CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.

The anamorphic lenses theoretically allowed the process to create an image of up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, almost twice as wide as the previously common Academy format's 1.37:1 ratio. Although the CinemaScope lens system was made obsolete by new technological developments, primarily advanced by Panavision, the CinemaScope anamorphic format has continued to this day. In film-industry jargon, the shortened form, 'Scope, is still widely used by both filmmakers and projectionists, although today it generally refers to any 2.35:1 or 2.39:1 or 2.40:1 presentation or, sometimes, the use of anamorphic lensing or projection in particular. Bausch & Lomb won a 1954 Oscar for its development of the CinemaScope lens.

Origins[link]

A French inventor named Henri Chrétien developed and patented a new film process that he called Anamorphoscope in 1926. It was this process that would later form the basis for CinemaScope. Chrétien's process was based on lenses that employed an optical trick which produced an image twice as wide as that produced with conventional lenses, using an optical system called hypergonar, compressing (at shoot time) and dilating (at projection time) the image laterally.^[1] Later, in New York, a premiere of Chrétien's new process impressed the major Hollywood film studios of the time, who were eager to win back lost audiences from television’s allure.^[2]

Twentieth Century-Fox bought the rights of the Anamorphoscope. However, the format needed more development before it would be ready to use. The first of Chrétien's lenses were quickly transported to Hollywood where they were further analyzed. From this analysis the basis of CinemaScope was formed. Twentieth Century-Fox's pre-production of The Robe, originally committed to Technicolor Three-Strip origination, was halted so that the film could be changed to a CinemaScope production (using Eastmancolor, but processed by Technicolor), what Fox president Spyros Skouras called the future of filmmaking. With the introduction of CinemaScope, Fox and other companies would be able to re-assert its distinction from its new competitor – television.^[2]

The initial implementation of that which would eventually be called CinemaScope employed the best of the so-called "Chrétien-formula" anamorphoscopes. As these adapter lenses proved to have significant optical and operational defects (primarily loss-of-squeeze at close camera-to-subject distances, plus the requirement of two camera assistants), Bausch & Lomb, Fox's prime contractor for the production of these lenses, initially produced an improved "Chrétien-formula" adapter lens design (CinemaScope Adapter Type I), and subsequently produced a dramatically improved and patented "Bausch & Lomb formula" adapter lens design (CinemaScope Adapter Type II), and, finally, produced "Bausch & Lomb formula" "combined" lens designs, which incorporated both the "prime" lens and the anamorphic lens in one unit (initially in 35, 40, 50, 75, 100 and 152mm focal lengths, and later including a 25mm focal length). These "combined" lenses continue to be used to this day, especially in special effects units, although other manufacturers's lenses are often preferred for so-called "production" applications on account of their significantly lighter weight, or lower distortion, or a combination of both characteristics.

Early implementations[link]

The original expectation was that CinemaScope would use a separate film for sound (see Audio below) thus enabling the full "silent" 1.33:1 aperture to be available for the picture with a 2:1 anamorphic sqeeze applied that would allow an aspect ratio of 2.66:1. When, however, it was found possible to add magnetic stripes to the film to produce a composite picture/sound print, the ratio of the image was reduced to 2.55:1. This reduction was kept to a minimum by reducing the width of the normal KS perforations so that they were nearly square, but of DH height, thus, the CinemaScope, or CS perforation was born, known colloquially as "fox-holes". Later still an optical soundtrack was added reducing the aspect ratio further to 2.35:1. This change also meant a shift in the optical center of the projected image, although all of Fox's CinemaScope films were made using a silent/full aperture for the negatives as was this studio's practice for all films, whether anamorphic or not.

In order to better hide so-called "negative assembly" splices, the ratio of the image was later changed by others to 2.39:1 and, finally, to 2.40:1, although all professional cameras are capable of shooting 2.55:1 (special 'Scope aperture plate) or 2.66:1 (standard "Full"/"Silent" aperture plate, preferred by many producers and all optical houses), and 2.35:1 or 2.39:1 or 2.40:1 is simply a hard-matted version of the others.

The Robe was the first film to start production in CinemaScope, a project that was selected by Fox because of its epic nature. During production, two other films, How to Marry a Millionaire and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef went into production. Millionaire finished production first, before The Robe, but because of its importance, The Robe was released first.

Fox utilized its influential people to promote CinemaScope. With the success of The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire, the process enjoyed success in Hollywood. Fox licensed the process to many of the major film studios including Columbia, Warner Bros., Universal, MGM and Walt Disney Productions.

The Walt Disney Company was one of the first companies to license the CinemaScope process from Fox, and among the features and shorts they filmed with it, created one of the best-regarded examples of early CinemaScope productions with the live-action epic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.^[3] Walt Disney's first animated feature to use CinemaScope was Lady and the Tramp in 1955.

Due to initial uncertainty a number of films were shot simultaneously with anamorphic and regular lenses. Despite early success with the process, Fox did not stick to their claim of shooting every production with the process. CinemaScope as a trade name was reserved for "A" productions, while "B" productions in black and white commenced in 1956 at Fox under the trade name, "RegalScope", although RegalScope employed the very same optics as CinemaScope, but, usually, a different camera system (Mitchell BNCs at TCF-TV studios for RegalScope rather than Fox Studio Cameras at Fox Hills studios for CinemaScope).

Audio[link]

Fox officials were keen that the sound of their new wide-screen film format should be as impressive as the picture, and that meant it should include true stereophonic sound. Previously stereo sound in the commercial cinema had always employed separate sound films, Walt Disney's 1940 release 'Fantasia' had used a three-channel soundtrack played from separate optical film.^[4] Early post-war stereo systems used with Cinerama and some 3D films had used multichannel audio played from a separate magnetic film. Fox had initially intended to use 3 channel stereo from magnetic film for CinemaScope.

