That’s Entertainment! Part II opened at New York’s Ziegfeld Theatre on May 16, 1976. It was not as big a box office draw as its predecessor. Part of this may have been due to the fact that the Vietnam War had finally ended in 1975 and the nostalgia craze that had sprung up during the conflict was slowly waning. However, That’s Entertainment! Part II did decent business and received critical acclaim. “They [Gene and Fred] . . . are still vital talents, but they should not use the make-up men who have attempted to erase the years of their careers under layers of paint and borrowed hair,” New York Times critic Vincent Canby remarked.47 Norma McLain Stoop of Dance magazine noted Gene’s elation at the rediscovery of his films and the fact that That’s Entertainment! Part II was chosen to open the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. Stoop claimed that European directors considered the Hollywood musicals to be “the acme of the effective use of the medium, a peculiarly American art form that has raised the spirits and gladdened the lives of many.” In the opinion of the Cannes judges, the sequel outdid the original because it linked “yesterday with today by employing the present.”48
Fred remarked that he was “glad people enjoyed it, but it didn’t mean anything to me.”49 Gene’s enthusiasm compensated for Fred’s apathy. With a broad “Irish grin,” he told one columnist: “A thousand letters a week have been coming in. A lot of mail is from kids who seem to think we made those musicals only a couple of years ago. And I’m surprised at the romantic notes I’m getting from girls who weren’t even born when I made those pictures.”50
Gene’s work on That’s Entertainment! Part II inspired filmmakers and performers all over the world. In 1977, director Martin Scorsese departed from his usual gritty style of filmmaking to pay homage to the big band era in a Liza Minnelli vehicle, New York, New York. The film included a “show within a show” in the style of the “Broadway Ballet” from Singin’ in the Rain. However, the picture lost money at the box office; it had strong competition from the first disco musical, Saturday Night Fever, starring heartthrob John Travolta. The picture became the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year. Younger audiences now began to veer toward pictures featuring disco rather than films showcasing the songs their parents and grandparents had loved. Interestingly, John Travolta was actually taught at the Kelly School of Dance, though not by Gene. “Fred Astaire with Gene Kelly . . . really supported my debut, if you will, and really wanted me to succeed. I could feel it from them,” Travolta later reflected.51 Another notable dancer/pop star who called Gene one of his major inspirations was Michael Jackson.
Pop stars admired Gene for his pioneering work in Hollywood’s golden era, but over the next five years, his final two feature film performances proved that he could not remain such a pioneer forever. Indeed, they represented pop culture at its campiest. His stage work, too, lacked innovation, instead following the now-familiar formula of his best-received television and film specials: nostalgia, nostalgia, nostalgia.
The Hollywood system of the late 1970s was “obsessed with capturing the current pop culture zeitgeist,” but the sad result was that films appeared dated a few years after their release.52 Gene’s next film, Viva Knievel! was a case in point. A biopic of the famed daredevil motorcyclist, it had Gene playing his drunk, grease monkey sidekick. Gene initially rejected the role. “I turned down the part when my agent called to ask if I was interested,” said Gene. “But then my kids heard about it.”53 Tim had his own trail motorcycle and begged his father to do the picture, arguing that Knievel was a “folk hero.” Bridget, too, wanted Gene to take the role. “Bridget gasped when I told her I had refused the part,” Gene explained. “So I changed my attitude. I sent for the script and liked it.”54 Gene called his part as Knievel’s mechanic his “first real character role. . . . This Knievel picture is a lark,” he said. “I don’t dance, I don’t shave, I don’t wear makeup. And I don’t get the girl. I’m having so much fun that I can hardly wait to go to work in the morning.”55
Critics panned the film upon its release in summer 1977. One reviewer for the Ottawa Citizen said the movie was for Knievel’s fans, “but they’ll probably wonder why he bothered.” The writer deplored Gene’s participation as the “saddest” part of the film because it showed what he had “been reduced to . . . but Knievel seems grateful to have [him] around because of the suggestion of class he brings with him.”56
