Celebrate Gene Kelly's 100th birthday at a retrospective of the dancer-actor-choreographer-director's films now through 4/5 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD outside Washington.
It's also the 70th anniversary of his first movie, "For Me and My Gal" (1942) with Judy Garland, and the 60th anniversary of "Singin' in the Rain" (1952).
"Singin' in the Rain" is #1 on the American Film Institute's (AFI) list of greatest movie musicals. Kelly, #15 on AFI's list of greatest male screen legends, performed the famed dancin' in the rain sequence despite a 103 degree fever.
The 5'7" dancer, who epitomized masculine grace and athleticism, choreographed his 17-minute dream ballet with Leslie Caron in "An American in Paris" (1951), one of the first films chosen by the Library of Congress for its National Film Registry.
In 1951, Kelly was awarded an honorary Oscar for "his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film."
“Trying to integrate the dancing, singing, role-playing into as complete a whole as possible…often meant taking charge of the picture and also acting as director," Gene Kelly has said. "Whatever dancing I constructed and did, with few exceptions, was to bring joy to an audience. For the dramaturgist, this may sound simplistic. For the dancer-choreographer, it represents a helluva lot of hard work.”
Some of his most extraordinary other dancing was in "The Pirate" (1947); the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" sequence with Vera-Ellen in "Words and Music" (1948); "On the Town" (1949); and "Brigadoon" (1954) with Cyd Charisse.
Only one man could equal, and many say, surpass Kelly's skill -- Fred Astaire, of course. (Okay, apologies to tap dancer Donald O'Connor).
Kelly once said, "If I am the Marlon Brando of dancing, Fred Astaire's Cary Grant," according to the biography "Fred Astaire" (Yale University Press) by Joseph Epstein.
Kelly lost a major role to Astaire when Kelly broke his ankle during a backyard volleyball game, and Astaire was called out of retirement to star in "Easter Parade".
"I tried to be completely different from Astaire," Kelly once said. "I had an objection to (that) kind of dancing...There was a lot of great dancing but the trouble was, everybody seemed rich...I wanted to do the dance of the Proletariat, the movements of the people."
Kelly "took dancing out of white tie and tails and set it bubbling on the furnace of street life," according to Sheridan Morley and Ruth Leon in their book "Gene Kelly: A Celebration" (Pavilion).
"The thing Fred Astaire and I used to bitch about," Kelly said, "was that critics didn't know how to categorize us. They called us tap dancers because that was considered the American style. But neither of us were basically tap dancers."
Kelly added, "There was no model for what I tried to do with dance."
He is renowned for what he did with the entire genre of Hollywood musicals.
Eugene Curran Kelly (1912-1996), who said he never wanted to be a dancer, but always wanted to be a shortstop for his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates, received the AFI Life Achievement Award, among many others.
As he said during the 1985 ceremony, "The Pittsburgh Pirates lost a hell of a shortstop."
Schedule of films at AFI Silver:
COVER GIRL
Sat, Feb 4, 5:00; Sun, Feb 5, 6:30; Tue, Feb 7, 9:20
ANCHORS AWAY
Sun, Feb 5, 3:45; Mon, Feb 6, 6:00
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
Fri, Feb 10, 5:10; Sat, Feb 11, 7:20; Sun, Feb 12, 5:00; Tue, Feb 14, 7:15; Thu, Feb 16, 7:15
THE PIRATE
Fri, Feb 17, 5:10; Sat, Feb 18, 1:05; Sun, Feb 19, 11:00 a.m.; Mon, Feb 20, 11:00 a.m.
SUMMER STOCK
Sun, Mar 3, 11:00 a.m.; Mon, Mar 5, 7:30; Tue, Mar 6, 5:05
TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME
Sat, Feb 25, 12:00; Mon, Feb 27, 5:00; Wed, Feb 29, 5:00
ON THE TOWN
Sun, Feb 26, 12:45; Mon, Feb 27, 7:00; Tue, Feb 28, 4:30; Thu, Mar 1, 5:00
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
Sat, Mar 3, 4:30; Sun, Mar 4, 6:30; Tue, Mar 6, 7:20
BRIGADOON
Sat, Mar 10, 3:00; Sun, Mar 11, 11:00 a.m.; Mon, Mar 12, 5:10; Wed, Mar 14, 5:10
IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER
Sat, Mar 10, 11:00 a.m.; Sun, Mar 11, 2:15; Tue, Mar 13, 5:10; Thu, Mar 15, 5:10
LES GIRLS
Mon, Mar 19, 7:10; Wed, Mar 21, 7:00
HELLO DOLLY
Sat, Mar 24, 12:30
XANADU
Fri, Mar 30, 10:00; Sun, Apr 1, 3:10
THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT
Sun, Apr 1, 5:10; Tue, Apr 3, 4:40; Thu, Apr 5, 4:40
For more info coming: AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road at Georgia Avenue, downtown Silver Spring, MD, silverinfo@afi.com, 301-495-6720, recorded program info 301-495-6700.
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