However, Hazard E. Reeves' sound company had devised a method of coating 35mm stock with magnetic stripes and designed a 3 channel (left, center, right) system based on three .063" (1.6mm) wide stripes, one on each edge of the film outside the perforations, and one between the picture and the perforations in approximately the position of a standard optical soundtrack. Later it was found possible to add a narrower .029" (0.74mm) stripe between the picture and perforations on the other side of the film; this fourth track was used for a surround channel, also sometimes known at the time as an "effects" channel. In order to avoid hiss on the surround/effects channel from distracting the audience the surround speakers were switched on by a 12 kHz tone recorded on the surround track only whilst wanted surround program material was present.^[5]

This 4-track magnetic sound system was also used for some non-CinemaScope films, for example Fantasia was re-released in 1956, 1963, and 1969 with the original Fantasound track transferred to 4-track magnetic.

Rival processes[link]

CinemaScope itself was a response to early "realism" processes Cinerama and 3-D. Cinerama was relatively unaffected by CinemaScope, as it was a quality-controlled process that played in select venues, similar to the IMAX films of recent years. 3-D was hurt, however, by studio advertising surrounding CinemaScope's promise that it was the "miracle you see without glasses." Technical difficulties in presentation spelled the true end for 3-D, but studio hype was quick to hail it a "victory" for CinemaScope.

In April 1953, a technique simply now known as "wide-screen" appeared and was soon adopted as a standard by all "flat" film productions in the US. In this process, a fully exposed 1.37:1 Academy ratio-area is cropped in the projector to a wide-screen aspect ratio by the use of an aperture plate, also known as a soft matte. Most films shot today use this technique, cropping the top and bottom of a 1.37:1 image to produce one at a ratio of 1.85:1.

Aware of Fox's upcoming CinemaScope productions, Paramount introduced this technique in March's release of Shane with the 1.66:1 aspect ratio, although the film was not shot with this ratio originally in mind. Universal-International followed suit in May with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio for Thunder Bay. By summer of 1953, Paramount, Universal, MGM, Columbia, and even Fox's B-unit contractors, under the banner of "Panoramic Productions" had switched from filming flat shows in a 1.37:1 format, and used variable flat wide-screen aspect ratios in their filming.

The fundamental technique that CinemaScope utilised was not patentable because the anamorphoscope had been known for centuries. Anamorphosis had been used in visual media such as Hans Holbein's painting, The Ambassadors (1533). Some studios thus sought to develop their own system rather than pay Fox.

In response to the demands for a higher visual resolution spherical widescreen process, Paramount created an optical process, VistaVision, which shot horizontally on the 35 mm film roll, and then printed down to standard 4-perf vertical 35 mm. Thus, a negative with a finer grain was created and release prints had less grain. The first Paramount film in VistaVision was White Christmas. VistaVision died out in the late 1950s, with the introduction of faster film stocks.

RKO used the Superscope process in which the standard 35 mm image was cropped and then optically squeezed in post-production to create an anamorphic image on film. Today's Super 35 is a variation of this process.

Another process called Techniscope was developed by Technicolor Inc. in the early 1960s, using normal 35 mm cameras modified for two perforations per (half) frame instead of the regular four and later converted into an anamorphic print. Techniscope was mostly used in Europe, especially with low budget films.

Many European countries and studios used the standard anamorphic process for their wide-screen films, identical in technical specifications to CinemaScope, and renamed to avoid the copyrights of Fox. Some of these include Euroscope, Franscope, and Naturama (the latter used by Republic Pictures). In 1953, Warner Brothers also planned to develop an identical anamorphic process called Warnerscope, but after the premiere of CinemaScope, Warners decided to license it from Fox instead.

Technical difficulties[link]

A CinemaScope 35 mm film frame showing a circle. It has been squeezed by a ratio of 2:1 by an anamorphic camera lens. The anamorphic projection lens will stretch the image horizontally to show a normal round circle on the screen.

Although CinemaScope was capable of producing a 2.66:1 image, the addition of magnetic sound tracks for multi-channel sound reduced this to 2.55:1.

The fact that the image was expanded horizontally when projected meant that there could be visible graininess and brightness problems. To combat this, larger film formats were developed (initially a too-costly 55 mm for Carousel and The King and I) and then abandoned (both films were eventually reduction printed at 35 mm, although the aspect ratio was kept at 2.55:1). Later Fox re-released The King and I in the 65/70 mm format. The initial problems with grain and brightness were eventually reduced thanks to improvements in film stock and lenses.

The CinemaScope lenses were optically flawed, however, by the fixed anamorphic element, which caused the anamorphic effect to gradually drop off as objects approached closer to the lens. The effect was that close-ups would slightly overstretch an actor's face, a problem that soon became referred to as "the mumps". This problem was avoided at first by composing wider shots, but as anamorphic technology lost its novelty, directors and cinematographers sought compositional freedom from these limitations. Issues with the lenses also made it difficult to photograph animation using the CinemaScope process. Nevertheless, many animated short films and a few features were filmed in CinemaScope during the 1950s, including Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp (1955).

Decline[link]

Lens manufacturer Panavision was initially founded in late 1953 as a manufacturer of anamorphic lens adapters for movie projectors screening CinemaScope films, capitalizing on the success of the new anamorphic format and filling in the gap created by Bausch and Lomb's inability to mass produce the needed adapters for movie theaters fast enough. Looking to expand beyond projector lenses, Panavision founder Robert Gottschalk soon improved upon the anamorphic camera lenses by creating a new lens set that included dual rotating anamorphic elements which were interlocked with the lens focus gearing. This innovation allowed the Panavision lenses to keep the plane of focus at a constant anamorphic ratio of 2x, thus avoiding the over-stretched "mumps" effect found in CinemaScope. After screening a demo reel comparing the two systems, many US studios adopted the Panavision anamorphic lenses. The Panavision technique was also considered more attractive to the industry because it was more affordable than CinemaScope and was not owned or licensed-out by a rival studio. Confusingly, some studios, particularly MGM, continued to use the CinemaScope credit even though they had switched to Panavision lenses. Virtually all MGM "CinemaScope" films after 1958 are actually in Panavision.^{[citation needed]} By 1967 even Fox had begun to abandon CinemaScope for Panavision (famously at the demand of Frank Sinatra for Von Ryan's Express), although a significant amount of the principal photography was actually filmed using CinemaScope lenses. Fox eventually capitulated completely to third-party lenses by 1967. Caprice, a spy spoof with Doris Day, was Fox's final film in CinemaScope.^[6]