Following Viva Knievel! Gene returned to television in a special called An American in Pasadena, set to air on CBS-TV on March 13, 1978. The show guest-starred a swath of Gene’s former colleagues plus a group of young tap dancers and sixteen-year-old Bridget. To get in shape for the show (Gene professed to be ten pounds overweight), he upped the amount of time he spent skateboarding with his kids and also reduced indulgences such as beer and desserts. The show, a benefit for homeless children, had Gene re-creating songs and dances from over the years and sharing with the audience “special moments from a life that has been truly blessed with the luck of the Irish.”57
Gene’s next endeavor was not for television but for the stage. Having overcome his distaste for nightclub audiences, he agreed to perform at the Superstar Theatre, an Atlantic City supper club, for a show termed a “trip down memory lane.” Gene admitted he spent little time in preparing his act, which he agreed to do mainly so he could visit his family in Pennsylvania. The Levittown Courier Times noted, “At 66, Kelly has trouble holding a note, seems uncomfortable with one-liners, and dances rather sparingly . . . but he retains that one lasting gift that money can’t buy: Charisma.”58 The show went well enough for him to be invited back on St. Patrick’s Day of 1979. “They . . . literally overpaid me. So I did one show a night. Then they asked me back by popular demand. So I went back. Then I said ‘To hell with this.’ I was only doing it for the money, and I was doing easy routines,” Gene reflected in 1985.59
Gene again performed almost effortless routines in what proved to be his final motion picture role that was not part of a retrospective. Though the film’s producer, Lawrence Gordon, was a tremendous fan of the classic Hollywood musical, he structured the film as a disco musical. A Universal Studios picture titled Xanadu, it tells the story of Sonny, a frustrated young artist who falls in love with one of the nine muses (Terpsichore, who renames herself Kira, played by Olivia Newton-John, fresh from her success in the film adaptation of Grease, costarring John Travolta). She comes to life and mysteriously enters his world. He also meets Danny McGuire (Gene), a former big band clarinetist. Sonny and Danny team to revamp a dilapidated building into a nightclub that offers a blend of disco and swing music. The most interesting part of the movie is the fact that Kira is identical to Danny’s flame from the 1940s. An effective scene depicts Danny dancing with her in his imagination, shown via a translucent projection in the lavish but sorely empty living room of his mansion. The dance they perform is similar to the intimate routine he and Judy Garland did to the title song in For Me and My Gal. The translucent special effect element of the number harkened back to the “Alter Ego” sequence in Cover Girl. By no coincidence, Gordon gave Gene’s character the same name as the character he had played in Cover Girl, also a nightclub owner. Gene called his work in the picture “unambitious” and was pleased that his “supporting part . . . allows him to leave the set most days in time to pick up his daughter when school lets out. Kelly enjoys his evening jog with her more than any residual hoofing he does in front of the cameras.”60
The picture went into production in September 1979. Though Gene respected those involved in the movie, particularly the fledgling choreographer Kenny Ortega, the project nonetheless became an embarrassment to him as he saw it take shape. Critic Janet Maslin stated that “director Robert Greenwald has filled the movie with bright colors—people often turn into beams of light or are surrounded by neonlike coronas. . . . Xanadu is desperately stylish without having any real style.”61 Gene was not immune to being made a part of the gaudier aspects of the film. In one sequence, Kira and Sonny help Danny choose a snazzier wardrobe to w
ear at the nightclub. Gene is shown emerging from dressing rooms in increasingly embarrassing costumes, the worst being a cowboy suit dripping with sequined fringe. Later, he roller-skates about the nightclub with a swarm of young disco dancers following behind (an obvious if ill-conceived homage to Gene’s number in It’s Always Fair Weather).
