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Gene Kelly : the making of a creative legend /
"Gene Kelly (1912-1996) was a multi-faceted entertainer whose large fan following views him primarily as a dancer on the big screen. Most people fail to realize that Kelly was a renaissance man--dancer, choreographer, actor, singer, director, teacher-whose career stretched from Broadway musical...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Lawrence, Kansas :
University Press of Kansas,
[2020]
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| Summary: |
"Gene Kelly (1912-1996) was a multi-faceted entertainer whose large fan following views him primarily as a dancer on the big screen. Most people fail to realize that Kelly was a renaissance man--dancer, choreographer, actor, singer, director, teacher-whose career stretched from Broadway musicals in the late 1930s through his domination of the Golden Age of the Hollywood musical in the 1940s and 1950s to television and radio into the 1980s. Yet Kelly's career, unique as it is, has never been given the treatment it deserves: his previous biographers have produced generic narratives about his life and work based on limited research, relying heavily on secondary sources and interviews, and ignoring archival material. Gene Kelly is a completely different kind of biography of Kelly than what has been produced thus far-one based on thorough research in which the authors chart and analyze the trajectories in Kelly's life and career and assess his accomplishments within the wider context of American culture. Hess and Dabholkar not only consulted the vast number of books and articles on Kelly, dance, film, and Hollywood; they conducted extensive archival research, making use of, among other collections, transcriptions of interviews by and about Kelly, Kelly's personal papers, and the papers of several people who worked with him"-- "Whether as a curiosity or a beloved idol, Gene Kelly (1912-1996) lives on in our cultural memory as a fantastic dancer in M-G-M musicals, especially Singin' in the Rain. But dancing, however extraordinary, was only one of his many gifts. This book, for the first time, offers a full picture of Gene Kelly as the Renaissance man he actually was--dancer, yes, but also choreographer, actor, clown, singer, director, teacher, and mentor. Kelly was a star of radio and television as well as film, an avant-garde as artist and auteur but also ahead of the curve in opening the world of dance to differences of race, ethnicity, and gender. Gene Kelly: The Making of a Creative Legend takes us from Kelly's youth in Depression-era Pittsburgh through his years on Broadway and ascendance to stardom in Hollywood. Authors Hess and Dabholkar pay particular attention to his work with the US Navy and lesser-known but considerable accomplishments in television, radio, and on the stage in later years. The book gives us a rare inside look at Kelly's relationships with dancing partners and peers from Leslie Caron, Vera-Ellen, and Cyd Charisse to Fred Astaire, and at his directorial collaboration with Stanley Donen and Vincent Minnelli; and at his solo directing. The authors show us significant but little-examined facets of Kelly's character and career, such as the political convictions that got him graylisted in Hollywood; his passion for creating cine-dance and serving as an ambassador of dance in America; and his forging of links between dance, civil rights, and the "common man." Steeped in research and replete with photographs, this career biography uniquely encompasses all phases of Gene Kelly's life and work--and finally gives us a full portrait of this central figure in the history of the film musical during Hollywood's Golden Age."-- |
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| Physical Description: |
xxi, 554 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 457-534) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780700630172 0700630171 |