He's Got Rhythm: The Life and Career of Gene Kelly (Screen Classics) by Cynthia Brideson & Sara Brideson

Author:Cynthia Brideson & Sara Brideson [Brideson, Cynthia & Brideson, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B01LW1RKPW
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2017-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

14

Who Could Ask for Anything More?

In 1950, Gene fell in love, a passion akin only to “art or faith; it can’t be explained, only felt.”1 The object of Gene’s ardor was a locale synonymous with love: Paris. Gene’s words could not have been more eloquent had they been penned by Alan Jay Lerner himself as part of the screenplay for An American in Paris.

Klosters, Switzerland, had been the Kellys’ only intimate experience with Europe before 1950. Gene and Betsy had seen Paris only briefly when they had attended a ballet two years before. In 1950, they finally took the grand tour of Europe. Betsy reminisced: “We were out for culture and history. We weren’t corny enough to say it out loud, but that’s what we were doing.” The couple went on their tour alone, leaving Kerry with Betsy’s mother in New Jersey. They sailed from New York on the Queen Mary, bound for Southampton. Among the sites on their itinerary were the Stratford Theatre in London and the city’s bombed-out East End. Then came Paris. Gene “adored Paris and learning French and learning French songs,” Kerry later reminisced. Betsy fancied the city just as much as her husband. “It is now, has been, and always will be the most beautiful, romantic place in the world. . . . We knew we’d come back often.”2

In Italy, the couple admired the beauty of Venice and Rome. Gene and Betsy were both surprised by the class disparity they witnessed: less than a mile from the pope’s opulent summer residence, Castle Gondolfo, the people in the surrounding countryside lived in poverty. Gene had witnessed similar excess in the Catholic Church during his trips to Mexico in the late 1930s. Indeed, the disparity was what had led him to embrace atheism in college. Still, Gene claimed that his mother would never forgive him if he went to Rome without seeing Pope Pius XII and obtaining a medal for her blessed by His Holiness. Betsy could hardly conceal her disdain. She recalled, “Good little Marxist that I was, the Pope himself represented the enemy.” When the pope blessed a silver medal for Kerry, it gave Betsy pause and she found herself thinking: “If I am wrong about everything [her political ideologies], at least Kerry will be okay.”3

The pope and Gene shared a genial conversation while Betsy stood back, medal in hand.

“I understand you are an actor and dancer and you bring happiness to people in your work. For that, heaven awaits you.”

“Thank you, your Holiness,” Gene replied and went on, “I think a friend of mine came to see you last year. Frank Sinatra.”

The pope gave him a blank stare, at which point a cardinal whispered, “He’s a singer.”

“Yes, my son. I love the opera,” the pope replied obliviously.

Before leaving the castle, Gene bought a medal for his mother, murmuring to Betsy that she would never know the pope had not actually blessed it. “I wasn’t about to give up Kerry’s,” Betsy concluded.4

Although Gene was not

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