Gene and Betsy had, for the most part, returned to the domestic way of life they had established before the war. Again living with her parents, Kerry became a part of their social life. Gene had expressed regret over his “unfatherly neglect” of Kerry during his time in New York, but Kerry’s memories were happy ones. “They [Gene and Betsy] were both around a lot and they brought me with them a lot. . . . It was a lucky childhood, there were lots of good times,” she reminisced.36 Nonetheless, the Kellys’ world still retained elements of Gene’s self-described “Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald” lifestyle.
“I grew up as an only child, in a house full of very active, lively grownups,” Kerry explained. “There were always lots of other grownups living in our house, either transiently or permanently: other artists, dancers, musicians, writers. I was around a lot, listening to the grownups, being part of what was going on.”37 “I wouldn’t even call all those people guests. They were just friends who were always around. . . . Their [Gene and Betsy’s] whole group of friends were all the people he worked with. . . . There was a lot of back and forth of people. . . . [Gene’s professional and personal lives] didn’t feel split off or somehow unknown. . . . It was a very small community. All the local intellectual types knew each other very well.”38 The rotating group of artists coming in and out of the Kelly home became a permanent feature after Gene announced: “Let’s bring back open house parties at the Kellys’!”39 If his and Betsy’s home had been a haven for artists before the war, now it was poised to become the ultimate center for Hollywood’s intelligentsia.
“That red front door [of the Kelly home] became rather famous,” Betsy recalled. “Because it never locked until we went to bed.”40 Jeanne Coyne remarked that at the end of each party, “I’ve never seen people leave as reluctantly as they do the Kelly household.”41 To Jeanne and regular guests like Judy Garland, Roger Edens, Kay Thompson, Van Johnson, Saul Chaplin, and Stanley Donen, the door was always open. Other entertainers or musicians, such as Leonard Bernstein, Hedy Lamarr, Peter Lawford, Charlie Chaplin, George Cukor, and Robert Walker, found their way through the red door as well. Composer André Previn later recalled, “You never knew who was going to be there. . . . I’ve never met so many extraordinary people in one room, on so many occasions in my life.” Van Johnson offered his own reminiscence: “Every Saturday, everybody would meet . . . for franks, beans, and brown bread and play volleyball.” Choreographer Bob Fosse had a less rose-colored view of Gene’s parties. When Gene went on the volleyball court, he remarked, “I’d never seen anyone so fierce about a so-called friendly game in my life—before or since. He had a competitive streak in him that was quite frightening.”42 Kerry recalled her father on the court as “a very intense guy. . . . He was a great, great athlete. . . . Those games were intense but they [Gene and his guests] were having a ball. I don’t think ‘mean’ captures the flavor [of Gene on the court]. I imagine people who were not athletic found [the game] a bit mysterious. The ones who were smart but equally athletic found it fun.”43
Betsy did not find amusement on the volleyball court. She claimed that her husband and the rest of the men on the court were being unfair to their female teammates, except “Lois, who was tall and strong as any of them.” In her memoir, Betsy stated that after “months of irritation,” she withdrew from the court, just as she had withdrawn from substantial stage and film work because she knew that, if Gene were the competition, he would always win.44 Clearly, two aspects of the Kelly house parties had remained unchanged since the war: the fiercely competitive games and Gene’s requirement that his guests be endowed with talent and intelligence. After over a year in the navy, Gene yearned to again be among peers with whom he could engage in heated discussions. Indeed, he seemed to thrive on the competition and argument his less outspoken friends found so off-putting. “I can outshout anyone on theater or politics,” Gene told a writer for Screen Album. The columnist added, “But you can bet that before he tried any hot-shot shouting, he’s done plenty of heavy thinking.”45
