Home again, Gene fell easily back into his routine. After staging another Cap and Gown show in April 1938, Gene took on the task of staging his most large-scale revue yet: Hold Your Hats. The production, also premiering in April, was to be staged at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Harriet believed that if the show were successful, Gene would have a second chance at Broadway.
In an interview with the Pittsburgh Press regarding the ambitious show, Gene explained, “My idea is to do dances that are different, and I believe the chorus will give the show just that.” He created no fewer than ten dance routines, “ranging from tap and comedy to modern ballet” for the revue and performed in six of them himself.34 He drew on all the techniques he had learned in Chicago, putting his training in Spanish dance to notable use in one number, “La Cumparsita.”
The show proved to be one of the Playhouse’s most successful productions to date. According to a writer for the Pittsburgh Press, the lyrics, music, and sketches plus Gene’s choreography added up to “an original, sophisticated revue . . . packed with laughs.”35 One local reporter, in acknowledging Gene, simply wrote that he “originated all the chorus routines [and] hoofs and warbles.”36 Gene, always self-conscious about his singing, was not thrilled to have his voice described as a “warble.” Fred Kelly maintained that his brother “had a great singing voice,” but the fact that he was a tenor “embarrassed him to no end.”37 Apparently Gene’s warble was not a detriment to the show. The play, which ultimately ran for a month, was “the high spot in Playhouse entertainment this season” specifically because of “the [snappy dance routines] of Gene Kelly.”38
As the show continued its run, Gene finally gained the recognition for which he had been searching outside his hometown. The success of the show was so visible and its quality so high that Variety, the most widely read national show business periodical, heaped praise upon the production, in particular its choreographer. Moreover, Gene’s picture appeared in the June 1938 issue of Stage, a leading magazine in the entertainment world. Robert Alton phoned Gene after the premiere of Hold Your Hats and again urged him to come to New York. Gene did not yet tell Harriet about Alton’s call, but this time, he did not dismiss outright his friend’s suggestion.
As Gene rose in the entertainment world, so did the prestige of his dance studios. Gene’s schools were now making approximately $10,000 a year ($170,000 in 2015 currency). The family had never been so financially secure. Even without Gene’s presence, the studios could function successfully because of the exceptional teachers he had employed (including his own siblings). Years later, Gene said of himself in 1938 that he was doing “too well.”39 He felt, at last, that it was “time to move. You reach that spot and you either move or you stay where you are and end up wearing a flowing black tie and being called ‘Professor.’”40 “I had done everything that I could do in my line in Pittsburgh, and I couldn’t see a life that was just more of the same.”41
Harriet met Gene’s announcement that he was ready to take another try at Broadway with joy, relief, and sadness. His family, pupils, and friends would miss him, but Gene could not abide standing still in either a figurative or a literal sense. He left Fred and Louise in charge of the schools. Louise had graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1936 and later earned a master’s degree there in elementary education. When the United States entered the Second World War in 1941, Fred enlisted and Louise officially took over the dance studio. She would run it for nearly fifty years with her husband, Bill Bailey.
No matter who ran the studio, it was Gene whom pupils remembered and his reputation that continued to draw students after he left. His memory boosted enrollment, and later his fame as the screen’s most innovative dancer kept hopefuls interested in learning. One young lady missed Gene perhaps more than any other: fifteen-year-old Jeanne Coyne. She recollected that Gene had established such a close bond with his students that she sensed he would like to remain in touch. “Through the next few years I wrote to him—and almost always, a gay letter filled with hope and encouragement was my answer. More than anything else, those letters made me keep up with my dancing.”42
On a humid morning in August 1938, Gene, with a mixture of pain and anticipation, prepared to say good-bye to his family and his students for an indeterminate amount of time. Harriet accompanied him to the Pittsburgh Railway Station, giving him an envelope containing $200 and his train ticket. Gene, in going to New York, may have been leaving behind his family, but in an unfamiliar city of millions, he at least had Helene Marlowe and Robert Alton as contacts. Just how he planned to proceed with his and Helene’s relationship was a matter he had yet to determine.
