AMERICAN MASTERS Online presents an extended interview with “Gene Kelly” filmmaker Robert Trachtenberg.

Q: What made you interested in doing a film on Gene Kelly?

A: My other career is as a photographer, and I pitched a Gene Kelly story to the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE in 1994. It was a fashion story — an homage to Kelly’s style, which is so iconic and American. We cast a model to play Gene and had backdrops and sets built that replicated some of his most famous movies. The Times suggested we interview Gene. He agreed, and I shot his portrait for the story. After his death I realized there hadn’t been a full-length documentary on him, and so it began.

Q: How did the original photo shoot go?

A: It went off without a hitch. We shot at his house. It was two years before his death and he was a little frail — he was having hip and back problems and I remember him telling me that the ligaments in his legs were shot from all those years of dancing. We got along pretty well — old and ill he was still very cool. Since that was the time “That’s Entertainment! III” was being released, he requested me for a few other magazine shoots over the next few months.

Q: Did you “talk shop” with him?

A: I tried to be cool, but since I was also recreating some of his classic images for the NEW YORK TIMES, it was a great excuse to ask about specific scenes and how they were done.

Q: And?

A: Well, he told me he bought the roller skates for the “I Like Myself” number from “IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER” down the block from his house at Pioneer Hardware on Beverly Drive. He also mentioned that the skates were not altered in any way — they weren’t locked to his shoes, so when he tapped in them, he had no help.

Q: What were some of the things that surprised you as you began the film?

A: Well, frankly, everyone I contacted telling me how difficult he could be professionally. But I really got to the root of that when I spoke to Nina Foch, who co-starred in “AN AMERICAN IN PARIS.” She was saying what a pain he was and I said, “Are you telling me he was difficult because he wanted his dressing room painted a certain shade of blue, or because he wanted to get the scene right?” “He wanted to get it right,” she replied. So after that, I realized that the temperament came out of the perfectionism and not just random movie star behavior.

Q: Was his family guarded about his life?

A: Actually, they were wonderful. His first wife Betsy Blair is in the process of writing her memoirs, so everything was very fresh for her. And Gene’s eldest daughter Kerry has a really terrific perspective on him and was very frank and honest. There is a rift between Gene’s family and Patricia Ward Kelly, his last wife that was not relevant to the film. She chose not to participate, and Betsy and the children will not discuss her.

Q: Did you feel you had to address the comparisons between Gene and Fred Astaire?

A: Yes, because EVERYONE raised the issue and I finally came to the conclusion that it was brought up so much because these two guys [were] dancing at this level alone — there was no one else in the pool with them. Some people literally said they were “in the Astaire camp” or “the Kelly camp” — they couldn’t cross party lines! And when you see the film, we show how different they truly were.

Q: What proved difficult while making the film?

A: The simple fact that his career went into such a slide after “SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN” he really didn’t have a bona-fide commercial or critical hit after that. So we had forty years of disappointments and let downs to deal with. Some of the films were noble failures — particularly INVITATION TO THE DANCE. I don’t think it’s something that holds up as a whole, but a few of the individual sections are really quite nice. People really are critical and dismissive of his later years, and it is true that he was not a very good director on his own, but his intentions were good and he was trying, really trying, to get his vision across, to either publicize dance and particularly dance in America or try new directing comedies or westerns.

Q: Why wasn’t Stanley Donen interviewed for the film?

A: Essentially he relayed a message saying he had nothing nice to say, so he’d rather not say anything at all. It’s sad that the relationship is still so toxic for him after all of these years. We use an archival interview with him so that he does have a voice in the film.

Q: So what do you think Kelly’s appeal was?

A: You know right before I started the film, this very young woman was in my office repairing my computer and my assistant turned to her and said, “What happens when I say Gene Kelly to you?” and she instantly said, “I smile.” The guy was a movie star in the classic sense of the word — he had that X quality that you cannot define. But he actually had the talent to back up the sheer charisma. He was very frank in some of his archival interviews, he knew that some of his films were dated, that numbers didn’t work, but his appeal really transcends and even filters down to the movie audience of today. When I was around him, he was still getting fan mail from thirteen-year old girls!

Q: How does the dance community think of him?

A: It depends on who you’re talking to and how well versed they are in stage dance as well as film dance. He replaced the original choreography in many of his films — he replaced Balanchine’s work in SLAUGHTER ON TENTH AVENUE and Agnes de Mille’s in BRIGADOON. But in Balanchine’s case, the censor’s would have never let the original scenario onto the screen, so Kelly had to change it. In “Brigadoon” he needed a hit, and he was a choreographer in his own right, so it’s understandable. His choreography is highly respected by dance critics and fellow dancers who know their history.