Gatherings at the Kelly home were not always composed of arguments; to a large extent, they consisted of laughter and, above all, people showing off for each other. The gatherings frequently served as Gene’s opportunity for a commingling of ideas that served as inspirations for a dance step or a line of clever dialogue. “He must have wanted this way of life, this house full of friends every weekend, or it wouldn’t have happened,” Betsy concluded. “Of course he was older than a few of us, but as I look back he seems older than everyone. He was the patriarch. . . . Those Saturday nights at our house on Rodeo Drive were special.”46
In 1946, the Kellys’ parties became meaningful for another, far more serious reason: they became a haven for those affected by new developments in Hollywood’s political climate. The Kellys’ home was a natural gathering place for political fund-raisers and benefits. But Gene’s open support of liberal causes did have its limits. Gene could no longer defend Betsy’s activities for the Progressive Party and her friendliness with card-carrying Communists without putting himself and his family in danger. In her memoir, Betsy reflected with regret: “The atmosphere in Hollywood turned from one of innocence and fun to fear and suspicion.”47
With the fall of the Third Reich in 1945 came the rise of a new threat—Communism. Hollywood, with its highly concentrated population of liberal artists, inevitably was seen as a hotbed for Communist propaganda. As early as 1944, the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA) was created by high-profile, politically conservative members of the Hollywood film industry for the purpose of defending the entertainment world and the entire nation against Communist and fascist infiltration. At the same time, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which had been created in 1938, originally intended to target Nazi sympathizers, became active in Hollywood. On July 29, 1946, William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder of the Hollywood Reporter, published a column entitled “A Vote for Joe Stalin” that named alleged Communist sympathizers, including screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner Jr.; the group became known as the Hollywood Ten.
Betsy had attended meetings of the Communist Party and worked for the Independent Progressive Party (IPP), aiding in campaigns (such as Henry Wallace’s run for president in 1948) and acting as what she called a “foot soldier.” Her soldiering often took her to the Mexican community in downtown Los Angeles, where the infamous “zoot suit riots” had recently taken place between Mexican American youths and European American servicemen stationed in the neighborhood. Betsy, struck by the poverty in the area, began to feel guilty about the upper-class life she and Gene led. She, Gene, and everyone else she knew lived in a “happy, safe, productive enclave.” On a more personal level, Betsy saw her work for the IPP as “staking a claim for myself as a person apart from Gene.”48 The new friends Betsy made through her political activities were for the most part liberal European refugees, including blacklisted director Jules Dassin and writer Salka Viertel (who made her home a sanctuary for any European refugee in Hollywood). She also befriended Oona Chaplin, wife of socialist Charlie Chaplin, as well as Orson Welles, an outspoken liberal who openly condemned racism and segregation. Although many of the Europeans Betsy invited home as guests were not Communists, the Kellys’ association with socialist foreigners meant that they were opening themselves up to the scrutiny of conservative forces in Hollywood.
