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Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams
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.)
Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams
I have never read such an atrocity in my entire life. This "biography" by Alvin Yudkoff is filled with so much inaccuracy and conjecture I started marking the pages where I could prove his information was wrong. There were at least a hundred post it notes by the time I was done. I even turned it into a paper for my film class- proving how inaccurate this biography is. I got an A. All the proof you need is to watch any of Gene Kelly's movies, read his ex-wife Betsy Blair's autobiography, or read Clive Hirschhorn's biography. Yukoff even took direct quotes from Hirschhorn's book and twisted them around to suit his own agenda. Unlike Yudkoff, Hirschhorn DID personally interview Kelly and his friends.And it was so maddening to read while Yudkoff purported to know direct conversations between Kelly and his family and friends, or the thoughts running through Kelly's head while at the AFI celebration of his work. I can't figure out why someone who claims to be a fan would churn out such drivel and paint the fabulous Gene Kelly as a horrible person who thinks he's better than everyone. I have read other biographies of Debbie Reynolds, Stanley Donen, and Betty Garrett and I am not fooling myself into thinking Kelly wasn't fallible. I realize he had drive that was hard for other people to take, but NO ONE else painted him out as mean just to be mean. Just as a man dedicated to his craft. Yudkoff should never have written this book of lies.
Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams
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.
Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams
I'm going to second (third, fourth, etc.) the comments about the technique used in this book. To pretend to know what Gene Kelly was thinking during the AFI awards night is misleading at best. There was quite an uproar with the Reagan biography "Dutch" because its author inserted himself in the book and fictionalized conversations, etc. I kept thinking about that as I read this book. It's true, as some others have stated, that Yudkoff probably based these "thoughts" on things Kelly said in other interviews or contexts. That doesn't excuse the his attempts to claim these were Kelly's actual thoughts, reactions, and emotions. I truly think this is an unforgivable technique. Another customer reviewer mentioned the style used in a Masters/Ph.D thesis (and was happy it *wasn't* used here). My thought is that anyone writing such a thesis would never have been allowed to create thoughts and conversations to illustrate his/her points/assumptions about his/her subject. Why was Yudkoff allowed to do so by his editor(s)?I also have to agree with others who believe that more time should have been given to the latter part of Kelly's life. Or, alternatively, the author should have dropped the last few pages and stated from the outset that the book deals only with a specific period of Kelly's life. If Kelly could somehow read this book, I wonder what his reaction would be to having the last forty years or so of his life dismissed as being so unimportant and bereft of significance that they warranted a mere thirty pages.The lack of direct quotes from the author's own interviews, and especially the lack of quotes from people closest to Kelly, makes me wonder what support Yudkoff had for this book, and, more importantly, WHY he got that reaction from them.On the plus side, I learned things about Kelly that I never knew, including that I've missed a lot of his movies. The information about his childhood and dance background certainly makes me appreciate him even more. But I think that I'll look for Hirschhorn's biography to read what I hope is a more objective work.
Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams
This is a rather strange little tome that succeeds to some extent almost in spite of itself. It has a cheap look and feel. It is not especially well-written, and it contains many, many factual errors. But it nevertheless turns out to be a fairly interesting read -- especially once Gene hits the big-time on Broadway and in Hollywood. (The first -- and dullest -- part of the book contains way too much detail about Gene's life and times running his chain of dance studios in Pittsburgh, PA, and the surrounding 'burghs. This part may be of some regional interest to those from the Pittsburgh area, but otherwise it can easily be skipped by the reader.) In any event, the author takes the high road throughout, focusing almost exclusively on Gene's many professional successes (and, of course, a few major failures) as he climbed the ladder to 1940s and 1950s superstardom. A bit more information about Gene's family life, particularly with his first wife, actress Betsy Blair (who was blacklisted as a Commie sympathizer during the Red scare of the '50s, and had to leave the United States to find work -- which this book doesn't mention, by the way, and who, also by the way, a few years ago wrote a wonderful and heartfelt memoir of her exceptional life -- including the periods before and after her marriage to Gene -- entitled "The Memory of All That," that is well worth reading) and his three children, might have added some additional interest. But it would also appear Gene may have had a few . . . ummmmm . . . pecadillos (concerning his attraction to "barely legal" young ladies -- one of whom, the aforementioned Betsy Blair, he married when he was over thirty and she was just 18) that are best left to the imagination, so the author's discretion in terms of Gene's personal life may be a blessing in disguise. Anyway, this is not a bad book for what is it, and it may come in handy as a ready-reference the next time "For Me and My Gal," "Cover Girl," "An American in Paris," "Singin' in the Rain," "Brigadoon," and many other film's graced by Gene's one-of-kind talent appears on TV. But if you want a true taste of Gene's genius, get ahold of a copy of the DVD entitled "Gene Kelly: Anatomy of Dancer."
Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams
It is sad that the errors that were noted by the other reviewers have marred the book. I did not know they were there and so what I got from this book was this fantastically gifted man and the passions of his life. This compact life is really full of drama. The monologues, debated in other comments, are based on the things Kelly expressed in other ways, as I understand it, but they weren't necessary. I was not bothered by the concise description of the many long years of fizzles and disappointments in Kelly's later life. I can recommend this book as a very enjoyable read, and quite good for young readers, but it seems clear a big, fat, long, unimpeachably correct bio would make a lot of other people happy.