Today 25 years ago, one of the greatest insignia of American cinema died and, without a doubt, the emblem of musical cinema with Fred Astaire.
My childhood memories are inextricably linked to his figure. His films, his songs and his dances were a common dish in those long-awaited after-hours of classic cinema in my childhood. Almost all his compositions fall asleep in our memory, and every time he plays somewhere and they re-install his compositions they bring out a smile, a great memory and a feeling of goodness attached to him.
His partners alternated between the female for whom he fell in love and danced with him, cases of Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Leslie Caron or Debbie Reynolds, or the sympathetic and good-natured companionship embodied by Frank Sinatra, Oscar Levant or Donald O’Connor . His lively, energetic and innovative style distinguished him from the class and elegance of the master and undisputed number one to date, Fred Astaire. Her only appearance alongside him was in Vincente Minnelli’s “Ziegfeld Follies” in 1945, and their admiration and friendship were mutual.
Despite his participation in the IIGM, where he was in charge of shooting documentaries around the Pacific, he returned in style and to stay. The union of talents with Stanley Donen, with whom he coincided in the film “The Models” by Charles Vidor, and his overwhelming talent led him to head some of the milestones of musical cinema. In this field, the Alter Ego dance stands out in this filming, his performance with the mouse Jerry in George Sidney’s “Levando anchlas”, the 1st outdoor filming of a musical film of “A day in New York” by his friend Stanley Donen, in which he participated as co-director, or the long and innovative music scene with Lesley Caron in “An American in Paris.”
His importance and contribution to musical cinema is extraordinary and, so many years later, the new generations continue to be moved by his performances, his eternal smile and his vigor in dance. Many are the films or musical scenes that could take the scepter as an emblem of the musical, but few disagree when naming “Singing in the Rain”, where he shared the directing tasks with Stanley Donen, starred in it, and left us some of the most iconic scenes in film history.
Away from the musical cinema, he also left his mark with films of the stature of George Sidney’s “The Three Musketeers”, an emblem of classic adventure cinema, along with such prominent figures as Lana Turner’s Milady or Vincent Price’s Cardinal Richeliu; or “The Inheritance of the Wind” by Stanley Kramer with Spencer Tracy or Fredrich March; or his trip to France to participate in another emblematic film within the European musical genre, “Les senoritas de Rochefort” by Jacques Demy. Although we should also highlight his works as a director exclusively working with interpreters of the stature of James Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Henry Fonda or Walter Matthau, cases of “Hello, Dolly” or “Cheyenne’s social club.”
We leave you a decalogue of films so that you remember one of the greatest, because 25 years after his death, Gene Kelly is still among us.
1.- The models, Charles Vidor (1944)
2.- Lifting anchors, George Sidney (1945)
3.- El pirata, Vincente Minnelli (1948)
4.- The three musketeers, George Sidney (1948)
5.- A day in New York, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly (1949)
6.- An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli (1951)
7.- Singing in the Rain, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly (1952)
8.- Brigadoon, Vincente Minnelli (1954)
9.- The weather is always good, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly (1955)
10.- Las Girls, George Cukor (1957)
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