Betsy was in fact actively trying to gain membership in the Communist Party. Gene was relieved when her mentor, Lloyd Gough, took her aside to tell her, “The Party has decided it is not a good idea [for you to join], because you are married to a very important man who is not a member. . . . You can be just as useful outside.” Although Gene had not forbidden Betsy to pursue her political ideals or even to become a Communist, he had asserted: “All regimentation is bad.” He had added, with a smile, “And you’ll be the worst Communist in the world.” The conformity of Communism did not appeal to Gene. However, he “never turned into an anti-c
ommunist,” Betsy explained. “He believed in unions, freedom of thought, social justice, and racial equality. . . . He acted on his beliefs, he signed petitions after reading them thoroughly. . . . [He helped] several of the blacklisted writers, gave them money for their families, and tried to get them jobs under the table.”49
Gene may have seemed like a maverick among the conservatives of Hollywood, but he was an oxymoron in himself. He made it his mission to raise his daughter with everyday values, giving her a limited allowance and making her save her money for a toy she might want. At the same time, he “could comfortably live in Beverly Hills, surrounded by some of the ‘wickedest’ capitalists in the world.” His ability to live in a town that contradicted his philosophies came back to his singular focus on his art, and Hollywood, “wicked” though it may have been, was his means to make his ideas realities. Kerry believed that “his reason for being in Hollywood was to acquire a sort of perfection never before achieved.”50
Gene’s political and social activity became his full-time job while he waited for a film to come his way. During Gene’s absence from the screen, his friend Van Johnson (who had not gone to war due to a traumatic head injury he suffered in a 1943 automobile accident) had emerged as Metro’s top box office draw and starred in five pictures over the course of 1946–1947. Johnson was far less choosy in which parts he accepted; a “company man,” he took what was offered. Gene, on the other hand, was much more particular and was not as easy to place in a picture as Johnson. MGM finally called him with a firm project after several fleeting proposals for pictures, including a remake of Roberta, costarring Kathryn Grayson and Frank Sinatra, and a Judy Garland musical titled Cabbages and Kings (the former was eventually produced with Grayson and Howard Keel as Lovely to Look At in 1952; the latter never saw the light of day). Gene’s assignment came from producer Pandro S. Berman, best known for the Astaire-Rogers films of the 1930s.
At first, the movie seemed the perfect project for Gene because it had him playing Leo, a “regular Joe” who returns home from war and finds himself at odds with his wife Margaud’s wealthy lifestyle. Margaud’s family sees Leo as a “sensible addition” to the family and perfect for their daughter, who has grown “spoiled and pampered.”51 But Leo regrets his impetuous marriage and wishes for a divorce. The judge refuses to grant it, a decision the couple eventually comes to appreciate. Leo finds more purpose when Margaud’s grandmother backs his idea to construct housing for returning veterans—a project that allows Margaud to see his true worth. This particular plot twist paralleled events in Gene’s own life. In May 1946, he had presided as chairman at two events, one for the Independent Citizens Committee and one for the American Legion, in which veterans and nonveterans rallied together to protest housing shortages for returning servicemen.
Though elements of the film’s plot did have relevance for contemporary Americans, the manner in which the picture was executed threatened its potential appeal. Part of this was due to the director. Gregory La Cava had established his career with fast-paced comedies of the Depression era, his best one being My Man Godfrey (1936). Screwball comedy, fluffy millionairesses, and disdain for the wealthy were the rage in 1930s films by La Cava and other directors such as Frank Capra. In the newly prosperous, postwar America, such films were distasteful. From the bits of the unfinished script the director deigned to show him and the fact that it was to be shot in black and white, Gene could immediately see that the film did not reflect its title: Living in a Big Way.
When Living in a Big Way went into production on a hot July day in 1946, Gene found a horseshoe-shaped wreath waiting for him on the set. The gift came from George Sidney, who had directed him in his two biggest successes to date, Thousands Cheer and Anchors Aweigh. Attached was a note wishing Gene luck. He would need it.
“Originally Gene’s role in his newest picture was listed purely as a dramatic part, but letters from moviegoers throughout the nation soon changed that. They pleaded that a picture in which Gene Kelly doesn’t dance is hardly fair. . . . ‘So I’ll dance in the picture,’ said Gene. ‘Somehow, somewhere a couple of dance routines will be fitted into the script,’” journalist Paul Marsh recorded for Screenland magazine.52 Because the film had begun as a straight picture, Gene admitted that creating last-minute dance additions for the film intimidated him. The haphazard fashion in which the picture was directed presented another challenge to Gene: “The director, who also does much of his own writing, has a unique system in shooting a picture. To achieve spontaneity in performance he gives his actors their script piecemeal, only a day’s pages at a time and only twenty-four hours ahead,” a writer for Silver Screen recorded.53
Gene tried to boost his confidence as well as the film’s quality by exerting his influence not only on the dance routines but also on the screenplay. From his experience as a returning veteran, he caught a false note in a particular scene set in a men’s clothing store. Leo is trying to purchase civilian clothes, and the salesman shows him the store’s complete stock of three suits. “I haven’t been able to find one suit since I’ve been out of the Navy,” Gene declared.54 La Cava changed the scene so that Leo comes away from his shopping trip in a mismatched suit three sizes too big.