Fox originally intended CinemaScope films to use magnetic stereo sound only, and although in certain areas, such as Los Angeles and New York City, the vast majority of theaters were equipped for 4-track magnetic sound (4-track magnetic sound achieving nearly 90 percent penetration of theaters in the greater Los Angeles area) the owners of many smaller theaters were dissatisfied with contractually having to install expensive three- or four-track magnetic stereo, and because of the technical nature of sound installations, drive-in theaters had trouble presenting stereophonic sound at all. Due to these conflicts, and because other studios were starting to release anamorphic prints with standard optical soundtracks, Fox revoked their policy of stereo-only presentations in 1957, and added a half-width optical soundtrack, while keeping the magnetic tracks for those theaters that were able to present their films with stereophonic sound. These so-called "mag-optical" prints provided a somewhat sub-standard optical sound and were also expensive to produce. It made little economic sense to supply those theaters which had only mono sound systems with an expensive striped print. Eventually Fox, and others, elected to supply the majority of their prints in standard mono optical sound form, with magnetic striped prints reserved for those theaters capable of playing them.

Magnetic striped prints were expensive to produce; each print cost at least twice as much as a print with a standard optical soundtrack only. Furthermore these striped prints wore out faster than optical prints and caused more problems in use, such as flakes of oxide clogging the replay heads. Due to these problems, and also because many cinemas never installed the necessary playback equipment, magnetic sound prints started to be made in small quantities for "roadshow" screenings only, with the main release using standard mono optical sound prints. As time went by roadshow screenings were increasingly made using 70mm film, and the use of striped 35mm prints declined further. Many CinemaScope films from the 1960s and 1970s were never released in stereo at all. Finally the introduction in 1976 of Dolby Stereo, which provided a similar performance to striped magnetic prints but more reliably and at a far lower cost, caused the 4-track magnetic system to become totally obsolete.

Modern references[link]

While the lens system has been retired for decades, Fox has used the trademark in recent years on at least three films: Down with Love, which was shot with Panavision optics but used the credit as a throwback to the films it references, and the Don Bluth films Anastasia and Titan A.E. at Bluth's insistence. Nonetheless, these films are not true CinemaScope as they use modern lenses. CinemaScope's association with anamorphic projection is still so embedded in mass consciousness that all anamorphic prints are now referred to generically as "'Scope" prints.

In the 1963 Jean-Luc Godard film Contempt (Le Mepris), filmmaker Fritz Lang makes a disparaging comment about CinemaScope: "Oh, it wasn't meant for human beings. Just for snakes – and funerals." Ironically, Contempt was shot in CinemaScope.

The 1988 John Waters film Hairspray uses the trademark as a crack on the weight of an overweight teenage girl who wants to star on a TV dance show: "please; this show isn't broadcasted in CinemaScope!". A 2002 Broadway musical version of Hairspray and a 2007 film adaptation of the Broadway show retain this joke as part of the lyrics of one of the show's songs, "(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs".

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: CinemaScope

• Anamorphic widescreen
• Films shot in CinemaScope
• List of film formats
• Super 35
• CinemaScope 55

References[link]

Raoul Coutard (born 16 September 1924, Paris) is a French cinematographer. He is most often associated with the Nouvelle Vague period and particularly for his work with director Jean-Luc Godard. Coutard also shot films for New Wave director François Truffaut as well as Jacques Demy, a contemporary frequently associated with the movement.

He shot over 75 films during a career that lasted nearly half a century.

Biography[link]

Coutard originally planned to study chemistry, but switched to photography because of the cost of tuition.^[1] In 1945, Coutard was sent to participate in the French Indochina War; he lived in Vietnam for the next 11 years, working as a war photographer, eventually becoming a freelancer for Paris Match and Look. In 1956, he was approached to shoot a film by Pierre Schoendoerffer, La Passe du Diable. Coutard had never used a movie camera before, and reportedly agreed to the job because of a misunderstanding (he believed he was being hired to shoot production stills of the film).

Collaboration with Godard[link]

Coutard's first work collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard was Godard's first feature, À bout de souffle, shot in 1959. He was reportedly "imposed" on Godard by producer Georges de Beauregard; the director had already settled on a different cinematographer.^[1]

Coutard photographed nearly all of Godard's work in the nouvelle vague era (1959 - 1967), with the exception of Masculin, féminin; their last work during this period was Weekend (1967), which marked the end of Godard's work as a 'mainstream' filmmaker. The two did not work together again until Passion; their final collaboration was Godard's next feature, Prénom Carmen.

During the New Wave period, Coutard's work with Godard fell into two categories: black-and-white films, which were all shot full frame, and color films, which were all shot in widescreen. The black-and-white films, which were mostly made on lower budgets, are notable for their use of hand-held camera work and natural lighting, which lends them an unpolished, documentary quality, crucial to Godard's style, second nature to Coutard. However, in interiors, natural lighting was not always sufficient, and starting with Vivre Sa Vie (1962) Coutard devised a simple lighting rig suspended just below the ceiling with a number of small lights directed onto the ceiling, where white cards were placed to bounce maximum light in an ambient diffusion, giving the whole room of a location adequate light within which Godard could then improvise various camera set-ups. So pleased was Godard with Coutard's lighting arrangement he promptly devised a 360 degree camera pan to exploit this freedom ^[2]. A similar 'documentary aesthetic' is pursued by all of Godard's cinematographers, although handheld camera tends to be replaced with more conventional mounting, in Godard's later work. Godard's first color film (shot by Coutard), Une Femme est une femme (1961), featured handheld shooting, sometimes even within its studio sets, while later ones, Le Mepris (1963) Pierrot Le Fou (1965) Deux ou Trois chose que je sais d'elle (1966) Le Weekend (1967) tend to coincide with Godard's growing preference for longer, more conventionally mounted camera work, either in fixed frame, pans, or tracking shots. Work in the 80s and 90s becomes even more refined, consisting of elaborate tableaux or stage directions within a fixed frame, usually on a long lens, enabling abrupt and conspicuous focus pulls between background and foreground (Sauve qui peut (1980) Passion (1982) Prenom Carmen (1983). The last two were photographed by Coutard using no additional lighting whatsoever, but taking advantage of recent developments in camera lenses and film stock to press the documentary approach in striking ways.

