Legacy of dance legend Gene Kelly put in the Highland spotlight by the woman who knew him best
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The widow of Hollywood dancer Gene Kelly is in the Highlands to talk about a man people think they know very well.
On Sunday Patricia Kelly will present her one-woman show Gene Kelly: The Legacy at Eden Court, the first event since lockdown in the Empire Theatre.
It will take a detailed look at the career of a man most of us think of as a fabulous dancer tearing across the big screen on a Hollywood street in the rain.
But Patricia hopes her show will reveal much more about the multi-talented man who charmed her and whose life she now celebrates and spotlights for new generations.
“The genesis of me creating this show is that I wanted people to understand there were so many dimensions to this man.”
Not that Patricia knew anything about Gene Kelly, an older man in 1985 when she first met him, working on making a TV documentary he was narrating and hosting.
“The grand irony is that I did not know who he was. I hadn’t got a clue.”
He started testing her knowledge.
“I did know the answers, remarkably. But at the end of it I was thinking ‘Who does this guy think he is?’ My pet studies in graduate school were word origins and poetry and those were his too. So by the middle of the week we were quoting poetry back and forth and playing word games – and I was completely enchanted.”
Patricia still didn’t know he was famous till the final day, he took off in a limousine and the woman next to Patricia said ‘He’s really famous – go to the video store and ask for Gene Kelly’. Patricia shrugged, but did.
“I watched them one after another, all in one weekend, and about 48 movies later I was just completely blown away that I had got to 26 years old and had no clue that this guy existed.”
Gene invited Patricia to California to write his memoir and they were married in 1990. Since his death in 1996 Patricia has looked after his archive, is his trustee, is writing a book about him and working with Scottish Ballet on a revival of Gene’s ballet Starstruck that will be performed at Eden Court from September 30 to October 2.
For Patricia, Gene’s striving for excellence, innovation and love of detail in his quest for better storytelling, can be seen in the famous Singin’ In The Rain dance everyone knows.
“Those opening notes we all know weren’t in the original music, Gene worked with arranger Roger Edens to start the dance to make it look believable. Roger just plucked out those notes we all know at the piano – Gene waves off the cab, steps into the street and starts to dance."
Gene Kelly: The Legacy is at Eden Court on Sunday. Details: eden-court.co.uk Full interview: www.whatson-north.co.uk