In creating his three dance sequences, Gene requested the aid of Stanley Donen. The men’s collaboration had never failed in the past; their effort in Living in a Big Way was no exception. They modeled the first routine after an Astaire-Rogers number, with Gene and leading lady Marie McDonald slow-dancing to “It Had to Be You.” The latter two sequences are more reflective of Gene. One, entitled “Fido and Me,” shows Gene dancing with a small dog while serenading a Grecian statue. Gene’s character performs the number in an attempt to impress his wife and, in essence, encourage her to let him out of the “doghouse.” He does Spanish dance moves at one point in the number, utilizing the training he had received from Angel Cansino in Chicago in the 1930s. Juvenile extras make the second number spontaneous and lively, and also demonstrate Gene’s athleticism. He climbs and swings from metal rings and stepladders at the construction site of the veterans’ housing project, then jump ropes and plays ring around the rosy with neighbor children. “If someone else had done the picture he wouldn’t have been dancing with kids,” Stanley Donen noted. “But it was done because it was Gene.”55
Gene put forth all of his creative ingenuity to help elevate the picture, but he felt that its subpar quality nullified “everything he had achieved before the war.” His decision to remain with the pallid film was largely due to MGM executive Benny Thau’s persuasion. Marie McDonald was just starting out in pictures, and Thau told Gene that he should give her a chance, just as Judy Garland had given him one in For Me and My Gal. Ultimately, Gene found McDonald to be a sort of model for Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain. He later called her a triple threat—she could not dance, sing, or act. To a man who required those in his social circle to have talent and intelligence, working with such an actress was a nightmare. She was known mainly for her curvaceous figure and was nicknamed Marie “the Body” McDonald. Gene concluded that the film was “a monumental waste of time.”56
The picture monopolized far more of Gene’s time than he had anticipated. It had a longer shooting schedule (nine months) than the big-budget films in which he had starred during the war because of one factor: a strike. Beginning in late August 1946, picketers from more than fifty unions marched in front of Hollywood’s major studios. A writer for Photoplay reported: “The [strikers] are fighting because two international presidents of American Federation of Labor unions cannot agree on which union should have jurisdiction over about 350 jobs. . . . The livelihood of 30,000 American workers . . . is endangered and an entire industry thrown into chaos and confusion.”57
Many actors refused to work until the strike was resolved, but others, like Van Johnson, “crossed picket lines” and remained “loyal . . . untouched by social issues of the time.”58 Gene, on the other hand, refused to be complacent. Along with dozens
of other actors, he traveled to Chicago to aid in the resolution of the strike. Because of his known sympathy for unions, Metro’s executives asked Gene to serve as the mediator between the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the Conference of Studio Unions. Gene worked day and night until the rival unions agreed to meet in the same room for the first time in forty years.
J. Parnell Thomas, head of HUAC, viewed Gene’s involvement in the strike negotiations as a sign of possible subversive political activity in his private life. However, Gene did not choose a side during the strike; his goal was for both sides to reach a compromise fair to everyone. Gene told reporters, “If we, all Americans, can’t get together and arbitrate our differences and problems, then how can we expect nations that don’t even speak the same language to do it?”59 He insisted, “My only line is the American line.”60
Gene’s involvement in the strike ended in his disillusionment with politics—both of Left and Right. On one side, Hollywood’s major studios accused him of being too sympathetic to the strikers. On the other, the unions he aided were not fully honest with him. To his disgust, he learned that union leaders had accepted bribes from a slush fund held by the studios for the express purpose of offering “sweetheart” contracts to buy them off and prevent further strikes.61
He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics) Page 23