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"Who knew? Who ever imagined that a biography could be a page-turner? Well, Hess and Dabholkar's Gene Kelly: The Making of a Creative Legend is just that: a delightful read that is hard to put down. The scholarship is so sound and the writing so attractive that I couldn't stop turning the pages…. It is the most complete biography of Gene Kelly… It offers a substantial addition to what we know about Gene Kelly’s career and enriches our appreciation for the depth and range of his accomplishments, thanks to extraordinary and far-reaching research into materials never studied by Kelly’s previous biographers." -- Rick Altman, author of Film/Genre

"This meticulously researched biography is not only an important addition to film musical scholarship and to our understanding of Kelly's transformative contribution to the film musical genre but also gives us a rounded portrait of him as a human being.... It examines for the first time, in depth, Kelly's role as a teacher, which affected his dance style and subject matter, but also was related to his support and encouragement of his colleagues as well as students.... It throws important new light on the Kelly-Donen working relationship by providing deeply researched evidence on the primacy of Kelly's role.... Also examined is Kelly's role as an active supporter of progressive causes during the New Deal and the McCarthy era and its underlying connection to the "common man" roles he developed with great sympathy." -- Beth Genné, Professor of Dance History, University of Michigan

Gene Kelly was a multifaceted entertainer—dancer, choreographer, actor, singer, director—whose large fan following mostly views him as a dancer of vigor, inventiveness, and style on the big screen. Most people fail to realize that Kelly was a renaissance man of entertainment, whose career stretched from Broadway musicals in the late 1930s, through his domination of the Golden Age of the Hollywood musical in the 1940s and 1950s, to television and radio. He not only incorporated a mélange of dance styles including ballet into his performances, but made significant contributions to directing, choreography, and many other aspects of entertainment. Ours is the first biography to fully highlight Kelly’s multiple contributions to entertainment. 

Our book is based on more than a decade of thorough archival research in institutions across the nation, and also includes other primary sources, secondary material, and interviews we conducted concerning Kelly. We explain how Kelly and his work were deeply influenced by his family life and hometown environment. We show how Kelly’s Pittsburgh preparation helped him to quickly conquer Broadway after arriving in New York in 1938. We reveal the complex machinations that eventually lured Kelly to California in 1941. We discuss Kelly’s role as an auteur in two distinct ways as defined by scholars—one way is to leave one’s imprint on a large number of films and the other way is to be fully responsible for a particular film, both of which Gene achieved.

We also stress something Kelly himself admitted—that he thought of himself as a teacher. We highlight Gene’s help to colleagues in his stage and film projects to improve their dancing and acting styles, and his mentoring of his assistants. While we note his admirable striving for perfection in everything he created, we also reveal how his aggressive drive for perfection hurt some people along the way. 

Most biographers ignore Kelly’s active political life but it was a vital part of who he was. We discuss it fully, including how it got him graylisted in the Red Scare and how he spoke out against such treatment. We describe his rejection of ethnic and racial prejudice not only in his personal life but in his dances, in ways atypical of film musicals of the era. We even reveal how his work in the Navy helped him as a filmmaker.

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