At the beginning of the picture, the one at the summer camp who most idolizes Noel is Marjorie Morgenstern, an eighteen-year-old Jewish girl who aspires to be an actress. She and Noel are virtually the same ages as Gene and Betsy Blair were when they first met at Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe in 1940. Parallels between Noel and Gene end, however, in their levels of ambition and energy. Gene described Noel as a brilliant fellow “people think will take Broadway by storm. But he lacks . . . the ability or the confidence to push himself . . . [to the] top. . . . Those who succeed in this business are not necessarily those with the most talent, but those with the most stamina and the most luck.”4 Gene had been blessed with the stamina, confidence, and luck to make it to the top. But in light of his recent professional downturn, Gene had learned that luck was not something he could depend on. All he could control was the effort he put into his endeavors. Kerry Kelly once remarked that her father had drilled into her that life was essentially nothing but hard work.
Marjorie Morningstar’s primary focus is Marjorie’s rise to fame and Noel’s simultaneous decline. But the secondary plotline follows the girl’s struggle to stay true to her strict Jewish upbringing. In another parallel with Gene, Noel is ambivalent about religion. A nonpracticing Jew, he is, in Marjorie’s words, “not very religious. He doesn’t believe in those things.” Nonetheless, he attends a Passover Seder at Marjorie’s home. Halfway through the meal, he rises from the table. Marjorie follows him. She assumes he was bored, but he tells her, “I wasn’t bored. I was disturbed, deeply. I couldn’t help thinking of all the things I’ve missed in life. Family, your kind of family. Faith, tradition.”5
At this point in Gene’s life, he was still a firm agnostic. However, he had raised Kerry as a Catholic so as not to deprive her of tradition, although unlike his parents, he had not been strict about his or his daughter’s observance of church strictures. “I was married in the Catholic Church. I was later divorced . . . so [I was prohibited] by Church law from taking Communion,” Gene explained. “My point is this: if you can get absolution for murdering a guy, or for adultery, or any other offense, why can’t you get absolution for being divorced? I think a change is needed.” Gene felt compelled rather than inspired to attend Mass on major holidays, though he found the consistency of the ceremonies reassuring. The church was an institution he felt he could “lean on” in difficult times, but he continued to “defend the need of individuals to follow their own sincerely found convictions.”6
Although Marjorie Morningstar dealt with heavy issues and could not be called a musical, it did give Gene some opportunities to show off his singing and dancing skills in scenes taking place at the summer camp. His rendition of the film’s theme song, “A Very Precious Love,” is especially effective and moving. The movie allows audiences to glimpse all Gene’s talents: he sings, dances, and gives, arguably, the best dramatic performance of his career. One of the most striking scenes in the film occurs when Noel, after a group of potential backers for his show reject his avant-garde concept, breaks down, near tears, and shouts that he will not sacrifice his artistic integrity to make the production a commercial success.
Marjorie Morningstar was, on the whole, a pleasant experience for all involved. As filming commenced in August, Gene was approaching his forty-fifth birthday—a fact that the cast and crew did not ignore. During the three-week location shooting at Scaroon Lake in upstate New York, the film’s company stayed at the Scaroon Manor, a lavish resort. On Gene’s birthday, the cast celebrated with a champagne lunch, after which the party relocated to an onsite open-air theatre. A ping-pong table on the second floor of the theater immediately drew Gene’s attention and he initiated a ping-pong tournament on the spot. “At first, theatre patrons complained about the noise made by the plunk plunk of the balls. When they heard who the players were, many in the audience came to watch the ping pong games in lieu of the movies. . . . Hotel guests were recruited as extras for the picture,” a visiting reporter noted.7
Filming wrapped for Marjorie Morningstar in November 1957. Released on April 24, 1958, it received favorable reviews, particularly for Gene’s performance. A writer for Time magazine commented: “Gene Kelly sings and dances too well to be a convincing second-rater, but he gives an agile performance as the camp’s entertainment director.”8 A. H. Weiler of the New York Times singled out Gene’s scene of “impassioned defiance of his prospective backers” as one of the high points of the film.9 Marjorie Morningstar was up for Best Song at the thirty-first Academy Awards (for “A Very Precious Love,” by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster). However, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “Gigi,” the theme song of Arthur Freed and Vincente Minnelli’s final masterpiece, won. It is regrettable that Gene’s dramatic turn in Marjorie Morningstar did little to advance his career and is not better remembered in modern times. Gene was proud of the picture and later stated: “I haven’t liked all my roles, more often than not I wince when watching myself, but I had some good scenes in this one.”10
