Gene Kelly’s widow heads to the Auckland Arts Festival with her intimate stage show

Patricia Kelly at the unveiling of a bronze statue of her late husband, Singing' in the Rain star Gene Kelly, in London's Leicester Square in 2020. Photo / Getty Images

When you’re the widow of a Hollywood legend and the keeper of his legacy, what do you save from a fire when the flames are licking at your door?

As Los Angeles burned, Patricia Ward Kelly was on standby with her car packed as the Sunset Fire crept closer to her house.

There was ash all over her front terrace and thousands of others had already lost their homes. “It’s Armageddon,” she told the Herald only a few hours after the evacuation warning was lifted, her voice still thick from the smoke.

Fire is always devastating, but what she stood to lose was truly irreplaceable.

It’s almost 30 years since the death of her husband, Gene Kelly, the Singin’ in the Rain star whose muscular musicals – as actor, choreographer and director – left Fred Astaire’s polished grace to the ballroom floor.

“Gene didn’t wanna dance like rich people; his father had lost his job during the Depression,” she said. “He wanted to create a new dance style that reflected his life and how the American male moved.”

Gene Kelly directed, choreographed and starred in the 1952 MGM musical Singing' in the Rain. "I didn’t want to move or act like a rich man," he said. "I wanted to dance in a pair of jeans. I wanted to dance like the man in the streets." Photo / John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images

A talented young writer, Patricia Ward was 26 and had never heard of Gene Kelly when they met in the mid-1980s, working together on the script for a documentary on the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. He was 73.

Six months later, Gene flew her to California to write his memoir. Married twice before, he later admitted never expecting their relationship to develop into anything more than a short, sweet summer romance. They married five years later.

“I didn’t even count up the age difference until it became a tabloid sensation at the checkout counter,” she said. “And trust me, you wouldn’t have, either.

“I always say that really what I fell in love with was his use of language. His mind was going 100 miles an hour and I don’t think there’s much that’s more attractive than that. And he was extraordinarily handsome.”

Patricia and Gene Kelly, who married in 1990, attend an event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in California. Their relationship, with its 47-year age gap, caused a media sensation. Photo / Getty Images

The couple were unable to have children and Kelly has never remarried, remaining devoted to his memory.

Stored in her home is the extensive archive she inherited, including photos, letters, film scripts and hundreds of recorded conversations from the decade they spent together before his death in 1996 after a series of strokes.

When she listens to those old tapes now, it’s as if he’s still sitting right next to her. “I can hear the ice in his vodka tonic.”

Next month, Kelly is bringing her tribute show, Gene Kelly – A Life in Music, to the Auckland Arts Festival.

A collaboration with the Auckland Philharmonia, it’s a behind-the-scenes glimpse into his life and work, as Kelly shares personal stories and a selection of film clips, accompanied by live music.

Clips from Gene Kelly's extensive body of work will be projected onto a screen during the show, accompanied live by the Auckland Philharmonia.

“Listening to his voice and reading his Valentines is definitely bittersweet because I’m so happy I have that and yet hearing it, or seeing it, is so wrenching because it’s kind of like peeling off a scab,” she said.

“In 30 years, you begin to live with the grief. It doesn’t go away, ever, but you begin to live with it. And with the shows, I have built a way to live with the absence of him.”

Kelly had been up most of the night when I called, waiting for fire crews to give her neighbourhood between Beverly Boulevard and La Brea the all-clear.

Like a true professional, she pressed on gamely, talking with me for more than an hour. The show, as they say, must go on.

Gene Kelly was a Hollywood heart-throb who remains a major influence today, particularly in dance and musical theatre. "He's still so cool, he's still so relevant," says his widow, Patricia Kelly. "He's the go-to guy." Photo / Getty Images

“I was sitting here thinking, ‘Okay, what do I take?’” she said. “Do I take Gene’s annotated script for Singin' in the Rain? Do I take his shoes from An American in Paris? Do I take his roller skates from Xanadu?

“I mean, I have 85 filing cabinets filled with his belongings. There’s no way you could possibly take everything. I wish [they were in a protected space], but that would mean fireproofing my entire house because it’s all filled with him.”

