Happy Birthday Eugene Curran Kelly!
August 23rd, 1912 - February 2nd, 1996
“Kelly found out fairly early how people all over the world felt about him and Singin’ in the Rain. In June, 1953, he and his family were invited to witness the procession leading to the coronation of Elizabeth II in London. The street was crowded and it began to rain as the Kellys made their way to the office of Jules Stein of the talent agency MCA. Suddenly, a man with a loudspeaker announced, “Now ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you all to join Gene Kelly in ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’“ Someone connected a recording of the song to the loudspeaker, filling the street with its music. “A few seconds later,” Kelly recalled after twenty years, “thousands of lovely, cold, wet, shivering Englishmen and women started to sing. It was the biggest thrill of my life. It beat anything I’d ever known. …and I felt if I never achieved another thing … I’d have justified my existence.”
-Singin’ in the Rain: The Making of an American Masterpiece
I don’t understand how I went almost 20 years without having Gene Kelly in my life. I hope he knows just how much his legacy is living and how much we all love him. No matter what mood I’m in, just thinking about him and his effortless moves and his charming smile I can’t help but feel better. Thank you, Gene.