Q: How is this film different from other profiles of Kelly?

A: First of all, we acknowledge the failures as well as the successes. Additionally, we discuss his professional “marriage” to Stanley Donen in more depth than anyone has previously done. And the personal life — the competitive nature he brought to weekends at home, his politics and the blacklist period are also delved into. I suppose with the passing of time, the people I interviewed seemed willing to be more candid.

Q: What kept you interested in Kelly throughout the process?

A: I didn’t realize it until about halfway in, but it was a very similar situation to George Cukor, who I made a film on last year for AMERICAN MASTERS. I’m not as interested in personalties with alcohol and drug problems — I don’t find it glamorous or tragically romantic like some people do. I’m more drawn to someone who can get up and go to work decade after decade, plugging away at trying to do something fresh and new. When you really look at it, he was starring, singing, dancing, acting, choreographing and directing his own numbers — there is no precedent for this career.

Q: Any last thoughts?

A: Just that the idea of what he was trying to do — present dance to as wide an audience as possible, to point out that dance is a form of athletics as well as art, to keep trying to film dance in new ways — these are very basic ideas, but sometimes the simplest ideas are the best…

I didn’t want to move or act like a rich man. I wanted to dance in a pair of jeans. I wanted to dance like the man in the streets.
–Gene Kelly

Timeless, effortless, elegant and indelible as the 50th anniversary of Singin’ in the Rain approaches, Gene Kelly’s body of work still thrives and still thrills. With films that also include An American in Paris, Summer Stock, On the Town and Brigadoon, Kelly revived the movie musical and redefined dance on screen, bringing with him an inspired sensibility and an original vitality. His choreography and his performances were relaxed but compelling, innovative but highly accessible and, ultimately, magical. He endeared himself to audiences and had a profound, eternal impact on the craft. Among the most beloved stars of Hollywood’s golden age, Kelly’s career remains one of the most surprising.

Solely responsible for creating a new approach to film musicals as performer, as choreographer and as director Kelly’s story has never been fully told. A creative genius fueled by single-mindedness, a volatile temper and narcissism, his need for perfection was uncompromising. A lasting influence in the worlds of film and dance, his first major film success came at the age of thirty and a short ten years later, he had made his final hit film.

At odds with MGM throughout his time there, Kelly fought to expand the concept and reach of motion picture musicals, always keenly aware that he was beginning his film career well past his prime as a dancer. By the mid-1950s, Kelly found himself at loose ends the genre he helped master now over a victim of changing musical tastes and economic restrictions. Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer offers a far more incisive view of the graceful and charming, beloved entertainer than that which the world has come to know.

Born in 1912 into a large middle-class Irish family in Pittsburgh, Kelly’s father was a traveling record salesman and his mother was possessed with a formidable determination to expose her children to the arts. By his teenage years, Gene and his brother Fred took over a failing dance school with their mother and their father slid deeper into alcoholism. After choreographing local shows and playing nightclubs with Fred, by 1938 Kelly felt he was good enough to buy a one-way ticket to New York City and eventually won the lead role in the original Broadway production of Pal Joey.

Seeing him on stage, MGM head Louis B. Mayer assured Kelly that the studio would like to sign him without so much as a screen test but, through a series of miscommunications, a screen test is requested and Kelly refused. Writing an acerbic letter to Mayer accusing him of duplicity, Kelly turned down the counteroffer and set the stage for a lifetime of acrimony between the two men. Ironically, Kelly was put under contract at Selznick International by Mayer’s son-in-law David O. Selznick, who had no interest in producing musicals and thought Kelly could exist purely as a dramatic actor. With no roles forthcoming, Kelly was loaned out to MGM to co-star with Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal. The film was a hit and Selznick subsequently sold the actor and his contract to MGM.

A series of mediocre roles followed and it was not until Kelly was loaned out to Columbia for 1944’s Cover Girl, with Rita Hayworth, that he became firmly established as a star. His landmark “alter ego” sequence, in which he partnered with himself, brought film dance to a new level of special effects. With Stanley Donen as his assistant, Kelly created a sense of the psychological and integrated story telling never before seen in a Hollywood musical. Realizing what they had, MGM refused to ever loan him out again, ruining Kelly’s opportunity to star in the film versions of Guys and Dolls, Pal Joey and even Sunset Boulevard. Back with producer Arthur Freed at MGM, Kelly continued his innovative approach to material by placing himself in a cartoon environment to dance with Jerry the Mouse in Anchor’s Aweigh yet another musical first.