Her animals – two rescue dogs and four rescue cats – were the priority. Isabella, an aged chihuahua-labrador, became a celebrity in her own right a few years ago after making a dash for it when Ryan Gosling accidentally let her out the front gate.

Gosling shared that anecdote on the Graham Norton Show after he visited Kelly’s house with La La Land co-star Emma Stone, choreographer Mandy Moore and writer/director Damien Chazelle to do some research on Gene before shooting began on their Oscar-winning 2016 film, a nod to the heyday of Hollywood musicals.

Gosling arrived with a huge apple pie and a quart of vanilla ice cream in a hat box – Chazelle later referenced that in the movie, when Gosling opens the oven to show off the apple pie he’s baking for Stone’s character, Mia.

The famous scene in which Gene Kelly swings from a lamp-post in Singin' In The Rain inspired one of Ryan Gosling's numbers in the 2016 musical La La Land. Photo / Getty Images

The song-and-dance scene in which Gosling jumps up to swing on a lamp-post is a direct homage to Gene, inspired by reading his handwritten choreography notes for Singin’ in the Rain, which he also directed.

Ironically, those pages are smoked around the edges after surviving a fire in the early 80s that burnt down his house on Rodeo Drive, caused by a faulty Christmas lightbulb igniting a dry branch.

“Gene is such a monumental figure up on the screen that people forget he also created what you’re seeing, as a choreographer and director,” said Kelly.

“And he’s still the go-to guy. I get a note almost every day from a young dancer, choreographer or musical theatre director saying how much he’s influenced them.”

That La La Land visit almost ended in disaster, however, when Isabella escaped. Gosling took off his jacket and ran up the street after her.

“It was like something out of a movie,” Kelly said. “Damien dove on top of her – he thought he’d killed her! Ryan’s humour is so dry; it became a very funny story he told on red carpets all around the world.”

La La Land, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, is one of many films directly influenced by Gene Kelly's choreograpnhy and pioneering dance style.

It’s impossible to overstate just how big a star Gene was in the days before social media. His wife, who frequently appeared on the front page of the National Enquirer, kept a tabloid scrapbook.

“It was very odd to see yourself at the grocery store checkout, and the stories were so made up.”

During Gene’s final illness, the media frenzy became painfully invasive. Nurses sold stories from the hospital and paparazzi dressed as priests tried to sneak in and take his picture.

When he died, journalists camped out in the front yard of their house with deckchairs and cameras, opening sympathy cards and reading them out on the news.

Only now does Kelly feel strong enough to write a long-awaited book about her husband, who spoke French, Italian and Yiddish, wrote poetry, studied economics, trained as a classical ballet dancer and was a lifelong Democratic Party supporter.

“People have no idea of the density of his brain or the many, many dimensions to him,” she said. “The decency and the integrity of the man. His willingness to stand up for the underdog. He really was a Renaissance man.”

There are two versions of Kelly’s solo show, which she’s been touring since the premiere in 2012 on what would have been Gene’s 100th birthday. She doesn’t sing or dance on stage – “Those are not my gifts” – but stays to meet and greet the audience afterwards.

The ballgowns and shoes she wears in the show were among the items she had decided to take with her if the fire forced her to abandon her house.

Also packed and ready to go were a pair of Gene’s Converse tennis shoes, the Valentine notes he wrote her, and the green hat he wore in the 1949 movie Take Me Out To The Ball Game (co-starring Frank Sinatra) for the song and dance number The Hat My Dear Old Father Wore Upon St Patrick’s Day.

Gene’s last appearance on screen was in 1994, as one of the hosts of That’s Entertainment! The final words he spoke on film quoted American composer and songwriter Irving Berlin. “The song has ended,” he said, “but the melody lingers on.”

• Gene Kelly – A Life in Music, accompanied by the Auckland Philharmonia, will be at the Auckland Town Hall on March 15 as part of the Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival, aaf.co.nz

Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior feature writer in the New Zealand Herald’s Lifestyle Premium team, with a special interest in social issues and the arts.