, who taught him a great deal about movie acting generally and dancing specifically. Interestingly, Sinatra is nowhere to be found in the movie's most famous and durable scene, a four-minute sequence in which Kelly dances with the cartoon mouse, Jerry; the scene was re-introduced to moviegoers 30 years later in That’s Entertainment! And proved to have lost none of its luster.

Sinatra made two other notable musicals, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and On The Town, both of which were released in 1949 and in both of which Kelly also appeared. Then Sinatra went into what appeared to be terminal decline…

Pittsburgh Post Gazette. May 13^th 1950

On the set of It’s Only Money, Frank Sinatra received the following postcard from his friend Gene Kelly in Paris: “Dear Frank. Love this place. They think Sinatra is some kind of American food.”

Eugene Register-Guard. April 25^th 1954

I hope to do a musical with Gene Kelly, I’d love to work with that man again; he’s such a great talent.

Evening Independent. May 23^rd 1947

Two Hollywood fathers have arranged for their daughters’ professional training. Gene Kelly will teach Frank Sinatra’s Nancy to dance, and Frank will show Gene’s Kerry how to sing.

Toledo Blade. February 11^th 1966

He believes he might prefer directing to acting…bringing out talent in somebody is most satisfying. “Did any actor ever acknowledge or appreciate what you did for them?” I asked.

“Yes! Frank Sinatra. Many times he has introduced me and said, ‘This is the guy who taught me to get my hands off the mike and to move.’”

Moviestars. February 1949

Gene on Frank:

I forget exactly how we first met. But you know how a fellow forgets singers – and fair ballplayers. At any rate, I remember distinctly the first time the studio teamed us up for a picture. It was Anchors Aweigh. I was running through a ballet tap for size and a man opened the door and this Sinatra guy came in. He stood in the entrance hardly casting a shadow. “Give that fellow something to eat,” I said. “He looks terrible.” A big husky guy who was holding on to Sinatra let him go for a minute and came over to me. He was, I think, very indignant. “I operate the Bel Air gymnasium,” he said. “I’ve been training Mister Sinatra for three months for this picture and I know he’s in great shape.”

“So there!” I said. “Time-step him over here and we’ll see if he can bend his knees.”

You know – he could. And did. And not bad. And by the time the picture was finished he was in better shape than I was. During the making of that first picture I got to know a lot of things about Frank Sinatra. Not the things you read in the newspapers about celebrities, but honest little things – like how he feels about underprivileged kids, and about the crew we worked with. I learned how he thinks about Sinatra. That he never forgot that he was from Jersey with something to sell – and how he never stopped being grateful to the people, you people, who bought it.

Kidding aside, Frank Sinatra is a great guy. When you work with another actor as closely as we’ve had to work in the movies we’ve made together, you either don’t speak to him except when paid for it – or you develop a respect and admiration that is solid and lasting. That’s the way it is with Frank and me – and I think it always will be…

He tells me that it’s easy working with me, and I can say the same where he is concerned…And he’s a good dancer too, and the hardest worker I’ve ever known…Frankie has kept his head as level as a table top. Nothing is more important to him than Nancy and the kids…

It’s rather strange that the picture Frank and I just wound up is a baseball picture., because there is one activity at which I can really top the boy. I happen to be quite a ballplayer, while Frank is, well, passable…

But baseball is beside the point…A man’s sense of values is developed by his associations, by his interests and by the thoughtful gifts of themselves that other people give to him, and I’ve gotten a lot from Frank Sinatra. He’s a good guy.

 Moviestars. February 1949

Frank on Gene:

I guess it was about eight years ago that I first met Gene. I was singing the songs of the time and hoping someday to have somebody listen to them. Gene was beating hardwood floors all over Manhattan with those talented peds, and hoping someday

somebody would take a good look. I’d like to tell you that we became great buddies…But it wasn’t quite that way. Maybe it was because we were both so busy reaching for the next rung on the ladder, but we met, had a chat, and he went off to dance for an agent and I went off to sing for a band leader…

I don’t care who the performer is, or how many times he’s done it, the first day he starts a new show and meets the people he’s going to work with, he’s got to have a flock of sparrows where his stomach is supposed to be. I’m no different. But from the first moment I walked on a sound stage with Gene Kelly and we took off our coats and started to work, I’ve felt at home. And I know he has too.

I like to think that this shows up in our work. At least a lot of people have said it does. It’s a comradeship that’s as rare in show business as it is in your line of work... And from this comradeship has come a friendship that I value very much – one that I hope will last as long as both of us are around.