Almost immediately after filming ended on Marjorie Morningstar, Gene left for his annual sojourn to Switzerland. Jeanne Coyne, from whom he was now nearly inseparable, accompanied him to San Moritz. Gossip columns ran items that Gene was dating “dozens of women” during this period, but in truth, he was dating Jeanne “exclusively.”11 Kerry, on vacation from school, joined the couple on the ski trip, but Gene still felt their little party was incomplete. Though they’d been divorced for only seven months, Gene was already on amicable terms with Betsy again. “Gene called whenever he was coming to Paris . . . and strange though I now think it was, for the first few years [after our divorce], I went to [Switzerland] for Christmas,” Betsy recalled. “You’re the Christmas fairy. Kerry can’t have Christmas without you,” Gene told her. “I believed him and Roger [Pigaut] made it easy, so I went to a tiny single room [at the resort] and put a happy face on the awkwardness I felt.”12
Betsy and Gene remained connected throughout their lives. On her first trip back to California to visit a friend in 1958, Betsy was crestfallen to see that one of the three birch trees she and Gene had planted in the front yard of their home on Rodeo Drive was dead. The trees, she stated, had seemed to represent her, Gene, and Kerry. Betsy went on to say that although she did not have to pass by the house each time she visited Beverly Hills, she wanted to. “This is my house—I found it—I bought it—I made it our home—and I left it. . . . I finally understood that nothing ever goes away. You can’t leave it behind or erase it. Everything you live is forever part of you.”13
Though the thought of selling his and Betsy’s home had crossed Gene’s mind after the divorce, he was strongly attached to the house. He did not plan to relocate to Europe, although he intensely enjoyed his sojourns there and he intended to travel overseas after his directorial assignment on The Tunnel of Love, which was drawing near to its January 1958 starting date. Gene, in embarking upon his first stint as director rather than director/performer, was entering what could be the most promising avenue for his future in show business.
Gene returned to his old studio to shoot The Tunnel of Love, but it did not feel like a homecoming. The atmosphere at MGM was so changed that it bore little resemblance to the great dream factory he had known less than ten years ago. Parsimony was the rule in producing anything that was not an epic or prestige picture. Going into his project, Gene had to juggle several restrictions. Studio head Benny Thau (before Sol C. Siegel took his place) had stipulated that the film must be done in black and white and use only one primary set. Additionally, it had to be shot in three weeks for less than $500,000. Gene surprised everyone by completing the picture well within Thau’s confines.
The MGM picture, based on a Broadway hit, follows a married suburban couple who are unable to conceive a child and must overcome countless obstacles in their mission to adopt one. The tension of the plot hinges on the fact that the baby the couple wishes to adopt is actually the husband’s illegitimate child. Doris Day filled the role
of the wife and Richard Widmark played her husband.
Gene’s first strictly directorial experience was a pleasant one; the atmosphere on the set was easy and congenial. Elizabeth Wilson, who filled a supporting role in the film, recalled: “Gene Kelly was really gentle and very supportive. . . . I can remember [him] . . . trying to keep a sense of humor. . . . Kelly told both Day and Widmark that they looked Swedish and took to calling Day Brunhilda.”14 A reporter for the Los Angeles Times elaborated: “[Gene] didn’t merely tell his stars how he wanted them to act—he showed them. And so, bouncing in and out of character like a rubber ball, Kelly acted every part in the movie. . . . Said star Richard Widmark: ‘Movie actors often complain they miss the audience. But not with Gene around. He’s not only an actor, producer, and director. He’s a whole audience too.’”15
In spite of the positive feedback for the film from preview audiences, it did not perform well upon its New York premiere on November 21, 1958, and ultimately lost MGM money. Doris Day blamed the picture’s failure on a weak script; Gene offered the explanation that audiences could not accept Widmark in a “light, sexy part,” given that he was usually cast in noir films.16 Bosley Crowther was unimpressed by the film’s casual invocation of controversial subjects and terms (for example, Alfred Kinsey and aphrodisiac) that, ten years before, would never have passed censors. “It’s a ‘Little Accident,’ updated just a bit,” the bored Crowther concluded, referring to the 1928 Broadway hit The Little Accident, which bore a few plot similarities to The Tunnel of Love. He conceded that the actors, “under the direction of Gene Kelly,” did a “competent” job.17
Gene did not consider the film a failure and neither did studio executives. In Gene’s words: “Every studio in town [began to offer] me straight directing jobs, but I don’t want to stay away from acting. They soon forget you in this age of specialization.”18 As much as Gene wanted to remain in acting, he later expressed that he did wish for more recognition in the areas of directing and producing. “The public couldn’t care less [that I’ve directed pictures]. They want to see you. It’s love. I don’t mind. It’s only my ego that says gee, I wish they knew I did something else. . . . Even after you’re recognized all over the world this doesn’t give you the thrill of knowing you’ve done a good job.”19 As Gene waited for a new assignment and mulled over what the next step in his career should be, he resumed his travels at home and abroad, visiting Paris, London, and occasionally New York.