Post-nouvelle vague Career[link]

After photographing some of the last films made during the nouvelle vague era - Le weekend for Godard and Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black - Coutard worked on Costa-Gavras' Academy Award-winning Z (1969). [Coutard and Truffaut fought heavily over the cinematography of The Bride Wore Black, reported TCM host Robert Osborne after the cable network's 2009 showing of the picture.]

In 1970, Coutard wrote and directed his first feature film, Hoa Binh, for which he won the Prix Jean Vigo and an award at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.^[3] The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.^[4] Coutard shot two more features over the course of the next fifteen years: La Légion saute sur Kolwezi^[5] in 1980 and S.A.S. à San Salvador in 1983. Coutard's cinematographer on all of his features was Georges Liron, who had been his frequent camera operator^[6] during his collaboration with Godard and with whom he'd served as co-cinematographer on the Irish documentary Rocky Road to Dublin (1967).

As a cinematographer, Coutard was less active in 1970s than the 1960s. When he reunited with Godard in 1982, Coutard had shot only 7 films in a the last decade, with 5 of them in 1972-73.^[7] After the two Godard collaborations, he began working more frequently again.

During the 1990s, Coutard began working with director Philippe Garrel; his most recent work is Garrell's Sauvage Innocence, which was released 2001.

Selected filmography (as cinematographer)[link]

• La Passe du Diable (The Devil's Pass) (1958)
• Ramuntcho (1959)
• Pêcheur d'Islande (Iceland Fisherman) (1959)
• À bout de souffle (Breathless) (1960)
• Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) (1960)
• Une Femme est une femme (A Woman Is a Woman) (1961)
• Vivre sa Vie: Film en Douze Tableaux (My Life to Live) (1962)
• Jules et Jim (1962)
• Le Mépris (Contempt) (1963)
• Les plus belles escroqueries du monde (The most beautiful swindles in the world) (1964)
• La Peau Douce (The Soft Skin) (1964)
• Bande à part (aka. Band of Outsiders) (1964)
• Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Alphaville, a Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution) (1965)
• Pierrot le Fou (Crazy Pete or Pete Goes Wild) (1965)
• La Chinoise (1967)
• Week End (1967)
• Z (1969)
• L'Aveu (1970)
• Le Crabe-tambour (1977)
• Passion (1982)
• Prénom Carmen (1983)
• Max, Mon Amour (Max, My Love) (1986)

Filmography (as director)[link]

• Hoa-Binh (1970)
• La Légion saute sur Kolwezi (1980)
• S.A.S. à San Salvador (1983)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Raoul Coutard at the Internet Movie Database
• "Images of Perfection" - Interview with Guardian Film
• Raoul Coutard video at Web of Stories

For people named Jean Kelly, see Jean Kelly (disambiguation).

Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly in 1943
Born	Eugene Curran Kelly (1912-08-23)August 23, 1912 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	February 2, 1996(1996-02-02) (aged 83) Beverly Hills, California
Occupation	Actor, dancer, singer, director, producer, choreographer
Years active	1938–1994
Spouse	Betsy Blair (m.1941-1957; divorced) Jeanne Coyne (m.1960-1973; her death) Patricia Ward (m.1990-1996; his death)

Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly (August 23, 1912 - February 2, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer. Kelly was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks and the likeable characters that he played on screen.

Although he is known today for his performances in Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris, he was a dominant force in Hollywood musical films from the mid 1940s until this art form fell out of fashion in the late 1950s. His many innovations transformed the Hollywood musical film, and he is credited with almost single-handedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences.^[1]

Kelly was the recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements. He later received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors, and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute; in 1999, the American Film Institute also numbered him 15th in their Greatest Male Stars of All Time list.

Early life[link]

Kelly's senior picture from the 1933 yearbook of the University of Pittsburgh

Kelly was born in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He was the third son of Harriet Catherine (née Curran) and James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman.^[2] His father was born in Peterborough, Canada, to a family of Irish descent. His maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Derry in northern Ireland and his maternal grandmother was of German ancestry.^[3] At the age of eight, Kelly was enrolled by his mother in dance classes, along with his elder brother James. They both rebelled, and, according to Kelly: "We didn't like it much and were continually involved in fistfights with the neighborhood boys who called us sissies...I didn't dance again until I was fifteen." He thought it would be a good way to get girls.^[4] Kelly returned to dance on his own initiative and by then was an accomplished sportsman and well able to take care of himself. He attended St. Raphael Elementary School ^[5] in the Morningside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. He graduated from Peabody High School in 1929 at the age of sixteen. He enrolled in Pennsylvania State College to study journalism but the economic crash obliged him to seek employment to help with the family's finances. At this time, he worked up dance routines with his younger brother Fred in order to earn prize money in local talent contests, and they also performed in local nightclubs.^[4]

In 1931, Kelly enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh to study economics where he joined the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity.^[6] While at Pitt, Kelly became involved in the university's Cap and Gown Club, which staged original, comedic musical productions.^[7] Earning a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with his graduation from Pitt in 1933, he remained active with the Cap and Gown Club, serving as its director from 1934 to 1938, while at the same time enrolling in the University of Pittsburgh Law School.^[8] Also during this period, Kelly's family started a dance studio on Munhall Road in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. In 1932, the dance studio was renamed The Gene Kelly Studio of the Dance. A second location was opened in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1933. Kelly served as a teacher at the studio during both his undergraduate and law student years at Pitt. In 1931, he was approached by the Rodef Shalom synagogue in Pittsburgh to teach dance, and to stage the annual Kermess. This venture was successful enough that his services were retained for seven years until his departure for New York.^[9] Eventually, though, he decided to pursue his career as a dance teacher and full-time entertainer, so Kelly dropped out of law school after two months. He began to increasingly focus on performing and later claimed: "With time I became disenchanted with teaching because the ratio of girls to boys was more than ten to one, and once the girls reached sixteen the dropout rate was very high."^[4] In 1937, having successfully managed and developed the family's dance school business, he finally did move to New York City in search of work as a choreographer.^[4]

Stage career[link]

After a fruitless search, Kelly returned to Pittsburgh, to his first position as a choreographer with the Charles Gaynor musical revue Hold Your Hats at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in April, 1938. Kelly appeared in six of the sketches, one of which, "La Cumparsita", became the basis of an extended Spanish number in Anchors Aweigh" eight years later.