As Gene settled into his seat on the train, he opened the envelope and discovered that the ticket his mother had purchased for him was one way. He would not visit home, he decided, until he had become as important on Broadway as he had been in Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Gene watched his hometown dwindle to nothing outside the window. Within a few hours, he could see the skyline of New York City growing larger as the train drew near. He remembered his last experience in the metropolis when his credentials as a Pittsburgh choreographer had been a source of laughter. Choreography was a difficult field to break into even for experienced professionals. But Gene held on to his conviction that the New York theater scene could benefit from his ideas. He felt time was on his side as well. True, the theater season was over in August, but that meant producers would be holding dozens of auditions as they prepared for the next season’s shows. Surely he would find a spot in one of these productions. He would even become a “chorus boy” if necessary, though he dreaded the thought. What mattered was that he would be in a Broadway show. Gene, with an unwavering determination “only Harriet Kelly’s son could have,” felt certain of success.43
5
The Time of His Life
“New York in the thirties was indeed a ‘Wonderful Town,’” Hugh Martin, a young composer with whom Gene Kelly later worked, asserted. “[It was a] Utopia . . . [where] everything was challenging and new.”1 Challenging and new—both words were as irresistible to Gene as the courses of cake he enjoyed on his birthdays. Filled with compelling juxtapositions, New York provided no shortage of inspiration for dancers, writers, and composers. Grand hotels stood only blocks away from shabby boardinghouses. Opera played at the Metropolitan while the rhythms of Gershwin and Berlin played at the Music Box Theatre.
Arguably, the most inspired activities in 1930s New York took place on Broadway. The theater was undergoing a period of great prolificacy unparalleled since the mid-1920s. Broadway historian Stanley Green remarked that the lighter yet still timely musicals of the late 1930s “discovered that a song lyric, a tune, a wisecrack, a bit of comic business, a dance routine could say things [about modern times] with even more effectiveness than many a serious minded drama simply because the appeal was to a far wider spectrum of the theatregoing public.”2 In 1937 and early 1938, Adolf Hitler had not yet annexed Austria into the Third Reich, President Roosevelt had not written the dictator a letter pleading for peace, and Germany, France, and Italy had not signed the Munich Agreement to appease Hitler. Thus, the lighter tone of musicals on Broadway, even when spoofing dark political matters such as fascism, was not inappropriate. Pioneering director Vincente Minnelli, a relative newcomer to Broadway in the 1930s, claimed that in his naïveté he felt that “fascism could be laughed away.”3
Shy, inarticulate, and a maddening perfectionist, the slender, dark-haired, pop-eyed Italian American Minnelli made his involvement in any project total. According to lyricist and playwright/screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner, “His enthusiasm [was] limitless and irresistible.”4 Minnelli’s most prestigious assignment to date was as art director and costume designer for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 (produced after Ziegfeld’s death in 1932). Minnelli, Robert Alton, and George Balanchine (who in 1934 had opened the American School of Ballet in New York), worked together to create a surreal ballet in the new Follies. The ballet was so successful that it he
lped to make the medium a part of mainstream theater. “With the full range of ballet movement, anything is possible,” Lerner later remarked.5
Alton’s unconventional ideas changed Broadway choreography by molding the chorus from a simple precision line into small groups with featured vocalists. Balanchine and Agnes de Mille are usually credited with perfecting the integrated dramatic musical. But Alton had “his champions as the leader in the field, and Mr. Kelly is clearly his prime supporter,” Anna Kisselgoff, writer for the New York Times, stated in 1985. “There was no one who could top Bob Alton,” Gene asserted. “Anytime [he] put on a dance number, he stopped the show.”6 Like Minnelli, Alton prized elegance and attention to detail. His most recent hit as of 1938 was another Minnelli-directed production, The Show Is On. In the play, he trained a young dancer, Charles Walters, whose style was in the same vein as Gene’s. Walters became a “minor sensation” under Alton’s guidance, giving hope to Gene that he might have the same success. Walters’s thoughts on American dance, expressed in 1937, sound remarkably similar to Gene’s: “A clever synthesis of the variety of forms—tap, specialty, ballet—would prove a striking novelty.”7 Alton saw in Gene what he had seen in Walters. Gene hoped to become a part of this new generation on Broadway.