For Easter 1958, Gene, Jeanne Coyne, and Kerry took a skiing holiday in Zermatt, Switzerland. Gene, still the competitive sportsman, was excited to learn that a group of Olympic champions was also staying at the resort. He joined them in their escapades but soon accepted that he was not in their league. Exhausted, Gene left the slopes early and made his way to the hotel for a hot bath. On his journey, he hit slush, fell, and ripped apart the cartilage in his leg. For half a mile, he staggered in excruciating pain until he reached the hotel and was rushed to the hospital. A doctor in Zermatt wanted to operate, but Gene refused. He later commented that if he had let that “quack cut me up I’d probably never have danced again.” Instead, he hobbled around in bandages until after Kerry returned to school. He then traveled to Zurich for more intensive treatment. His leg healed as well as it could, and Gene felt ready to resume dancing. Still, he later admitted that the accident “was the end of serious dancing for me.”20
Gene was delighted, then, to receive a challenging new job offer that did not require him to dance; instead, he would be telling others how to dance. During one of his stops in New York, he had received a call from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The duo asked him if he would like to direct what the two called the “Chinese Life with Father,” their new stage show entitled Flower Drum Song. According to Gene’s biographer Alvin Yudkoff Gene’s “relaxed attitude about people of color and his ‘couldn’t-care-less’ feelings about ethnicity were well known to Rodgers and Hammerstein. He was one of the very few who could direct a story about the clash of a gentle, ancient Asian culture against the bruisingly modern American way, without patronizing or insulting.”21
The story centers on a father, Wang Chi-yang and his son, Wang Ta. The father, a wealthy refugee from China, clings to traditional values in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The son is torn between loyalty to his father’s traditions (specifically, going through with an arranged marriage to a Chinese refugee) and assimilation into American culture (exemplified by his desire to marry a Chinese American nightclub performer). While the show was not Rodgers and Hammerstein’s strongest, it included notable songs such as “A Hundred Million Miracles,” and “I Enjoy Being a Girl.”
Gene thought the “whole thing sounded charming” and it would be a “nice change” after seventeen years in the movie business. “It had a warmth about it and a sweet sentimentality. . . . I knew that as long as I crammed the show brim-full of every joke and gimmick in the book, I could get it to work.”22 Preproduction began in May 1958, shortly after the Easter holidays. By August 29, 1958, Gene, Jeanne Coyne, and Lois McClelland had rented and taken up residence in Milton Berle’s Manhattan apartment on Park Avenue for the duration of rehearsals.
Gene’s entire experience working on the show was, in a sense, a homecoming as well as a reunion. “The stage door I walked through when we began auditions for Flower Drum Song at the Shubert Theatre was the very same stage door by which I had left Broadway [after Pal Joey] for Hollywood in 1941,” Gene told Theatre Arts magazine. The experience had a further element of déjà vu in that he was again working with Richard Rodgers, who had written the music for Pal Joey. Gene reconnected with his former assistant, Carol Haney, engaging her as choreographer, while another Freed Unit alum, Irene Sharaff, was engaged to do the costumes. “What makes the New York theatre so wonderful . . . is the handful of people—writers, composers, choreographers and others—who create for it. They are the people who can bring one back to Broadway. And here I am,” Gene stated.23
As usual, Gene strove for as much realism as possible. With Jeanne Coyne, he made a special trip to San Francisco to recruit authentic Chinese actors who could also sing and dance. The show ultimately starred Miyoshi Umeki, Pat Suzuki (who was actually Japanese American), Keye Luke (Charlie Chan’s “Number One” son), and Juanita Hall (a light-skinned African American who somehow passed as Asian).
