Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams

Rating:
Summary: Many Facts Wrong
Review: As a great fan of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire I am pretty familiar with many facts concerning both of their lives. Apart from the misleading "thoughts" that Gene Kelly should have had during the AFI Awards, which is the author's invention,nearly 60 % of the describing of this Gala is wrong: Fred Astaire could not have talked to his younger wife, as she was not there. The younger lady with him was his daughter Ava! The author also let Fred Astaire's first wife die five years prior to her original death. So that was not the reason for Mr.Astaires first retirement. The list could go on forever. The book makes a nice reading, unfortunately many facts are totally wrong.

Rating:
Summary: How to begin...
Review: Dear lord! Does this man have no shame? How can he possibly know what THE MAN was thinking in all those intimate moments in his life. Only once in a while he writes "must have felt" or "possibly he felt like" but for the rest Alvin Yudkoff just plain froces his own opinions into the book. That is, to say the least, HORRIBLY ANOYING! And this isn't the only bad part of this book. To make it a true catastrophy he doesn't even bother with the last half of Gene Kelly's life. AND he uses Clive Hirschhorn's work as a safety to keep his own afloat. What a rip-off! Alvy, Dear, how do you sleep at night? I can't belive anyone claiming to be someones fan could write so carelessly about this person's life. You just can't do this to people. Ladies and gentlemen, I very VERY strongly advise you to stay far away from this terrible waste of perfectly good paper. And if you really insist on reading it, just go to a librarie it's definetly not worth the purshase price. P.S.: I would not have given this book any stars but I had to put one to post my review. Just pretend its not there.

Rating:
Summary: Biographer Alvin Yudkoff provides an excellent coverage
Review: Film students will find this biography of Gene Kelly provides new insights on the man, based on new research and interviews with people who knew and worked closely with the danger. From Kelly's early Depression year dance schools to his fame on the Broadway stage and his move to Hollywood, biographer Alvin Yudkoff provides an excellent coverage.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but doesn't "keep going"...
Review: Gene Kelly : A Life of Dance and Dreams is well written and researched (the errors are only minor, such as the fact that Vera-Ellen did not speak at Gene's AFI salute since she died in 1981). Despite a fantastic and thorough beginning, the book really falls short in the end when it tries to cover the years 1952-1996 in only 35 pages. The second half of Gene's life deserves at least as much time as the first half! It's like there needs to be a second volume, but this one was going to press. More info was needed on Gene's relationships with his family, especially after the emphasis on his love of family in his early life. It was apparent that the author was unable to speak to Gene's surviving family members in writing this book. Despite that, the author did a good job with the sources he did use.

Rating:
Summary: An Semi-Adequate Biography
Review: I agree with many of the other reviews of this book, there has been no author that has really captured the life of Gene Kelly. I truly wish that Kelly's wife, who was working on a book with Gene at the time of his death, would write about this complex genius. However, this book does a "pretty good" job at telling us about Gene Kelly.

The best part of this book is the early years in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania. The author goes in great detail about the early years, but after "Singin' In The Rain"(1953), he condenses the next 45 years into 40 pages. I think Gene's life deserved a more thorough examination. Gene did some magnificant work after 1953, such as "Invitation To The Dance" and "Xanadu" (which the author despises), not to mention Mr. Kelly's many works for charity.

There is also some blaring errors like the mention that Vera-Ellen attended the 1985 AFI show for Kelly. She could not have because she died in 1981 and from the 1960s on was a recluse. But again, all in all, the bio is not that bad. To be honest, it would do until a better one comes along. Hopefully one will, because the memory of Gene Kelly deserves better...

Rating:
Summary: I loved it
Review: I am a "younger" person (26) who has been impressed (but not obsessed) with Gene Kelly. Since I do not know too much about him other than seeing a few of his films, I absolutely loved this book. It read like a novel and was very hard to put down. It gave a great sense of how life changed for him as lifestyles were changing for all Americans (and the entertainment industry) during wartime and the advent of television. I learned much about his various films and projects. I definitely recommend this for anyone who is a fan (not fanatic) of Gene Kelly's work. (The fanatics seem to already know much more than this book offers.)