If Broadway’s trailblazers had a home base in New York, it would be Vincente Minnelli’s apartment, fondly dubbed “the Minnellium,” on West 53rd Street next to the Museum of Modern Art. Parties that began at Minnelli’s would move to the second hub for Broadway’s elite: the residence of lyricist Ira Gershwin at 33 Riverside Drive. Among those in Gershwin and Minnelli’s set were mordant comedian and pianist Oscar Levant, Robert Alton, songwriters Harold Arlen, E. Y. Harburg, Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane, and Irving Berlin, and musical arrangers Kay Thompson and Lennie Hayton. These artists imprinted American attitudes into musical comedy and set a teaching example for Hollywood of how to integrate music and dance into story.
The year 1938 was an ideal time for Gene Kelly to arrive on Broadway. Minnelli and Gershwin’s set appealed to Gene’s intellect, but he, in finding his own definition of American movement, wanted to apply the finesse of their productions to everyday, working-class settings and characters. However, he found no immediate opportunities awaiting him. Gene swiftly became disenchanted upon his arrival in New York. “Nobody wanted a choreographer from Pittsburgh, so I got a job as a dancer just to keep going,” he explained.8 Though he still cringed at the memory of that New York producer laughing at the thought of him as anything but a chorus boy, this time, Gene was not going to let the same experience send him packing.
Gene settled into an inexpensive hotel at the 44th Street Hotel on West 44th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. He lost little time in calling Helene Marlowe, who was struggling to find work herself, and informing her of his new residence. She was pleased to hear his voice but chided him for not saving money by staying with her. “It was the kind of decisive action she tended to propose,” Gene’s biographer Alvin Yudkoff wrote. Gene, as he had from the beginning of their relationship, admired her spirit, but “her strength and certainty made him uncomfortable. . . . He was not proud of his behavior with Helene.”9 Gene had no intention of breaking off their relationship. He simply wanted to keep his career his top priority—and dating cost time and money.
The morning after he arrived in New York, Gene scanned Variety for audition announcements. He also called Robert Alton, who advised him to wear a T-shirt, slacks, blazer, and tap loafers to tryouts. Gene was immediately drawn to an advertisement for a new show, Sing out the News, by producer Max Gordon with a book by George Kaufman and Moss Hart. What further attracted him to the show was that it was staged by Dave Gould, who had been the choreographer (along with the young dancer Hermes Pan) for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’s first joint film, Flying Down to Rio (1933).
Gene arrived early at the theater on a Saturday morning but found that three hundred others were as prompt as he. As he waited in line, perspiring in the un-air-conditioned room, he watched every dancer audition, hoping that the producers would see what he believed—that his ability was superior to the bulk of his competitors. After an hour, his turn finally came. Gene performed a buck and wing and added his own flourishes—leaps, jumps, pirouettes—everything but a hand walk across the stage. The producer conceded that Gene was the best dancer in the bunch and offered him a featured spot in the show for $35 a week.
“Thirty-five dollars?” Gene asked, incredulous. “Seventy a week and you’ve got a deal.”
“Thirty-five is the going rate for the chorus,” an assistant choreographer told him.
“Sixty dollars,” Gene tried again.
“Good-bye, Mr. Kelly,” the producer said. Gene stood, frozen, then gathered his blazer and left the theater.
“A very discouraging business, this trying for a role,” Gene reflected in 1947. “You stalk out on the stage . . . [and down in] front are a bunch of guys who look at you like you were in a sack of lemons. They pick ’em up, they squeeze them, and some they kick into the corner. One they grab and nibble on.”10 Though disheartened, Gene kept true to his resolve not to return to Pittsburgh after his first defeat. Instead, he asked Robert Alton for advice. Alton sent Gene to Johnny Darrow, Charles Walters’s agent. Darrow, a thirty-one-year-old former star of B pictures in Hollywood, now ranked as one of the entertainment world’s top talent agents.
“Gene Kelly—Gene—you know that’s a girl’s name?” Darrow asked during their first appointment. “What would you say to changing your name to Frank Black?”
