BEINGMRS GENEKELLY
As she brings her one-woman show to Scotland, journalist Patricia Ward Kelly tells how she fell for one of Hollywood’s greatest icons
IT SOUNDS like a fairytale – a young journalist is sent to meet a movie legend and ends up marrying him.
But that is exactly what happened to Patricia Ward Kelly, the widow of Singin’ in the Rain star Gene Kelly.
Patricia – who is coming to Glasgow this month to present her very personal, one-woman show, Gene Kelly: The Legacy – was a 26-year-old journalist in 1985 when she was asked to help on a documentary about the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
The narrator was to be Gregory Peck but at the last minute, he was replaced with Gene Kelly.
Patricia said: “I knew who Gregory Peck was – I had seen To Kill a Mockingbird – but I had no clue who Gene was.”
Not only did she know nothing about him, she hadn’t seen his most famous film – the movie regarded as the greatest musical of all time, Singin’ in the Rain.
What was her first impression of Gene?
“Well,” she said, “it was midnight at the Smithsonian. I was exhausted trying to get this programme going – we had no script and it was a mess, so I was frantically trying to pull it together.
“I remember Gene was sitting beside a kiosk, wrapped up with a scarf round his neck to protect his voice. I noticed a look of bemusement as he watched me scurrying around.”
Over the course of a week, as Patricia spent time with Gene, she became “completely enchanted”.
They hit it off not through a love of movies or dance or music but through their shared passion for etymology, word games and poetry.
Patricia said: “He spoke several languages and read a book a day. He really was the epitome of a Renaissance man. And he was terribly handsome – gorgeous and very elegant in a completely unselfconscious way.
“Even the way he spoke, his use of words, was effortlessly elegant – a blend of Pittsburgh street kid and erudite gentleman.
“I was transfixed by him and completely infatuated in that first week.”
Not long after she finished working on the documentary, Patricia received a phone call from Gene, asking her to go out to Los Angeles and ghost write his autobiography. He said: “Neither of us
expected romance and I think neither of us dreamed it would lead to marriage.”
Gene had tried to write his own memoirs but his publisher felt it skimmed the surface.
Having spent some time with him, Patricia realised he “held his cards very close to his vest”.
“So,” she joked, “you had to marry him to get the story.”
In fact, Patricia was the fourth ghost writer to try to get the most accurate account of the life of the boy from Pittsburgh who had planned to become a lawyer but instead became one of the best-loved movie stars.
She said: “Gene’s story evolved as our relationship evolved.
“He began to explore more and more and became much more self-analytical.
“Over the 10-year process of recording interviews with him, he would often come back and say that he realised he had done something for a different reason to what he had told me at first.
“Towards the end of his life, he would come out with confessional things, unresolved issues.
“Sometimes, this would be at three in the morning – and I think that this process allowed him to die a very peaceful death. He had sorted everything out in his head.”
Although Patricia and Gene’s relationship became romantic early on, he had to go on a work trip not long after she came to start working on his memoirs.
It was the separation that made them realise the strength of their feelings for one another. They were together for five years before they got married.
Naturally, the 46-year age difference attracted interest.
Patricia said: “Fortunately, my parents got it. I’d never drawn within the box my whole life, so they weren’t surprised.
“And now, when I talk about Gene in my show and tell audiences about our relationship, they get it too.”
Patricia is still writing the book, having hit pause after her husband’s death, aged 83, in 1996.
She had not grown up watching old movies, so the years with Gene were an education in film studies.
She saw most of his work for the first time with him sitting beside her.
“I forced him to watch his own films and he would cringe,” she said.
What were his favourite films made by other people? She said: “His favourite musical was Meet Me in St Louis. He loved the movies.
“I would look over and tears would be running down his face.
“He also loved The Quiet Man and Stagecoach but he didn’t like excessive violence.
“He loved Cinema Paradiso I remember him weeping at that.”
As for Patricia, she doesn’t have a favourite film of Gene’s.
She said: “I love the newspaper dance in Summer Stock, the dance with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh, the rollerskates number from It’s Always Fair Weather.
“I’ve included them all in my show as they show the diversity of Gene’s work – and the idea is to show audiences the many dimensions of him.
“They love Gene from seeing him on the screen but they love him even more after the show when they understand that not only was he a movie star, singer, dancer and choreographer but he also changed the look of dance on film and changed American dance.” Gene Kelly: The Legacy – An Evening With Patricia Ward Glasgow Royal Concert Hall new auditorium tomorrow. Gene Kelly – A Life in Music is at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall next April 14.