Legacy
Gene Kelly Legacy Mission
The Gene Kelly Legacy is dedicated to preserving and promoting the life and work of legendary dancer, choreographer, actor, and director Gene Kelly.
Biographies
Gene Kelly
While Gene Kelly’s onscreen appearances showcase his charming exuberance, breathtaking athleticism and easy grace, it is his work behind the camera, as a director and choreographer, for which he wished to be remembered. Tireless and exacting, Kelly overcame technical challenges as well as studio resistance to accomplish his goal of changing the look of dance on film. In doing so, he not only influenced cinema history but also inspired groundbreaking creative partnerships with cinematographers, lighting designers, sound engineers, animators, composers, arrangers, musicians, and more. As he once remarked: “There are no auteurs in musical movies. The name of the game is collaboration.”
Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh on 23 August 1912. He began his professional career teaching at his family’s dance studio during the Great Depression while simultaneously earning a bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Pittsburgh. He made his Broadway debut in 1938 as a dancer in Cole Porter’s Leave It to Me! Three years later, after a successful run as the title character in the Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey, Kelly answered Hollywood’s call. His first feature film was the 1942 MGM musical For Me and My Gal, starring opposite the great Judy Garland.
Over the next five decades, Kelly worked on nearly 50 films as an actor, director, choreographer, writer, and producer, often filling multiple roles. He earned a Best Actor nomination for his performance in the 1945 musical Anchors Aweigh. In 1952, following his groundbreaking work in An American in Paris (1951), the Academy of Motion Pictures presented Kelly with an Honorary 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.” That same year, Kelly directed, choreographed, and starred in Singin’ in the Rain (1952). The film consistently ranks among the greatest movies ever made. In 1960, he was honored with the French Legion d’honneur; in 1985 he was presented with the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award; and in 1994 he received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton. Mr. Kelly died in 1996 at the age of 83.
Patricia Ward Kelly is the wife and official biographer of legendary dancer, director and choreographer Gene Kelly. She and her late husband met at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, in 1985, when he was the host/narrator for a television special and she was a writer. Soon after, he invited her to California to write his memoir, a job for which she recorded his words nearly every day for over ten years. They married in 1990 and were together until his death in 1996.
A sought-after public speaker and historian, Mrs. Kelly is often heard on radio and podcasts. She also appears on PBS and Turner Classic Movies, and tours the world with the two shows she’s written about Gene Kelly’s life and work: Gene Kelly Unplugged and Gene Kelly: A Life in Music. She has written for The New York Times, HuffPost, The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Magazine and Turner Classic Movies Film Festival.
Mrs. Kelly is a Patron of The Royal Academy of Dance, The London Ballet Circle, and the UK-based Phoenix Boys, an organization devoted to providing exceptional opportunities for boys in dance. She is also an International Ambassador for Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures.
Currently, Mrs. Kelly serves as trustee of The Gene Kelly Image Trust and Creative Director of The Gene Kelly Legacy, Inc., a corporation established to celebrate Gene Kelly’s artistry worldwide. She lives in Los Angeles where she curates the Gene Kelly Archives and is completing the book about her late husband.