Rating:
Summary: Average Joe made good
Review: I dislike 'chummy' biographies, the kind where the biographer latches on to a phrase or two that was probably a chance observation or private joke, then over-uses it to show his subject's funny, human side. In A LIFE OF DANCE AND DREAMS by Alvin Yudkoff, that term that so annoyed me was 'cloop,'a description of seedy nightclubs the Kelly's sometimes worked in, which combined the words 'club' and 'chicken coop.' Ad nauseum. There is a running account of Kelly ungraciously sitting through still another ceremony of recognition of his accomplishments while celebrity friends like Shirley MacLaine and Jimmy Stewart praise him to the appreciative audience. Kelly's mind wanders, he fidgets and daydreams, and often begins to speak or stand out of turn. We are privy to what he is 'really' thinking while tired clips of his films are shown. He comes across as crass, and I suppose he must have been. Much time is spent prattling about "The Game." The Game was apparently the hottest event in Hollywood at one time. Stars like Sinatra would often fly in for a mad evening of cut-throat charades at the Kelly house, risking ridicule from the host if they didn't play well, followed by hard-core volleyball once the sun rose. Who knew? So we hear that Kelly was overbearing and forced his way into every aspect of productions he worked on, had a black-listed communist for a first wife and skipped the country to his beloved France, for tax purposes, but he was an exceedingly nice guy, especially to Judy Garland-lug of a hard-working Irish Catholic boy form Pittsburgh that he was. His life seems full of resentment despite his easy smile, and whether accurate or not, it is NOT interesting reading. It took a long time to finish this book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, let alone a fan.

Rating:
Summary: Average Joe made good
Review: I dislike 'chummy' biographies, the kind where the biographer latches on to a phrase or two that was probably a chance observation or private joke, then over-uses it to show his subject's funny, human side. In A LIFE OF DANCE AND DREAMS by Alvin Yudkoff, that term that so annoyed me was 'cloop,'a description of seedy nightclubs the Kelly's sometimes worked in, which combined the words 'club' and 'chicken coop.' Ad nauseum. There is a running account of Kelly ungraciously sitting through still another ceremony of recognition of his accomplishments while celebrity friends like Shirley MacLaine and Jimmy Stewart praise him to the appreciative audience. Kelly's mind wanders, he fidgets and daydreams, and often begins to speak or stand out of turn. We are privy to what he is 'really' thinking while tired clips of his films are shown. He comes across as crass, and I suppose he must have been. Much time is spent prattling about "The Game." The Game was apparently the hottest event in Hollywood at one time. Stars like Sinatra would often fly in for a mad evening of cut-throat charades at the Kelly house, risking ridicule from the host if they didn't play well, followed by hard-core volleyball once the sun rose. Who knew? So we hear that Kelly was overbearing and forced his way into every aspect of productions he worked on, had a black-listed communist for a first wife and skipped the country to his beloved France, for tax purposes, but he was an exceedingly nice guy, especially to Judy Garland-lug of a hard-working Irish Catholic boy form Pittsburgh that he was. His life seems full of resentment despite his easy smile, and whether accurate or not, it is NOT interesting reading. It took a long time to finish this book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, let alone a fan.

Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: I don't know why I'm writing a review since I agree with most everybody's comments, but perhaps I can help you decide if this book is for you. First off, this book is both good and bad. Good because it is the first book to be written about Gene Kelly in quite a while, but bad because the author uses techniques and makes little mistakes that weaken his work. Many readers complain that Yudkoff pretends to know what Gene was thinking during certain points. Indeed, Yudkoff does use a technique that makes the book more of a novel than a strict biography. For instance, he doesn't use the "In 1940, this happened. Later that same year, this happened. In early 1941 he did this." Yudkoff creates conversations that he has no knowledge of actually occuring but I believe he did this to make the biography more readable and enjoyable. Some parts I disagreed with, but I can see why he uses this approach. One thing that hurts Yudkoff's work is his fact checking. For instance, Gene Kelly was quoted as saying that Fred Astaire retired after his wife's death. This was not true, Astaire retired years before his wife passed away. What is true is that Gene Kelly was wrong when he said this. However, if the author had done any research and doublechecked sources, he could have added a note something like "although Gene said this, it was not true that Fred retired because of his wife's death" or something along those lines. Its not a major mistake but I think it shows that Yudkoff may not have researched his topic thoroughly. In another instance, Yudkoff states that Frank Sinatra, a friend and costar of Gene's, almost intentionally angered studio head Louis B. Mayer so he would be fired and able to make "From Here To Eternity". The truth is that Sinatra was fired and didn't make "Eternity" until a year or two later, the film hadn't even been mentioned at the time he was released from MGM. I'm sure that Gene Kelly knew this and its another example of the author not knowing his subject well enough. Good biographers are able to tell you about the lives of people close to their subject, as both Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra were to Gene Kelly. Like I said, the fact that Yudkoff doesn't know these things shows a lack of research. Yudkoff also doesn't provide notes, which I always appreciate in a biography. It lets the reader know what sources were checked, who said what, etc. For instance, if unsure about a quote you can check the notes and see if it came from a close friend, acquaintance, or a different biographer. The good side, as mentioned earlier, is that this is the first biography of legendary song and dance man Gene Kelly to come out in a long time. Kelly's life is interesting not only for films but also for his time in history. He was a committed liberal and during the times of McCarthy this could prove a liability. Though this was an interesting period, it was only one part of Kelly's life. Unfortunately, Yudkoff barely talks about his later life. There is not even a mention of Gene's third child being born. I would have appreciated more detail on Kelly's very happy second marriage, but Yudkoff barely gives any.