His first Broadway assignment, in November 1938, was as a dancer in Cole Porter's Leave It to Me! as the American ambassador's secretary who supports Mary Martin while she sings "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". He had been hired by Robert Alton who had staged a show at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and been impressed by Kelly's teaching skills. When Alton moved on to choreograph One for the Money he hired Kelly to act, sing and dance in a total of eight routines. In 1939, he was selected to be part of a musical revue "One for the Money" produced by the actress Katharine Cornell, who was known for finding and hiring talented young actors.

Kelly's first career breakthrough was in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life, which opened on October 25, 1939, where for the first time on Broadway he danced to his own choreography. In the same year he received his first assignment as a Broadway choreographer, for Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe. His future wife, Betsy Blair, was a member of the cast. They began dating and married on October 16, 1941.

In 1940, he was given the leading role in Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, again choreographed by Robert Alton, and this role propelled him to stardom. During its run he told reporters: "I don't believe in conformity to any school of dancing. I create what the drama and the music demand. While I am a hundred percent for ballet technique, I use only what I can adapt to my own use. I never let technique get in the way of mood or continuity."^[4] It was at this time also, that his phenomenal commitment to rehearsal and hard work was noticed by his colleagues. Van Johnson who also appeared in Pal Joey recalled: "I watched him rehearsing, and it seemed to me that there was no possible room for improvement. Yet he wasn't satisfied. It was midnight and we had been rehearsing since eight in the morning. I was making my way sleepily down the long flight of stairs when I heard staccato steps coming from the stage...I could see just a single lamp burning. Under it, a figure was dancing...Gene."^[4]

Offers from Hollywood began to arrive but Kelly was in no particular hurry to leave New York. Eventually, he signed with David O. Selznick, agreeing to go to Hollywood at the end of his commitment to Pal Joey, in October 1941. Prior to his contract, he also managed to fit in choreographing the stage production of Best Foot Forward.

Film career[link]

1941–1944: Becoming established in Hollywood[link]

Selznick sold half of Kelly's contract to MGM and loaned him out to MGM for his first motion picture: For Me and My Gal (1942) with Judy Garland. Kelly was "appalled at the sight of myself blown up twenty times. I had an awful feeling that I was a tremendous flop" but the picture did well and, in the face of much internal resistance, Arthur Freed of MGM picked up the other half of Kelly's contract.^[4] After appearing in the B-movie drama Pilot #5 he took the male lead in Cole Porter's Du Barry Was a Lady opposite Lucille Ball. His first opportunity to dance to his own choreography came in his next picture Thousands Cheer, where he performed a mock-love dance with a mop.

He achieved his breakthrough as a dancer on film when MGM loaned him out to Columbia to work with Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl (1944), where he created a memorable routine dancing to his own reflection. In his next film Anchors Aweigh (1945), MGM virtually gave him a free hand to devise a range of dance routines, including the celebrated and much imitated animated dances with Jerry Mouse, and his duets with co-star Frank Sinatra.^[10] Anchors Aweigh became one of the most successful films of 1945 and it garnered Kelly his first and only Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In Ziegfeld Follies (1946) – which was produced in 1944 but not released until 1946 – Kelly collaborated with Fred Astaire – for whom he had the greatest admiration – in the famous "The Babbitt and the Bromide" challenge dance routine.

At the end of 1944, Kelly enlisted in the U.S. Naval Air Service and was commissioned as lieutenant junior grade. He was stationed in the Photographic Section, Washington D.C., where he was involved in writing and directing a range of documentaries, and this stimulated his interest in the production side of film-making.^[6][11]

1946–1952: MGM[link]

On his return to Hollywood in the spring of 1946, MGM had nothing lined up and used him in yet another B-movie: Living in a Big Way. The film was considered so weak that Kelly was asked to design and insert a series of dance routines, and his ability to carry off such assignments was noticed. This led to his next picture with Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli, the film version of Cole Porter's The Pirate, in which Kelly plays the eponymous swashbuckler. Now regarded as a classic, the film was ahead of its time and was not well received. The Pirate gave full rein to Kelly's athleticism and is probably best remembered for Kelly's work with The Nicholas Brothers – the leading African-American dancers of their day – in a virtuoso dance routine.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949)

Although MGM wanted Kelly to return to safer and more commercial vehicles, he ceaselessly fought for an opportunity to direct his own musical film. In the interim, he capitalised on his swashbuckling image as d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers. and also appeared with Vera-Ellen in the Slaughter on Tenth Avenue ballet in Words and Music (1948). He was due to play the male lead opposite Garland in Easter Parade (1948), but broke his ankle playing volleyball. He withdrew from the film and encouraged Fred Astaire to come out of retirement to replace him.^[12] There followed Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), his second film with Sinatra, where Kelly paid tribute to his Irish heritage in The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day routine. It was this musical film which persuaded Arthur Freed to allow Kelly to make On the Town, where he partnered with Frank Sinatra for the third and final time, creating a breakthrough in the musical film genre which has been described as "the most inventive and effervescent musical thus far produced in Hollywood."^[4]

