“A sailor suit or his white socks and loafers, or the T-shirts on his muscular torso, gave everyone the feeling that he was a regular guy, and perhaps they, too, could express love and joy by dancing in the street or stomping through puddles … he democratized the dance in movies. – Kelly’s first wife Betsy Blair.
Born Eugene Curran Kelly in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh to Harriet and James Kelly, he was the middle of five children. He was enrolled in dance lessons by his mother at age 8, but he didn’t last long because of the fistfights he had with neighborhood boys for calling him a sissy.
A slightly chewed-up-looking and faded U.S. census of 1920, shows the Kelly family living at 722 Mellon Street, Ward 11, in Pittsburgh. Present are parents James and Harriet and children Harriet, James, Eugene, Louise, and Frederic. All were born in Pennsylvania except James who immigrated from Canada. James’ occupation is difficult to read and Ancestry interprets it as “manicurist teamster.” I have trouble trying to picture a manicurist teamster. He was actually a phonograph salesman for a gramophone company.
The other residents listed on the page were mainly from Pennsylvania or Ohio, with a few immigrants from Russia and Ireland mixed in. Typical occupations on the block included stenographer, shopkeeper, chauffeur, and several other salesmen.
Later life
Gene went back to dancing at age 15 when he was able to handle himself with the bullies. This problem may have been why he always promoted dancing as a “man’s game” He even created a documentary in 1958 called “Dancing is a Man’s Game” with guests including Mickey Mantle, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Bob Cousy and reinterpreted their moves choreographically. He called his form of dance “dance for the common man.” For this reason, rather than a top hat, tails, and tuxedo, he often danced in everyday work clothes.
His work on Broadway and in films as an actor and director can be seen on his Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kelly
He was given a draft deferment in 1940 at the request of his studio. However, the director of the Selective Service appealed the ruling to President Roosevelt who personally upheld the appeal and had him reclassified 1-A. He served in the Navy Photographic Section in Washington, D.C., during the war.
He was good friends with dancer Fred Astaire but tried to have a different image than his friend. “I used to envy his cool, aristocratic style, so intimate and contained. Fred wears top hat and tails to the manor born—I put them on and look like a truck driver.”
He also differed from Astaire in the filming of dance. Wikipedia says “Astaire revolutionized the filming of dance in the 1930s by insisting on full-figure photography of dancers, while allowing only a modest degree of camera movement, Kelly freed up the camera, making greater use of space, camera movement, camera angles, and editing, creating a partnership between dance movement and camera movement without sacrificing full-figure framing”. This can be seen in the clip of Singing in the Rain at the top of this page.
He directed more than a dozen films including Singing in the Rain, and might have directed The Sound of Music had he not told the screenwriter who brought him the script “Go find someone else to direct this piece of shit.”
Gene Kelly died on February 2, 1996, after a series of strokes.
Other happenings on August 23, 1912:
- Bandar Abbas in Persia (now Iran) was attacked by rebels.
- Sir Hugh Clifford was appointed Governor of the Gold Coast (now Ghana).
- The Pure Food and Drug Act was amended to prohibit drug manufacturers from making false claims on the labels of medication.
- Four-year-old Bobby Dunbar disappeared while his parents were on a fishing trip to a lake near their home in Opelousas, Louisiana. After an eight-month search by Bobby’s father, police in Mississippi would announce that they had found the child under the care of handyman William Cantwell Walters, who said that he had been entrusted to take care of Bruce Anderson by Bruce’s mother. In a dispute between the Dunbars and Mrs. Anderson, a court would award the boy to the Dunbars, while Walters would be convicted of kidnapping Bobby and serve two years before the verdict was reversed. In 2004, a DNA test would show that Walters had been right and that the child returned to the Dunbars had not been Bobby. It was presumed that the child raised by the Dunbars had been Bruce Anderson, who lived until 1966, and that Bobby Dunbar had died more than 91 years earlier.
- Born Nelson Rodrigues, Brazilian playwright, known for plays including The Wedding Dress, in Recife, Brazil (d. 1980)
- Alexey Sudayev, Russian engineer, and designer of the PPS submachine gun and AS-44 assault rifle, in Alatyr, Russia (d. 1946)
Tomorrow – A Promoter/Showman
Sources
- Wikipedia.org
- Ancestry.com
- Onthisday.com
- Picryl.com
- Youtube.com
Famous People and Their First Census 