During his marriage to the actress Betsy Blair, Kelly was radicalized and the couple became well known for their liberal politics. In 1947, when the Carpenters Union went on strike and the Hollywood studios were looking for an intermediary to intervene on their behalf, Kelly was chosen much to everyone’s surprise. He traveled back and forth from Culver City to union headquarters in Chicago for two months, mediating a strike that was costing the studios dearly. When a settlement was finally reached, Kelly was shocked to learn that the studios felt it was unfair and that they had been cheated by his siding with the strikers. Naively and genuinely trying to help and unaware of unstated expectations, underhanded tactics, and slush funds Kelly’s efforts only resulted in further exacerbating his relationship with Louis B. Mayer.

As the Blacklist Era began, Kelly along with Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, Danny Kaye, and others joined the Committee for the First Amendment. Hoping to diffuse the rising situation in Washington, DC, the group created a kind of whistle-stop national tour to present their views to the public prior to their command performance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Their efforts and press conference deteriorated into a fiasco and forced many of the stars to return to Hollywood and focus more on personal damage control than on their original idealistic intent.

More mediocre roles in “revue” films followed and Kelly’s frustrations mounted. He was, however, able to continue refining and showcasing his unique appeal and approach to new material with standout numbers in The Pirate and Words and Music, among other films. Determined from the start to differentiate himself from Fred Astaire, Kelly concerned himself with incorporating less ballroom dancing and more distinctly American athleticism into his choreography. Easter Parade and the chance to co-star with Judy Garland would have been Kelly’s opportunity to get away from what he considered substandard fare. But, in a show of bravado in his own backyard, Kelly broke his ankle during one of his infamously competitive volley ball games and, ironically, had to turn the film over to Fred Astaire.

Finally, Kelly and Stanley Donen were assigned their own film to co-direct 1949’s On the Town. In just five days of shooting selected sequences, they opened up the genre as no one had ever done before, creating another first a musical film shot on location. Followed by his two masterworks, An American in Paris, with its 17-minute ballet sequence, and Singin’ in the Rain, Kelly achieved icon status at the age of forty. In 1951, he was awarded a special Oscar for An American in Paris for his “extreme versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, but specifically for his brilliant achievement in the art of choreography.”

And then the shift began. The musical era, as well as the Freed unit at MGM, wind to a close and Kelly’s last productions, including Brigadoon and the ambitious It’s Always Fair Weather, failed to appeal to either critics or the public. The latter film also brought a bitter end to his partnership with Stanley Donen. The two had made history together in their three previous films the only successful directorial collaboration in Hollywood, before or since. But professional and personal conflict lead to the breakup, including the fact that Donen’s wife, Jeanne Coyne, had fallen in love with Kelly. With Kelly’s own marriage to Betsy Blair in dissolution, both couples divorced and Kelly eventually married Coyne in 1960.

Small roles and directing jobs followed. Professional highlights included the Broadway musical “Flower Drum Song” and an original ballet he created for the Paris Opera. In the late 1950s, the television show OMNIBUS invited Kelly to create a documentary about the relationship between dance and athletics Dancing: A Man’s Game is considered one of the classic treasures from television’s golden age. However, the hit Kelly so badly craved and needed as director of the film Hello Dolly, eluded him, unable to compete in a market that now included such movies as Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider.

Jeanne Coyne died of leukemia in 1973, leaving Kelly to raise their two young children alone. In his determination to be a better father than he had been to his first daughter, Kelly refused all work that would take him away from Los Angeles, including the offer to direct the film Cabaret in Munich. He tried series television, guest appearances, children’s records and became a frequent advisor to younger filmmakers who were hoping to resurrect the movie musical. At his death in 1996, it was said of Kelly, “Just as he confirmed his place as one of the most important talents ever to work in film, he went downhill so fast you hardly saw him go.”

Yet, the potency of Kelly’s gifts, his remarkable achievements in dance and choreography and the creativity and charisma with which he exploded in a handful of films continues to endure and to inform. Gene Kelly’s final filmed words are from 1994’s That’s Entertainment III quoting Irving Berlin, he remarked: “The song has ended, but the melody lingers on.” And, so too has Kelly himself. He was number 15 on AFI’s millennium list of most popular actors and Singin’ in the Rain has been voted the singular most popular movie musical of all time.