Stanley Donen, brought to Hollywood by Kelly to be his assistant choreographer, received co-director credit for On the Town. According to Kelly: "...when you are involved in doing choreography for film you must have expert assistants. I needed one to watch my performance, and one to work with the cameraman on the timing..without such people as Stanley, Carol Haney and Jeanne Coyne I could never have done these things. When we came to do On the Town, I knew it was time for Stanley to get screen credit because we weren't boss-assistant anymore but co-creators."^[4][13] Together, they opened up the musical form, taking the film musical out of the studio and into real locations, with Donen taking responsibility for the staging and Kelly handling the choreography. Kelly went much further than before in introducing modern ballet into his dance sequences, going so far in the "Day in New York" routine as to substitute four leading ballet specialists for Sinatra, Munshin, Garrett and Miller.^[6]

It was now Kelly's turn to ask the studio for a straight acting role and he took the lead role in the early mafia melodrama: The Black Hand (1949). This expose of organized crime is set in New York's "Little Italy" the late 19th century, and focuses on the Black Hand, a group which extorts money upon threat of death. In the real-life incidents upon which this film is based, it was the Mafia, not the Black Hand, who functioned as the villain. Even in 1950, however, Hollywood had to tread gingerly whenever dealing with big-time crime; it was easier (and safer) to go after a "dead" criminal organization than a "live" one.

There followed Summer Stock (1950) – Judy Garland's last musical film for MGM – in which Kelly performed the celebrated "You, You Wonderful You" solo routine with a newspaper and a squeaky floorboard. In his book "Easy the Hard Way", Joe Pasternak, head of one of the other musical units within MGM, singled out Kelly for his patience and willingness to spend as much time as necessary to enable the ailing Garland to complete her part.^[4]

There followed in quick succession two musicals which have secured Kelly's reputation as a major figure in the American musical film, An American in Paris (1951) and – probably the most popular and admired of all film musicals – Singin' in the Rain (1952). As co-director, lead star and choreographer, Kelly was the central driving force. Johnny Green, head of music at MGM at the time, described him as follows:

"Gene is easygoing as long as you know exactly what you are doing when you're working with him. He's a hard taskmaster and he loves hard work. If you want to play on his team you'd better like hard work, too. He isn't cruel but he is tough, and if Gene believed in something he didn't care who he was talking to, whether it was Louis B. Mayer or the gatekeeper. He wasn't awed by anybody, and he had a good record of getting what he wanted".^[4]

An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and, in the same year, Kelly was presented with an honorary Academy Award for his contribution to film musicals and the art of choreography. The film also marked the debut of Leslie Caron, whom Kelly had spotted in Paris and brought to Hollywood. Its dream ballet sequence, lasting an unprecedented seventeen minutes, was the most expensive production number ever filmed up to that point and was described by Bosley Crowther as, "whoop-de-doo ... one of the finest ever put on the screen."^[6] Singin' in the Rain featured Kelly's celebrated and much imitated solo dance routine to the title song, along with the "Moses Supposes" routine with Donald O'Connor and the "Broadway Melody" finale with Cyd Charisse, and while it did not initially generate the same enthusiasm as An American in Paris, it subsequently overtook the earlier film to occupy its current pre-eminent place among critics and filmgoers alike.^[14]

1953–57: The Decline of the Hollywood Musical[link]

Kelly, at the very peak of his creative powers, now made what in retrospect is seen as a serious mistake.^[6] In December 1951 he signed a contract with MGM which sent him to Europe for nineteen months so that Kelly could use MGM funds frozen in Europe to make three pictures while personally benefiting from tax exemptions. Only one of these pictures was a musical, Invitation to the Dance, a pet project of Kelly's to bring modern ballet to mainstream film audiences. It was beset with delays and technical problems, and flopped when finally released in 1956. When Kelly returned to Hollywood in 1953, the film musical was already beginning to feel the pressures from television, and MGM cut the budget for his next picture Brigadoon (1954), with Cyd Charisse, forcing the film to be made on studio backlots instead of on location in Scotland. This year also saw him appear as guest star with his brother Fred in the celebrated "I Love to Go Swimmin' with Wimmen" routine in Deep in My Heart. MGM's refusal to loan him out for Guys and Dolls and Pal Joey put further strains on his relationship with the studio. He negotiated an exit to his contract which involved making three further pictures for MGM.

The first of these, It's Always Fair Weather (1956) co-directed with Donen, was a musical satire on television and advertising, and includes his famous roller skate dance routine to "I Like Myself", and a dance trio with Michael Kidd and Dan Dailey which allowed Kelly to experiment with the widescreen possibilities of Cinemascope. A modest success, it was followed by Kelly's last musical film for MGM, Les Girls (1957), in which he partnered a trio of leading ladies, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall and Taina Elg, fittingly ending, as he had begun, with a Cole Porter musical. The third picture he completed was a co-production between MGM and himself, the B-movie The Happy Road, set in his beloved France, his first foray in his new role as producer-director-actor.

1958–1996: Years of perseverance[link]

Leaving MGM in 1957, Kelly returned to stage work. When in 1958 he directed Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical play Flower Drum Song.^[15] Early in 1960, Kelly, an ardent Francophile and fluent French speaker, was invited by A. M. Julien, the general administrator of the Paris Opéra and Opéra-Comique,^[4] to select his own material and create a modern ballet for the company, the first time an American had received such an assignment. The result was Pas de Dieux, based on Greek mythology, combined with the music of George Gershwin's Concerto in F. It was a major success, and led to his being honoured with the Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur by the French Government.

Kelly as Hornbeck in Inherit the Wind

Kelly continued to make some film appearances, such as Hornbeck in the 1960 Hollywood production of Inherit the Wind. However, most of his efforts were now concentrated on film production and directing. In 1962, he directed Jackie Gleason in Gigot in Paris, but the film was drastically re-cut by Seven Arts Productions and flopped.^[6] Another French effort, Jacques Demy's homage to the MGM musical: Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967) in which Kelly appeared, was popular in France and nominated for Academy Awards for Best Music and Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) but performed poorly, elsewhere. He appeared as himself in George Cukor's Let's Make Love (1960).

