Gene Kelly

"If Fred Astaire is the Gary Grant of dance, I'm the Marlon Brando."
-Gene Kelly


My wife and I finished watching For Me and My Gal last night. If you haven't heard of the film, it was the first movie for Gene Kelly, done in 1942 when he was 30. For this debut on the silver screen he was by the side of Judy Garland who was all of 20 years old when it was made. I am so grateful for him being pulled off of Broadway productions and being immortalized in the movies.

After we were done watching For Me and My Gal I left the room and came back to find that she had set-up a scene from one of Kelly's later movies from 1980: Xanadu with Olivia Newton John. My wife guessed he must have been about 68 when he did that movie and he was. 68? You could hardly tell it since his exuberance surpassed a passel of pouncing puppies.

I was looking up his filmography on wikipedia.org/. He did Viva Knievel in 1977? Wow! I missed him in that one.

If you haven't seen one of his movies, stop by your local video store and pick one up (except maybe Viva Knievel!). Since I can't say enough about him so I won't even try.

Gene Kelly. Actions do speak louder than words.