I won’t say that Gene is paternal, but to a single-o kid like me he’s a big brother. Singing is my business, but his is acting, dancing, modelling moods and practicing the subtle arts of mimicry that make artists out of performers – and if I’m any good at it when I work with Kelly, he’s got a piece of me.

There have been times when I’ve wanted to blow. When it has seemed that one more take and they’d have to shoot me on the ceiling. All it took to bring me down was a nudge in the ribs and a smile from Gene. An Irish grin that would say, “Simmer down, son – we’re working, you and I. We’ve got a show to do.” I’d come down and the rest of the day would be golden time…

I’ve had days when I thought I was doing all right…Then I’d work eight hours with Kelly. The guy is a perfectionist. He wants the number right, or the scene as good as it can be. Pretty soon I’d find myself sweating on a dramatic theme. I’d know there was

something more than just saying words for a salary to this business of acting, and this guy Kelly would have me snowed into doing a scene that sparkled instead of just getting across.

Whatever I know of dancing…I owe to Gene Kelly…When I first started working with Gene, he used to come in in the morning and say, “I thought of a honey last night,” and run through something with his feet that Houdini couldn’t do with his fingers. “Get Astaire,” I’d say. “Me and two gazelles couldn’t do that!” He’d clap me on my brawny back and say, “Watch it again.” And so help me, a couple of days later I’d show it to my wife – solo.

When we’d rehearse routines that would tax the wind of a kangaroo with a Melbourne stockbroker after him in a jeep and a carbine on his shoulder, and I’d be sucking air like I wanted it all, Kelly would stop, complain that he was out of breath, and lie down until I revived – and pretend that it was all his own fault that we were slowed down…

How about Kelly the man? He’s a card. He’s more fun to play with than a circus clown. He’s got a sense of humor that tops them all…In the picture we just finished, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, I was never sure whether I was working for a horsey ball club or MGM..

Naturally I’m a much better baseball player than Gene…You can bet we’ll make another picture together though. It’s an experience we both look forward to with pleasant anticipation…

Daily News. December 10^th 1995

Gene: "I always ribbed Frank about his strange effect on the female sex. Then one night my infant daughter started to bawl blue murder. As a last resort Frank took her in his arms and started to sing to her. At the end of a chorus and a half, she was blissfully asleep. I never kidded him again!”

LIZA MINNELLI

Vincente Minnelli, I Remember It Well 1974 

Minnelli describes how he took Liza to a party at Lee Gershwin’s house. She sang at the piano with Roger Edens.

Gene: “Until that time I thought Liza was a sweet, gawky kid with big eyes just like her father’s. But she had something”.

This was when Gene had the idea to use Liza in his Pontiac TV Special. (Featured on another part of the site.)

Minnelli: “I accompanied Liza to the rehearsal hall. Saul Chaplin was at the piano. Gene blocked out the steps for Liza then sat on the piano bench with Saul as she went through her paces. She picked up the steps immediately. Saul yelled with delight, falling off the piano bench and pounding the floor."

Gene: “We were in front of a big audience and I was very scared for Liza. I kept thinking she was going to blow it. I was so concerned that, in fact, I almost blew it. But Liza was cool and calm as if this was her 54^th show. I don’t know where it came from. It had only been a couple of years since she’s come and played in our back yard. I’d come out and do a couple of steps with her, but I didn’t see that she had any greater flair for it than most kids did."

Time Magazine February 1972

Gene: Every once in a while you see flashes of Judy that you can’t escape. But she had more of Judy earlier in her career. Now she’s more her own person….I don’t think it harmed her having two talented parents, but I don’t think you can say it gave her her talent.

Liza: What really interested me was watching people dance. I used to go over to rehearsal hall B or C and watch Cyd Charisse, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and I’d learn all their numbers. Then I’d go home and practice for hours in front of the mirror.

Minnelli.  1974

On Liza winning an Oscar for her performance in Cabaret.

One of the earliest calls was among the most heartwarming. It was Gene Kelly, who’d been a part of Liza’s life for such a long time. He was recovering from a cataract operation…but his cheery voice gave no indication he’s been under the weather. “Wonderful! Judy would have been thrilled!” he said. “But you’re wasting all this on me, Gene,” I laughed. “Liza won’t be here until late this afternoon.” Sure enough, his was one of the many phone calls…

Liza, speaking of her childhood: "I went to the studios every day, and I loved to dance, so I used to hang out in the dance rehearsal halls. By doing that I learned everybody's number. Gene Kelly, he knew that I loved dance so much. Sometimes during the breaks he's say 'C'm 'ere, I'll teach you a step', and he would teach me something."