His first foray into television was a documentary for NBC's Omnibus, Dancing is a Man's Game (1958) where he assembled a group of America's greatest sportsmen – including Mickey Mantle, Sugar Ray Robinson and Bob Cousy – and re-interpreted their moves choreographically, as part of his lifelong quest to remove the effeminate stereotype of the art of dance, while articulating the philosophy behind his dance style.^[6] It gained an Emmy nomination for choreography and now stands as the key document explaining Kelly's approach to modern dance.

Kelly also frequently appeared on television shows during the 1960s, but his one effort at television series, as Father Chuck O'Malley in Going My Way (1962–63), based on the Best Picture of 1944 starring Bing Crosby, was dropped after thirty episodes, although it enjoyed great popularity in Roman Catholic countries outside of the United States.^[6] He also appeared in three major TV specials: New York, New York (1966), The Julie Andrews' Show (1965), and Jack and the Beanstalk (1967) a show he produced and directed which returned to a combination of cartoon animation with live dance, winning him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program.

In 1963, Kelly joined Universal Pictures for a two-year stint, which proved to be the most unproductive period of his career at that point. He joined 20th Century Fox in 1965, but had little to do – partly due to his decision to decline assignments away from Los Angeles for family reasons. His perseverance finally paid off, with the major box-office hit A Guide for the Married Man (1967) where he directed Walter Matthau. Then, a major opportunity arose when Fox – buoyed by the returns from The Sound of Music (1965) – commissioned Kelly to direct Hello, Dolly! (1969), again directing Matthau along with Barbra Streisand, but which unfortunately failed to recoup the enormous production expenses.

In 1970, he made another TV special: Gene Kelly and 50 Girls and was invited to bring the show to Las Vegas, Nevada, which he duly did for an eight-week stint – on condition he be paid more than any artist had hitherto been paid there.^[6] He directed veteran actors James Stewart and Henry Fonda in the comedy western The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) which performed very well at the box-office. In 1973, he would work again with Frank Sinatra as part of Sinatra's Emmy nominated TV special Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. Then, in 1974, he appeared as one of many special narrators in the surprise hit of the year That's Entertainment! and subsequently directed and co-starred with his friend Fred Astaire in the sequel That's Entertainment, Part II (1976). It was a measure of his powers of persuasion that he managed to coax the 77-year-old Astaire – who had insisted that his contract rule out any dancing, having long since retired – into performing a series of song and dance duets, evoking a powerful nostalgia for the glory days of the American musical film. Kelly continued to make frequent TV appearances and, in 1980, appeared in an acting and dancing role opposite Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu (1980), an expensive theatrical flop which has since attained a cult following.^[6] In Kelly's opinion, "The concept was marvelous but it just didn't come off."^[4] In the same year, he was invited by Francis Ford Coppola to recruit a production staff for American Zoetrope's One from the Heart (1982). Although Coppola's ambition was for him to establish a production unit to rival the Freed Unit at MGM, the film's failure put an end to this idea.^[6] In 1985, Kelly served as executive producer and co-host of That's Dancing! – a celebration of the history of dance in the American musical. After his final on-screen appearance, introducing That's Entertainment! III, in 1994, his final film project was the animated movie Cats Don't Dance, released in 1997 and dedicated to him, on which Kelly acted as uncredited choreographic consultant.

Working methods and influence on filmed dance[link]

When he began his collaborative film work, he was influenced by Robert Alton and John Murray Anderson, striving to create moods and character insight with his dances. He choreographed his own movement, along with that of the ensemble, with the assistance of Jeanne Coyne, Stanley Donen, Carol Haney, and Alex Romero.^[1] He experimented with lighting, camera techniques and special effects in order to achieve true integration of dance with film, and was one of the first to use split screens, double images, live action with animation and is credited as the person who made the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences.^[1]

There was a clear progression in his development, from an early concentration on tap and musical comedy style to greater complexity using ballet and modern dance forms.^[16] Kelly himself refused to categorize his style: "I don't have a name for my style of dancing...It's certainly hybrid...I've borrowed from the modern dance, from the classical, and certainly from the American folk dance – tap-dancing, jitterbugging...But I have tried to develop a style which is indigenous to the environment in which I was reared."^[16] He especially acknowledged the influence of George M. Cohan: "I have a lot of Cohan in me. It's an Irish quality, a jaw-jutting, up-on-the-toes cockiness – which is a good quality for a male dancer to have."^[4] He was also heavily influenced by an African-American dancer Dancing Dotson, whom he saw at Loew's Penn. Theatre around 1929, and was briefly taught by Frank Harrington, an African-American tap specialist from New York.^[17] However, his main interest was in ballet, which he studied under Kotchetovsky in the early Thirties. As biographer Clive Hirschhorn explains: "As a child he used to run for miles through parks and streets and woods – anywhere, just as long as he could feel the wind against his body and through his hair. Ballet gave him the same feeling of exhilaration, and in 1933 he was convinced it was the most satisfying form of self-expression."^[6] He also studied Spanish dancing under Angel Cansino, Rita Hayworth's uncle.^[6] Generally speaking, he tended to use tap and other popular dance idioms to express joy and exuberance – as in the title song from Singin' in the Rain or "I Got Rhythm" from An American in Paris, whereas pensive or romantic feelings were more often expressed via ballet or modern dance, as in "Heather on the Hill" from Brigadoon or "Our Love Is Here to Stay" from An American in Paris.^[16]

According to Delamater, Kelly's work "seems to represent the fulfillment of dance-film integration in the 1940s and 1950s". While Fred Astaire had 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. Kelly's reasoning behind this was that he felt the kinetic force of live dance often evaporated when brought to film, and he sought to partially overcome this by involving the camera in movement and giving the dancer a greater number of directions in which to move. Examples of this abound in Kelly's work and are well illustrated in the "Prehistoric Man" sequence from On the Town and "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day" from Take Me Out to the Ball Game.^[16] In 1951, he summed up his vision as follows: "If the camera is to make a contribution at all to dance, this must be the focal point of its contribution; the fluid background, giving each spectator an undistorted and altogether similar view of dancer and background. To accomplish this, the camera is made fluid, moving with the dancer, so that the lens becomes the eye of the spectator, your eye".^[1]