Xanadu premiered on August 8, 1980, to mostly negative reviews. “Too many different things are going on here, and they don’t have much to do with one another. . . . Mr. Kelly . . . is forever charming, but why this movie needed him is unclear,” Janet Maslin of the New York Times wrote.62 The $20 million picture failed to turn a profit, though its soundtrack was an international best seller.
“I have to admit it’s a terrible picture,” Gene stated. “But I must say it was fun working with Olivia. And for that reason alone I do not regret that experience. It also showed me just how little today’s crop of youngsters actually know about making musicals and that was kind of depressing.”63 If he were to continue in the film industry at all, directing, he explained, would be his choice of work. “Dancing . . . for me, isn’t satisfactory or very exciting anymore,” Gene said in 1983. “I’d rather be playing coach than be the short stop.”64
And playing coach was just what Gene had the opportunity to do when, at age sixty-eight, the “plum job of all time” came his way.65
Fred Astaire may have been against nostalgia, but one prestigious artist was determined to keep it alive. Producer/director Francis Ford Coppola, who had co-created the wistful American Graffiti (1973) as well as the Oscar-winning Mafia saga, The Godfather (1974), approached Gene about heading a musical unit at Zoetrope Studios, which he had founded with George Lucas in 1979. Coppola hoped to expand it and create a group under Gene’s aegis not unlike the Freed Unit at MGM. Gene, “over the moon” with joy, accepted the offer with alacrity. To him, it was an opportunity to pass on all he had learned from his decades in musicals. “At this stage in my career, I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”66
Zoetrope Studios was, according to production head Lucy Fisher, “an updated version of the old studio system, complete with contract players, contract writers, senior filmmakers on hand such as Gene Kelly, and a distinctive studio signature on each film it makes.” One screenwriter described the fledgling studio as “the small college we all wanted to go to.”67
Gene’s first assignment, titled One from the Heart (directed by Coppola), dealt with a couple that breaks up to find their dream mates but eventually realize they are ideal for each other. The plan was to produce it in the style of a Broadway musical. The film had a whopping $27 million budget, but, when released in 1981, it grossed only $900,000. Gene stated that he felt he did not contribute much to the film, deeming it “Francis’ baby all the way.” Gene asserted he would have done many things differently from Coppola but he nonetheless saw the producer as a rare man who took the musical seriously enough “to create a workshop in which it would have been possible for a young choreographer to look over an older, more experienced guy’s shoulder and learn his trade through a process of trial and error. But I guess it was not to be and that’s that.” In a sober tone, he concluded: “It’s another two years of my life that have to be written off.”68
Gene’s dispiritedness could not have been helped by the fact that, during this two-year period, he had not one professional failure but three. After One from the Heart was Satchmo, a lavish Broadway musical telling the story of Louis Armstrong. The show came so close to going into production that Gene had already cast the leads and was auditioning actors to play Armstrong as a boy. Gene was also preparing a movie musical to be produced by David Niven Jr. about the life of Santa Claus. Neither Satchmo nor Santa Claus ever came to fruition. No satisfactory scripts or funding came through to make the projects possible.
Gene, in his words, resigned himself to being “the ambassador of his art form whose duty it is to explain my trade to the initiated, and to help keep modern dance alive and active.”69 One avenue through which he achieved this “duty” was through Dancing Is a Man’s Sport, Too, a TV program for NBC-TV similar to Gene’s award-winning 1958 special. Choreographing the show was up-and-coming young dancer Twyla Tharp. Gene continued to support new ideas in dance and said of Tharp: “I think Twyla has a lot to say. The great thing about Twyla is that she continues to explore. . . . She’s not just doing her own thing.”70
A man who, in the course of only seven years, had lost his wife, become a single parent, appeared in and helped create three major films, and performed in a successful theater production, Gene had more than earned the privilege to take on the less demanding job of being the primary ambassador of his art.