VAN JOHNSON

Movie Show. October 1947

My Pal Gene, by Van Johnson

It was about eight years ago. I was sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Woodward in New York…I was between shows, nearly broke and thinking life was not exactly a bowl of strawberries with cream on top, when in breezed Gene Kelly.

He lived at the Woodward too. We had one of those lobby “Hello, what goes?” friendships, nothing more. He came over, we talked  a little shop, then he surprisingly asked, “How would you like to take a trip to Mexico with me in my flivver? Not long. I have to be back in a few weeks to start rehearsing for Pal Joey.”

I was as flattered by the invitation as if I’d been asked to give a command performance. Our acquaintanceship was so slight. Furthermore, Gene was a star. I was still a chorus boy. I had seen him starred in One For The Money and Time Of Your Life and thought then, as I do now, that he was one of the greatest entertainers of our times…But I declined with some lame excuse. The truth was I couldn’t afford it, which I didn’t admit.

That was my introduction to the Gene Kelly who is always holding out a hand of friendship to some little guy. I’ve never known exactly what prompted his impulsive invitation, but since then I’ve seen him do many other similar things…

I got a job in the chorus of Pal Joey. Later, thanks to Gene, in that same production I had a break that led to Hollywood…

Despite our hotel lobby acquaintance, I purposely stayed away from Gene at rehearsals, not wanting to seem presumptuous. I needn’t have worried; he’s one of the most democratic and generous men I know.

It was Gene who suggested me for a short song and dance number that took me out of the chorus for a few minutes – my first real break. He had two numbers so close together that there was an almost impossibly fast costume change. He could have done it, but suggested to the producer that maybe I could do the second one. So I had that specialty with June Havoc. That number led to a movie offer.

Gene still had me a little awed when we opened in Philadelphia…I went to Gene’s dressing room; he was putting on make-up, outwardly calm however he might have felt. All I could think of to say was, “You know what I’m wishing for you.” He grinned that wonderful Irish grin of his, wished me the same and I thought a rainbow had landed on my shoulders.

Producer George Abbott, meantime, had offered to let me understudy Gene, probably at the latter’s suggestion, but that I turned down. As compared with dancer Kelly, I can’t even raise a foot….

Gene continued to put out the helping hand. After we opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York, he introduced me to many of the celebrities who came backstage to visit him. One time I asked why he bothered. “Oh, they ask me who that big redhead is in the chorus who smiles so much,” he assured me noncommittally.

It was during the run of Pal Joey that we became real friends…We began having double dates, Gene with Betsy Blair…I with June Havoc. After the show, the four of us would take in midnight movies, eat chilli, sometimes in good weather take a ride in Gene’s flivver with the top down, when he’s always wear a sailor hat jammed down on his head…

Gene was only four years older than I, but when he gave advice to one V. Johnson, I listened. Not only had he achieved stardom, but he was an inspiration in his honesty; it’s easier to take advice from someone who practices what he preaches. Gene used to tell me, “Study. Practice. Rehearse. Use your days to advantage and don’t waste time.” I began taking all kinds of lessons, as he suggested…

There are other memories, as sharp as a new razor blade. Gene’s magnificent tango in the show, for example. He doesn’t know it, but I never missed one performance of watching that dance from the wings. There was the night we did a British War Benefit at La Guardia Field. Gertrude Lawrence ran it and Gene was one of the stars. He took June Havoc and me along to do our turn. It was the first time I’d been invited to do a benefit…

When I was signed at MGM, Gene was making For Me And My Gal. I heard one day that he was doing a song-and-dance scene on the big theatre set and went in to watch, still keeping a distance, for here again, Gene was the star, I just another new contract player. But Gene saw me, came over with the Big Hello, introduced me to Judy Garland and insisted we all have lunch together.

Through another long wait, during which my only role was in a crime short with me disguised in black hair and mustache, Gene kept boosting my morale. “Study,” he’s tell me. “watch other actors work. Use your days to advantage because your chance will come. Be ready for it.”…

I was assigned to Pilot #5. That was the only picture I’ve made with Gene. As always, he was helpful; he’s go over lines with me for our scenes together, making suggestions. I remember one of the first days of shooting I got giggly. It was sheer nervousness, but no one else could guess that.. Gene called me to one side and gave me a verbal kick in the pants.

“This is your living. Don’t kid around at it,” he told me sternly. It was just what I needed; I’ve tried to remember.