In conclusion, this biography does leave a lot to be desired. It is by no means a definitive book. However, its a decent introduction to Kelly and is the most commercially available bio on him. I recommend that you read it with an open mind, try to corroborate with other books, and if you can find Clive Hirschhorn's excellent biography of Gene Kelly. Its hard to find, but its more fulfilling and accurate than this.

Rating:
Summary: Candid and Compelling
Review: I have a hunch the authors of the two customer reviews I have just read - - one from Bloomington, Indiana, the other from Philadelphia - - are very much like me; female, long-time Gene Kelly devotees with a passion for his films, who have gone out of our way over the years to absorb the countless interviews (thousands by Kelly's own reckoning) in print and radio and TV when Gene reminisced about his life and career, the joyous moments and the disappointing ones, and expressed his forthright opinions and ideas.

And because he was and is our idol, the head of the class, we surely paid attention. What he had to say really sunk in. Accordingly, self-appointed scholars of Gene Kelly's life and times, we tend to grade ourselves as the only Phi Beta Kappas around. We are the smartass know-alls who own the guy.

But familiarity breeds conceit; the danger for us overheated Kelly fans is we begin to think we are the sole keepers of the flame. When somebody comes along with a fresh perspective, as does Alvin Yudkoff in the new biography "Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams," all too often we go ballistic. We feel angry, almost violated and immediately join the "gotcha!" gang, almost lusting to ferret out inaccuracies of fact or attitude. We resist any imaginative approach to the telling of the life of a remarkable, and very complicated, man.

A perfect example of such behavior is offered up by Lisa from Bloomington who, perhaps because Gene was a magnificent tap dancer, obsessively looks for footnotes, footnotes and more footnotes. (Sorry, I can't resist this not-so-wisecrack but I am always irritated by someone who primly expects a readable, riveting biography like this one to be a heavy PhD thesis with droning sidebars identifying sources - - such as a 1947 article in Cahiers du Cinema or snatches from a long-ago conversation on the Hillcrest golf course - - that only interrupt the overall narration flow.)

So Lisa buys the book and is "disappointed" with the author's technique which she finds "irritating."

She is referring, of course, to the author's choice of the American Film Institute's honoring of Gene Kelly in a 1985 CBS telecast, a very real event, as the launching pad, the imaginative matrix for the biography, allowing us to go back and forth in time, taking in the flow of Gene's feelings and thoughts, so we can begin to understand his life as he saw it. A cinematic technique, if you will, but what better way to render a film icon?

And the point that this particular "gotcha!" groupie still hasn't got is that Kelly's thoughts, like his voice-over in a film, are not flights of fancy, cobbled together by the author. They are based (surely we, the avid Kellyites, know this) on the above cited, wide-ranging interviews Gene gave out for over fifty years. So when Kelly "thinks" badly of Cary Grant... or dwells on his creative differences with Stanley Donen and Barbra Streisand... or worries about his aging mother and the upbringing of his own family (and where oh where does Lisa get the idea that this book implies Kelly was a lousy father?)... or, like Fred Astaire incidentally, suffers from a phobia of being at a social event only to be asked by a well-meaning woman to dance with her - - like Vivian Leigh in the encounter cited by Lisa - - expecting an unrehearsed Nirvana on the dance floor with Kelly, as gallant as ever, hating to disappoint - - all these truly biographical nuggets of interest obviously come out of the author's extensive archival research. It's what he does with the research that makes his book worth reading.

As it happens, just to show I'm not a consummate grouch, let me say I am much more in accord with your second reviewer, the Gene Kelly Home Page host from Philadelphia. She points out an error involving Vera-Ellen but doesn't make a fuss about it. In a calm and measured way she praises the research and writing. Most importantly she appears to be in tune with the way the book is organized but feels there should have been much more attention to the post-stardom years, 1952-1996 when rock and roll came in and Kelly was literally out of the picture. I agree with her when she says "the second half of Gene's life deserves at least as much time as the first half."

One thing is almost certain, to come back to Lisa who ends her tirade with: "Anyway, it makes me hope Gene Kelly's autobiography will still be published. There is definitely a place for it."

So do I - - but let's do a reality check, please; the odds are that it does not exist. It is four years since his passing. As the book under discussion goes into very sympathetically Gene had a lot of trouble completing his own literary, playwriting and screenwriting endeavors. He set standards for himself that were difficult to meet. Evidence points toward the certainty that his notes were incinerated when his Beverly Hills home burned down in the Christmas fire of 1983. So until something comes along that does it better, I'll continue to recommend "Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams."