Gene Kelly

Whether as a curiosity or a beloved idol, Gene Kelly (1912–1996) lives on in our cultural memory as a fantastic dancer in MGM 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 star of radio and television as well as film, 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, solo directing, 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.

Traces the career and personal life of the stage and film dancer, choreographer, actor, and director.

He sang and danced in the rain, proclaimed New York to be a wonderful town, and convinced a group of Parisian children that they had rhythm. One of the most influential and respected entertainers of Hollywood's golden age, Gene Kelly revolutionized film musicals with his innovative and timeless choreography. A would-be baseball player and one-time law student, Kelly captured the nation's imagination in films such as Anchors Aweigh (1945), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), and Singin' in the Rain (1952). In the first comprehensive biography written since the legendary star's death, authors Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson disclose new details of Kelly's complex life. Not only do they examine his contributions to the world of entertainment in depth, but they also consider his political activities -- including his opposition to the Hollywood blacklist. The authors even confront Kelly's darker side and explore his notorious competitive streak, his tendency to be a taskmaster on set, and his multiple marriages. Drawing on previously untapped articles and interviews with Kelly's wives, friends, and colleagues, Brideson and Brideson illuminate new and unexpected aspects of the actor's life and work. He's Got Rhythm is a balanced and compelling view of one of the screen's enduring legends.

The Academy Award-nominated actress and wife of Gene Kelly traces her life from her experiences as a teenage dancer in the 1930s, to a child bride of a Hollywood star, to an accomplished actress in Europe.

Featuring more than 100 photographs & an informed text, this tribute looks back at the remarkable & influential career of one of cinema's most popular stars.

Winner of the 2014 Diamond Anniversary Book Award Finalist for the 2014 National Communications Association Critical and Cultural Studies Division Book of the Year Award In 2000, the National Human Genome Research Institute announced the completion of a “draft” of the human genome, the sequence information of nearly all 3 billion base pairs of DNA. Since then, interest in the hereditary basis of disease has increased considerably. In The Material Gene, Kelly E. Happe considers the broad implications of this development by treating “heredity” as both a scientific and political concept. Beginning with the argument that eugenics was an ideological project that recast the problems of industrialization as pathologies of gender, race, and class, the book traces the legacy of this ideology in contemporary practices of genomics. Delving into the discrete and often obscure epistemologies and discursive practices of genomic scientists, Happe maps the ways in which the hereditarian body, one that is also normatively gendered and racialized, is the new site whereby economic injustice, environmental pollution, racism, and sexism are implicitly reinterpreted as pathologies of genes and by extension, the bodies they inhabit. Comparing genomic approaches to medicine and public health with discourses of epidemiology, social movements, and humanistic theories of the body and society, The Material Gene reworks our common assumption of what might count as effective, just, and socially transformative notions of health and disease.