Gene learned I had done a bit – a very small bit – with Lucille Ball in “Too many Girls.” He had missed the picture, tracked it down in a fourth-run neighbourhood house in Glendale and insisted that he, Betsy and I drive over there to see it. We paid twenty cents each to get in and satin the fourth row!

For my birthday during that year, he gave me a wristwatch. I’ve had others since, but I always wear it for the first days’ shooting on a picture or a benefit. I really believe it brings me luck. Gene came to my rescue in Washingtom when I was one of the group that went back for a Birthday Ball show. I assumed, of course, that the studio had an act written for me to work in; on the train I learned they hadn’t, it being taken for granted I could ad-lib something, maybe tell a few stories. That I cannot do. I was in a lather at rehearsal when in walked Kelly; he was in the Navy, atationed in Washington, and had been recruited for the show, too. He asked what I was going to do. I admitted I didn’t know.

“Come on back to your hotel and we’ll workout an act,” he offered.

He had me start to sing Night And Day while he heckled on another microphone. Then we went into a dance routine, he taking it straight, I trying to follow, with more heckling from him. In telling it may not seem funny, but the audience didn’t think it was too corny, and my face was saved, thanks to Kelly.

ANDRE PREVIN

Motion Picture 1954

Previn is the brilliant young pianist whom MGM, at Gene Kelly’s insistence, has just assigned to compose the musical score for It’s Always Fair Weather. Gene says, “…Our young genius. Young talent is always the best isn’t it? Fresher. They come in bursting with ideas. Keep you on your toes.”

These are some of the many who cite Gene as a positive influence in their life or work.

JANET LEIGH: On making the radio series ‘Cresta Blanca’s Hollywood Players’. "I was insecure, sweated through every performance, but of all the cast Gene Kelly was always the one to try and help me."

Janet Leigh. There Really Was A Hollywood. 1984

[In It’s A Big Country] I was Gene Kelly’s leading lady. Ironic that I was working with Gene Kelly in a straight role; if only it could have been in the musical. Can’t have everything. It was an honor just to be with him. Good man! He applied the same dedication, the same perfection, to scenes as to dance. (One time at a dinner, I actually danced with him and was so flustered I tripped over my own feet.)

DONALD O'CONNOR.  From TCM

The Make ‘em Laugh sequence was created because Gene Kelly felt that Donald O’Connor needed a solo number. “Every time I got a new idea or remembered something that had worked well in the past, Gene wrote it down, and bit by bit the entire thing was created."

Burt Prelutsky  The Secret Of Their Success 2008

Interviewer:  I was always very impressed that you allowed Donald O’Connor to do the show-stopping Make ‘Em Laugh dance…You were the star and choreographer! It showed a great deal of character and confidence in a business not  widely known for either commodity.

Gene: …I had always felt badly for Donald…nobody before ever seemed to know how to show him off properly. He has always been generous to me, saying that I was the first person who ever told him how to use his arms while dancing…

Rudy Behlmer. Behind The Scenes. 1982

Donald O’Connor: Gene is such an observant guy, while we were working together…I think he tried to incorporate a lot of my personality, outside of his own, into those numbers…he geared it toward that.

Rudy Behlmer. Behind The Scenes. 1982

This was a big number for Donald O’Connor certainly. Because even thought he’d been around for years he’d never had this kind of vehicle, and suddenly he’s in demand for big pictures…now he could strut his stuff.

CYD CHARISSE:   Singin’ In The Rain was the justification of my career as a dancer.

Silver Screen June 1954

Cyd…was always thought of as a sedate, dignified, lovely person without too much personality until Gene saw her as a sultry, tempestuous siren type and worked with her in “Singin’ In The Rain.” Few can ever forget that torchy, sexy dance she did with Gene in that picture. The dance quickly catapulted her into the front ranks. People began wondering where she’d been all their lives. And now she is co-starring with Gene in “Brigadoon.”

Cyd naturally is eternally grateful to him for giving her the chance he did. Without it she might now be an actress with a career that wasn’t going much of anywhere…

The dances Gene and Cyd do in “Brigadoon” will further establish her as a top-flight star. They are romantic numbers and somewhat sexy but not as suggestive in type as was the dance in “Singin’ In The Rain.”

Los Angeles Times. October 7^th 1951

In Singin’ In The Rain he is for the first time dancing with Cyd Charisse in a big culminating number. That almost amounts to the rediscovery of Miss Charisse as a dancing star, because she has lately played a succession of straight roles.