Gene Kelly
(Eugene Patrick Curran Kelly; Pittsburgh, United States, 1912-Beverly Hills, id., 1996) American dancer, choreographer, actor and film director.A multifaceted and versatile talent, the image of Gene Kelly is inextricably linked to some of the legendary Hollywood musicals of the 1950s, such as Singing in the Rain , A Day in New York and An American in Paris , of which he himself signed the choreographies, and even participated as co-director in the first two.He also appeared in other musicals such as Brigadoon (1954), Las girls (1957) and Las senoritas de Rochefort (1966), and in 1956 he performed Invitation to dance .His agile and athletic style, combined with a refined classical technique, revolutionized the concept of male dance in the field of film musicals.
Gene Kelly
The son of Irish parents, Gene Kelly was the third of five children born to the marriage of James Patrick Kelly, a traveling salesman of gramophones, and Harriet Eckhardt.He attended the Universities of Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh and graduated in law in 1933.Among the few cases in which he intervened as a lawyer, the defense of the actress and singer Mary Martin (South Pacific) against a film production company stands out..
As a result of the economic crisis of 29, which greatly affected the economy of the Kellys, young Gene was forced to work in all kinds of jobs, from plumber and bricklayer to waiter, teacher dance and gymnastics and apprentice journalist.Gene, who had attended dance classes as a child at the express wish of his mother, formed a couple with his brother Fred, with whom he performed in nightclubs.Between them they created a dance academy, the Gene Kelly Studio of Dance, in which they developed their skills for choreography.
In 1938 he began to work on the Broadway stages, alongside the then famous Billy Rose.Kelly debuted with the music magazine Leave it to me , which was followed by Time of your life , One for the money and Pal Joey .The success obtained in the latter earned him a contract for the cinema; He made his debut in For my girl and for me (1942), by Busby Berkeley, in which he worked alongside Judy Garland.At that time he became friends with a young and now famous director, Stanley Donen, who would be a determining factor in his professional life.
After a series of not very relevant films, he was lucky enough to shoot with Rita Hayworth The Models (1944), a musical in which he also participated as a choreographer.Also around that time he met then-master dancers, Fred Astaire, the favorite of filmmakers and producers, whose dance partner was Ginger Rogers.Gene Kelly, far from artistic confrontations, established a deep friendship with Astaire, of which he affirmed that "we were like brothers" and that "on more than one occasion we exchanged roles."
In 1944 he starred in the dramatic film Luz en el alma by Robert Siodmak, alongside Deanna Durbin.The following year he was cast in the lead role in Georges Sidney's film Lifting Anchors . Ziegfeld Follies (1946), The Pirate (1948), in which he worked again with Judy Garland, The Three Musketeers (1948), with Lana Turner, and A day in New York (1949), where he shared direction with Stanley Donen, were some of the films that preceded an extraordinary musical comedy, An American in Paris (1951), with music by George Gershwin.Despite being one of the culminating works of the most fruitful stage of the classical musical (the director, Vincente Minnelli, and MGM, with Arthur Freed in the production, were at that time the specialists of the genre), An American in Paris did not receive the box office success of other musicals of the house, but received unanimous applause from the critics and triumphed at the Oscars ceremony, in which it won six statuettes, including the best film.
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