Background Information
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was born on August 23, 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was one of three sons to his father, James Patrick Joseph Kelly, an Irish Canadian , and his mother, Harriet Catherine Curran, whose father was Irish and mother was German. Gene's mother put him and his brother, James, in dance classes when he was eight, but both rebelled because they were bullied by the other boys in the neighborhood calling them "sissies", so Kelly never danced again until he was 15 years old. Amazingly this started his greatest legacy of being the "Marlon Brando of dancing."
Kelly got his first film contract with MGM in194, with his first film being For Me ad My Gal, starring alongside Judy Garland. He then starred in multiple Cheap B-movies and it wasn't until 1944 until his next big movie, Cover Girl, was released. His next film, Anchors Aweigh, was released in 1945, but filmed in 1944 at around the time he was called in for war duty.
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was born on August 23, 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was one of three sons to his father, James Patrick Joseph Kelly, an Irish Canadian , and his mother, Harriet Catherine Curran, whose father was Irish and mother was German. Gene's mother put him and his brother, James, in dance classes when he was eight, but both rebelled because they were bullied by the other boys in the neighborhood calling them "sissies", so Kelly never danced again until he was 15 years old. Amazingly this started his greatest legacy of being the "Marlon Brando of dancing."
Kelly got his first film contract with MGM in194, with his first film being For Me ad My Gal, starring alongside Judy Garland. He then starred in multiple Cheap B-movies and it wasn't until 1944 until his next big movie, Cover Girl, was released. His next film, Anchors Aweigh, was released in 1945, but filmed in 1944 at around the time he was called in for war duty.
World War II Influence
When the war started, Gene, like most celebrities at the time, was eager to enlist in the army, but was unable to because his manager didn't allow him to. Finally, by the end of 1944, whilst filming Anchors Aweigh with Frank Sinatra in New York, he was placed in the Photographic Division of the Naval Air Force and was moved to Washington D.C., and stayed there until the end of his service in 1946, with his final rank being Lieutenant Junior Grade .
During his time in Washington he directed, produced, and starred in many training documentaries for the navy, his most notable one being Combat Fatigue Irritability. This film follows Kelly's character, Lucas, as he is trying to figure out why he felt so on edge all the time after the sink of the ship he was on. During World War 2, Combat Fatigue Irritability was what we call PTSD today, so this documentary help mark a new research cornerstone to help war veterans as time went on.