When rehearsals began in September 1958, Gene was basically left to hold the show together by himself. Oscar Hammerstein was absent, still recovering from a surgery. Rodgers was present in body but not in mind. He had recently completed an unsuccessful twelve-week alcohol addiction program and was now suffering from major depression. He was often asleep during rehearsals. James Hammerstein urged his father to get out of bed right away; Gene was confused and unconfident as a director, he asserted. “Things are a hodgepodge.” At the show’s Boston tryout, reviewers complained that Larry Storch (who portrayed a nightclub comedian) “had gotten off on the wrong track in his role and Gene Kelly seemed unable to get him back on the right one.”24 Larry Blyden replaced Storch before the New York premiere. Despite the troubled rehearsals and tryout period, Rodgers later wrote in his memoir that he and Hammerstein were “confident that he [Gene] could do a beautiful job. He did.”25
James Hammerstein’s initial poor estimation of Gene may have been because the director left the show to take a brief trip to London only a week after rehearsals for Flower Drum Song commenced. Gene had received an offer from the eminent film production company the Rank Organization to direct and choreograph an Edwardian period piece titled Gentleman’s Gentleman. The picture was to be a lavish musical starring Moira Shearer of Red Shoes fame. Gene was intrigued by the prospect and accepted the offer. The film was not slated for production until the following year. Gene rushed back to New York and finished his work on Flower Drum Song.
The show opened on December 1, 1958. It seemed a certain hit; advance ticket sales amounted to $1 million. However, New York critics favored Flower Drum Song w
ith only tepid reviews. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times called it merely “pleasant” but not intelligent. He did at least give a nod to Gene’s directorial skills: “Gene Kelly has organized a warm, radiant, fluid performance [from the actors].”26 Audiences, however, adored the show. It ran for six hundred performances, until May 7, 1960. Richard Rodgers declared that in Gene, “we got a man who was not only experienced and professional to the very marrow of his bones, but also hard-working and inspired. Without him, who knows how it all would have turned out!”27 Rodgers even stated that the success of the play enabled him to overcome his depression. Gene’s melancholy lifted as well. In an interview with Edward Murrow in 1958, he concluded: “It’s been a wonderful experience . . . coming back to Broadway after fifteen or sixteen years. It wasn’t a chore, and that’s an understatement.”28
Flower Drum Song won Tony nominations for Best Musical, Best Actor and Best Actress (for Larry Blyden and Miyoshi Umeki), Best Costume for Irene Sharaff, and Best Choreography for Carol Haney. Salvatore Dell’Isola won the award for Best Musical Direction. Though Gene won no nominations or awards, Flower Drum Song proved to be an invigorating experience for him. Carol Haney may have been the choreographer for this show, but Gene was eager to resume the combined tasks of choreographing and directing in his future projects. “I actually love to create the dance more than I love to dance it. So naturally I got into directing. That was my greatest joy,” he reflected in 1990.29 As it turned out, Gene’s next assignment gave him the jobs of performer, choreographer, and director—for a television program, no less.
Though Gene did intend to resume his life in Hollywood, he was not ready to return just yet. He took no respite between the premiere of Flower Drum Song and his next project, Dancing: A Man’s Game, to be filmed in New York’s NBC Studios and aired on December 21, 1958. The show was to be an episode of Omnibus, a TV series hosted by Alistair Cooke. A superior example of early television, the program featured a wide range of specials about cultural arts and science. Among the show’s past guests were Gene’s old friends William Saroyan and Leonard Bernstein. In Bernstein’s appearance, he explained the structure of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and drew the orchestral score on the floor so that the various instrumentalists could walk along it to illustrate their contribution to the sound. Gene’s special was to be similar to Bernstein’s in that he, too, explained the structure of his art. Dancing: A Man’s Game sought to illustrate Gene’s career-long goal to prove that dance is as masculine a sport as football or boxing. For the Omnibus special, Gene called upon great athletes of the time to perform alongside him, among them legends Sugar Ray Robinson, Mickey Mantle, and Johnny Unitas.
He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics) Page 43