Gene stiffened. He had built his reputation on his name. He thought of how hurt his mother would be if he shunned the Kelly surname. The idea that Darrow might be trying to fool anti-Catholic casting agents and producers also crossed his mind. Gene shook his head. “Gene Kelly is good enough,” he declared.11
Darrow did not argue. He arranged an audition with the Shubert Brothers, the most prolific producers on Broadway. The Shuberts’ dance director was impressed with Gene’s tryout, particularly his masculine style, which stood in such contrast to the fey quality he saw in the majority of the other chorus boys. The director called Darrow, saying he would give Gene $150 a week. Without consulting Gene, Darrow decided to negotiate for $300—and in the process lost him the job.
When Darrow saw Gene the next day, he noted how desperate the dancer was for money. Gene could have used the money his schools in Pennsylvania were earning—or accept Helene Marlowe’s invitation to board at her apartment—but he intended to “start from scratch” and “rough it for as long as he could.” Darrow tried to call the Shuberts and accept the $150 offer, but J. J. Shubert bluntly told him: “We don’t need Kelly anymore.”12 When Gene heard of Darrow’s blunder, he remained calm, much to Darrow’s relief. Gene, like Darrow, had “overplayed his hand” in an attempt to get as much as he felt he was worth.13 Darrow persuaded Alton to hire Gene for a small featured role as a secretary and specialty dancer in Cole Porter’s new show, Leave It to Me! For his services, he received $75, half of what the Shuberts had offered.
The show, a political satire, revolved around a befuddled American ambassador sent to Russia because no one in Washington could abide looking at him. The stars of the show were vaudeville veterans Victor Moore and Sophie Tucker. Aside from Gene, another promising newcomer in the cast was twenty-five-year-old singer/dancer Mary Martin. Fortuitously, one of Gene’s spots in the show was in Martin’s standout number, the suggestive “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.” Martin played “a dumb cluck who had urgently to be shipped out of town all the way to Siberia.” Her character came onstage dressed “to the teeth” in furs and was met by six male dancers wearing Eskimo suits. One of the Eskimos was Gene Kelly. The boys were required to “lift, sling, and pass Martin from hand to hand” as she did “a mock strip tease, removing her wraps and singing in a baby voice.” Martin recalled that Gene worked every day at the theater and practiced for hours after all other cast members had gone home. “I’ve never k
nown anybody who worked so hard perfecting his art. . . . I knew he was going to be somebody very great.”14
Cole Porter also noticed Gene’s individuality. When he was not practicing dance steps, Gene sat backstage reading the New York Times or Aldous Huxley’s novel Point Counterpoint. Porter was impressed that Gene was reading something other than trade papers and was not focused solely on flirting with the chorus girls. One afternoon, Porter, who was confined to a wheelchair as a result of a riding accident, rolled over to Gene and asked him what he thought of Huxley. Though married, the composer was known by many to be a homosexual. If Gene was aware of this fact, he did not let it affect his high opinion of Porter. Gene claimed that the composer was “charming and very polite . . . he never actually gave me any advice about my career, but he seemed to take interest in what little I had to do.” Porter may very well have been attracted to the young dancer; Alton reported that upon first seeing Gene, the composer had asked to be introduced to “that unusual man.”15
Porter was so struck by Gene’s uniqueness that he invited him to attend exclusive cocktail parties at his townhome. At the soirees, Porter treated Gene to champagne, caviar, witty conversation, and a general sumptuous atmosphere that was glamorous “beyond his wildest imagination.” Though Gene was generally not fond of formal affairs, he was grateful to be included as a guest. The wealthy backers of the show, unlike Porter, invited only chorus girls to their gatherings. “They treated the young men in the show like second class citizens,” Gene explained, “and this brought out my resentment of the establishment.”16
During the rehearsal period and throughout the run of Leave It to Me! Gene continued to see Helene Marlowe. Helene, according to Gene’s biographer Clive Hirschhorn, became “a sort of oracle to him.”17 He asked her for advice about his future plans, and she spent hours listening to him talk and watching him demonstrate his new routines. Though he still refused to share an apartment with her, they did share a pet, according to Helene’s son, Bruce: “One fond memory [she] spoke of was a Cocker Spaniel she and Gene bought and named . . . Michael. They trained him to use the bathtub.”18
He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics) Page 8