“I never wanted to be a dancer. It’s true! I wanted to be a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.” ~ Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly (1958 portrait)
“I got started dancing because I knew it was one way to meet girls.” ~ Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
“I’d studied dance in Chicago every summer and taught it all winter, and I was well-rounded. I wasn’t worried about getting a job on Broadway. In fact, I got one the first week.” ~ Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly from “Summer Stock” (1950)
“I arrived in Hollywood twenty pounds overweight and as strong as an ox. But if I put on a white tails and tux like Fred Astaire, I still looked like a truck driver.” ~ Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly with Esther Williams and Frank Sinatra in a promo for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (1949)
“I took it as it came and it happened to be very nice.” ~ Gene Kelly on his career.
Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly arrive in New York 1958
“Kids talk to me and say they want to do musicals again because they’ve studied the tapes of the old films. We didn’t have that. We thought once we had made it, even on film, it was gone except for the archives.” ~ Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly with daughter Kerry 1942
“There is a strange sort of reasoning in Hollywood that musicals are less worthy of Academy consideration than dramas. It’s a form of snobbism, the same sort that perpetuates the idea that drama is more deserving of Awards than comedy.” ~ Gene Kelly