Kelly's athleticism gave his moves a distinctive broad, muscular quality,^[16] and this was a very deliberate choice on his part, as he explained: "There's a strong link between sports and dancing, and my own dancing springs from my early days as an athlete...I think dancing is a man's game and if he does it well he does it better than a woman."^[4] He railed against what he saw as the widespread effeminacy in male dancing which, in his opinion, "tragically" stigmatized the genre, alienating boys from entering the field: "Dancing does attract effeminate young men. I don't object to that as long as they don't dance effeminately. I just say that if a man dances effeminately he dances badly — just as if a woman comes out on stage and starts to sing bass. Unfortunately people confuse gracefulness with softness. John Wayne is a graceful man and so are some of the great ball players...but, of course, they don't run the risk of being called sissies."^[4] In his view, "one of our problems is that so much dancing is taught by women. You can spot many male dancers who have this tuition by their arm movements — they are soft, limp and feminine."^[4] He acknowledged that, in spite of his efforts — in TV programs such as Dancing: A Man's Game (1958) for example — the situation changed little over the years.^[4]

He also sought to break from the class-conscious conventions of the 1930s and early 40s, when top hat and tails or tuxedos were the norm, by dancing in casual or everyday work clothes, so as to make his dancing more relevant to the cinema-going public. As his first wife, actress and dancer Betsy Blair explained: "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."^[18] In particular, he wanted to create a completely different image from that associated with Fred Astaire, not least because he believed his physique didn't suit such refined elegance: "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."^[4]

Personal life and death[link]

Kelly, photographed by Allan Warren, in 1986

Kelly was married to Betsy Blair for 15 years (1941–1957) and they had one child, Kerry. Kelly divorced Blair in 1957. In 1960, Kelly married his choreographic assistant Jeanne Coyne, who had divorced Stanley Donen in 1949 after a brief marriage. He remained married to Coyne from 1960 until her death in 1973 and they had two children, Bridget and Tim. He was married to Patricia Ward from 1990 until his death in 1996.

Kelly was a lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party with strong progressive convictions,^[19] which occasionally created difficulty for him as his period of greatest prominence coincided with the McCarthy era in the U.S. In 1947, he was part of the Committee for the First Amendment, the Hollywood delegation which flew to Washington to protest at the first official hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His first wife, Betsy Blair, was suspected of being a Communist sympathizer and when MGM, who had offered Blair a part in Marty (1955), were considering withdrawing her under pressure from the American Legion, Kelly successfully threatened MGM with a pullout from It's Always Fair Weather unless his wife was restored to the part.^[6][20] He used his position on the board of directors of the Writers Guild of America, West on a number of occasions to mediate disputes between unions and the Hollywood studios, and although he was frequently accused by some on the right of championing the unions, he was valued by the studios as an effective mediator.^{[citation needed]}

Kelly was raised as a Roman Catholic, but after becoming disenfchanted by the Roman Catholic Church's support for Francisco Franco against the Spanish Republic,^[21]he officially severed his ties with the church in September 1939. This separation was prompted, in part, by a trip Kelly made to Mexico in which he became convinced of the Church’s failure in helping the poor.^[21] After his departure from the Catholic Church, Kelly became an agnostic and remained so, for the rest of his life.^[22] He retained a lifelong passion for sports and relished competition. He was known as a big fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Yankees. From the mid-40s through the early 50s, he and Blair organized weekly parties at their Beverly Hills home, and they often played an intensely competitive and physical version of charades, known as "The Game".^[20]

Kelly's health declined steadily in the late 80s, for a stroke in July 1994 resulted in a seven week hospital stay. Another one in early 1995 left him mostly bedridden at his Beverly Hills, California home, and Kelly died in his sleep on February 2, 1996 before his body was cremated. His last will is without any funeral or memorial services.^[23] Kelly's papers are currently housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.

Awards and honors[link]

Plaque honoring Gene Kelly at his alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh

• 1946 – Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in Anchors Aweigh (1945).
• 1952 – Honorary Academy Award "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." This Oscar was lost in a fire in 1983 and replaced at the 1984 Academy Awards.
• 1956 – Golden Bear at the 6th Berlin International Film Festival for Invitation to the Dance.^[24]
• 1958 – Nomination for Golden Laurel Award for Best Male Musical Performance in Les Girls.
• 1958 – Dance Magazine's annual TV Award for Dancing: A Man's Game from the Omnibus television series. It was also nominated for an Emmy for best choreography.
• 1960 – In France, Kelly was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
• 1962 – Gene Kelly Dance Film Festival staged by the Museum of Modern Art.
• 1964 – Silver Sail Best Actor for What a Way to Go! (1964) at the Locarno International Film Festival.
• 1967 – Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program for Jack and the Beanstalk.
• 1970 – Nomination for Golden Globe, Best Director for Hello, Dolly!, 1969.
• 1981 – Cecil B. DeMille Award at Golden Globes.
• 1981 – Gene Kelly was the subject of a two-week film festival in France.
• 1982 – Lifetime Achievement Award in the fifth annual Kennedy Center Honors.
• 1985 – Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.
• 1989 – Life Achievement Award from Screen Actors Guild.
• 1991 – University of Pittsburgh inaugurates The Gene Kelly Awards, given annually to high school musicals in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
• 1992 – Induction into the Theater Hall of Fame.
• 1994 – National Medal of Arts awarded by United States President Bill Clinton.^[25]
• 1994 – The Three Tenors performed Singin' in the Rain in his presence during a concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
• 1996 – Honorary César Award The César is the main national film award in France.
• 1996 – At the Academy Awards ceremony, director Quincy Jones organised a tribute to the just-deceased Kelly, in which Savion Glover performed the dance to "Singin' in the Rain".
• 1997 – Ranked #26 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
• 1999 – Ranked #15 in the American Film Institute's "Greatest Legends" list.

Work[link]

Filmography[link]

Musical films[link]

Gene Kelly appeared as actor and dancer in the following musical films. He always choreographed his own dance routines, and often the dance routines of others, and often used assistants. As was the practice at the time, he was rarely formally credited in the film titles:^[1]