DANCING UP A STORM
GENE KELLY’S WIDOW’S TOE-TAPPING TRIBUTE TO HER LATE HUSBAND
Having been married to one of Hollywood’s greatest dancers, Patricia Ward Kelly was furious when Prince George was mocked by a US TV host for taking ballet lessons.
“I couldn’t believe that people are still discussing whether it’s OK for men to dance,” says Patricia – the widow of legendary Singin’ in the Rain superstar Gene Kelly – who is still upset by Good Morning America presenter Lara Spencer’s recent right royal ridicule.
“It was a disgraceful segment … and that Lara’s colleagues would join in her derision is both unacceptable and incomprehensible. It’s time for that conversation to end and for people just to embrace it if Prince George, or any other boy, wants to learn to dance.”
In the decades since 1996, when Gene died from complications of a stroke, Patricia has lovingly kept his legend alive, welcoming new generations of movie makers and dancers – including the Australian Ballet – to study his archive. Now aged 60, she also tours internationally with her acclaimed onewoman show, Gene Kelly: The Legacy, which is coming to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane next February.
It’s the least she can do for the ‘gorgeous’ man who, to their mutual surprise, became her husband, lover, mentor and best friend for the tender and all-too-brief relationship they shared.
The couple’s first meeting, outside a restroom in Washington’s deserted Smithsonian museum at midnight, didn’t follow Hollywood’s standard saccharine
“HE WOULD BOLT ACROSS THE STREET WHEN THE LIGHT CHANGED. HE WAS ALWAYS IN MOTION”
script. Back in 1985, Gene was 73 and a twice-married father of three who had vowed never to wed again.
Patricia, a Colorado professor’s daughter, was just 26 and working on a documentary to be narrated by the Oscarwinning dancer, choreographer, actor, singer and director. At that time, she had never seen any of Gene’s films and didn’t have a clue who this well-dressed, graceful stranger was.
“I was plonking my way into the ladies’ room and this very elegant man came out of the men’s bathroom,” she recalls, chuckling.
“That was the first time I saw him. It wasn’t until the final day when he drove off in a limo, that the woman next to me said, ‘He was really famous, you know’.
“So then I went to the local video store, took out a ton of videos and watched them all with my mouth agape, because his work is so brilliant. And timeless, you know.”
Six months later, Gene called out of the blue and invited Patricia to Los Angeles to help write his memoirs. It was the overture that led to his eventual proposal.
“I’d love to tell you it was this incredibly romantic moment but he just said, ‘Well you’re around, I guess I should marry you,’” Patricia recalls.
And a similarly low-key wedding was held at California’s
Santa Barbara courthouse in 1990.
“Gene was never conscious of the age difference in one sense, but he added five years to my age when we got married. As if that would make a difference,” smiles Patricia, who went from 31 to 36 overnight.
“It was a very un-hollywood thing to do!
“He never seemed old to me. He was the kind of guy who would bolt across the street when the light changed; he wouldn’t walk. He was just always in motion.”
Celebrated for his athleticism – as a child, Gene dreamed of playing for his beloved hometown baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates – Patricia’s leading man always hated the stigma so often faced by male dancers. In fact, as early as 1958 he created and starred in a landmark television documentary – Dancing, A Man’s Game – showing the similarities between sport, martial arts and ballet moves.
“For him, it was more than a professional task,” Patricia wrote in an angry letter to America’s ABC network defending Prince George, which immediately went viral.
“It was, in his words, a personal ‘crusade’ to show that dancers are athletes and that it’s OK for a man to be graceful.
“Gene would be devastated to know that 61 years after his groundbreaking work, the issue of boys and men dancing is still the subject of ridicule – and on a national television network.”