22
Contemporary Yet Timeless
By 1982, Gene had watched so many retrospectives of his work that the magic of his films had begun to wear thin—if only for him. Audiences all over the world could not get enough of his movies. “I don’t watch my films too much, because when I do, I do a lot of wincing,” Gene explained. “[I] say, ‘Did I look like that?’ . . . When I see myself often in a big close-up, I do one of those big winces.” His son, Tim, observed that Gene was still “a perfectionist” about his films. “The only thing he won’t criticize is the ballet scene in An American in Paris.”1
Gene did not delude himself into thinking he still had the lean, catlike figure he had had at the height of his career. “I am going downhill physically—gradually—and I don’t care,” he admitted.2 His figure had thickened and he indulged in his lifelong taste for cakes, candy bars, and hamburgers with guilt-free pleasure.
Gene remained instantly recognizable, however. “You know you can’t walk down the street anymore without being recognized,” Gene said ruefully. “It’s often quite upsetting, to be honest about it, but you can’t escape it. . . . But then, nobody begs you to be in the movies or on Broadway. It’s our own choice. I can’t understand all the crying I hear about it. If you have to take that to do what you want in life, you take it.”3
Throughout the 1980s, Gene was the recipient of various honors and continued acting as an ambassador of his art. He received the Cecil B. DeMille Award on January 31, 1981, a lifetime achievement statuette bestowed at the annual Golden Globes ceremony. The following year, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan invited Gene to Washington, DC, to appear on a PBS program, Young American Artists in Performance at the White House. He served as host, introducing young dancers to America. “True to his word, he neither sang nor danced,” columnist Irvin Molotsky commented. He quoted Gene: “I’ll be seventy years old in August. And when you get to that age, you don’t jump over tables. Every dancer and every athlete stays too long. I hope I didn’t.”4
Gene saw the Reagans again in December 1982, this time for a program showcasing not young hopefuls but himself. The event bestowed upon Gene arguably the most coveted award an artist can receive: the Kennedy Center Honors. Gene received his award on Christmas Day with fellow honorees George Abbott (producer of Pal Joey), actress Lillian Gish, bandleader Benny Goodman, and conductor/violinist Eugene Ormandy. Walter Cronkite, anchorman of CBS Evening News, hosted the event. When Gene’s “Singin’ in the Rain” dance was screened, the audience (which included the Reagans) gave him a standing ovation. Gene appeared proud and pleased, but then waved his hand as if to signal: “That’s enough adulation.”
A reprise of “Singin’ in the Rain” began to play and a chorus of dancers appeared, along with Donald O’Connor, Cyd Charisse, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green. They sang a spoof of “Singin’ in the Rain” tailored to Gene:
What fabulous eyes, what a smile, what a face
His fame will remain, a star with a brain
He’s dancing and acting, and directing, and choreographing, and making love
And singin’ in the rain.
Gene chuckled, wiped tears from his eyes, and shook his head. One chorus member stepped forward and spoke: “Mr. Kelly, on behalf of all the gypsies everywhere, we thank you.”5
After the dancer’s simple statement, Gene began to weep openly. He then stood and took a bow. On this occasion, it seemed, he embraced his image as an inspiration to the next generation.
Indeed, Gene wished that the new generation of aspiring dancers would take more inspiration from his work. He despaired of the state of the musical film as it stood in 1983: “The dances in today’s movies feature lots of nearly nude, sexy bodies, male and female. . . . Fred Astaire . . . could dance with an overcoat on, and you’d still watch him. . . . A lot of lovely art forms have practically disappeared.”6
One new trend in musical films disturbed Gene more than any other: dance doubles. The popular Flashdance (1983) made ample use of them. When asked about the picture, Gene stiffened and said: “I don’t even want to discuss Flashdance. . . . I don’t understand the whole concept of doubles. . . . From my point of view it is bad for the art. But obviously the public doesn’t seem to care. They like it—and they’re stuck with it.” With the use of dance doubles, Gene explained, the camera does not shoot the performer from head to toe. “When they do let them sustain on screen from head to toe, though, then you know they must think the person is a good dancer.”7
He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics) Page 51