PITTSBURGH — There’s never a bad time to revisit “Singin’ in the Rain.” There are few better, though, than the film’s 70th anniversary.
The film starring East Liberty native and legendary dancer Gene Kelly began charming audiences in 1952 and has endured as a cinematic classic featuring some of the most iconic musical numbers ever committed to film. Multiple generations of moviegoers probably have the titular track, “Good Morning” and “Make ‘Em Laugh” permanently etched into their brains at this point.
To commemorate the anniversary, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is rereleasing “Singin’ in the Rain” in an Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack that includes a 4K restoration of the original film. That version of “Singin’ in the Rain” comes out Tuesday.
It seemed like a good time to check in with Kelly’s widow, Patricia Ward Kelly, to catch up on everything she’s been doing to continue honoring the late entertainer.
“Anything that keeps Gene’s work out there and anything that keeps Gene’s legacy out there, I will be the first and foremost for any of those things,” she said. “Not just because it’s Gene, but because it’s really great work and he was a really decent man. ... I believe in what he did and the kind of man he was. We could use a few more people like that.”
She has been doing quite a lot to keep Kelly’s name in the public consciousness since his death in 1996. That includes touring with one-woman and symphonic shows about him, maintaining his archives and curating the Gene Kelly Legacy Instagram page, where she shares behind-the-scenes photos and stories from his more than four decades in Hollywood.
She always makes time for his hometown. Kelly said she has spoken at more than 30 high schools in Allegheny County, and she is still heavily involved in the annual Gene Kelly Awards celebrating excellence in Western Pennsylvania high school musical theater. The last time Kelly was in Pittsburgh was for the 2019 Kelly Awards, and she plans to be back for this year’s ceremony at the Benedum Center next month.
The last two Kelly Awards shows were held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kelly laments how many kids had their high school musical dreams crushed because of the pandemic. She has seen many Kelly Awards nominees over the years “take that experience wherever they go,” including one young man who went on to become a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.
“I love the Kelly Awards,” she said. “It’s an important thing not only for Gene’s legacy, but for young people to have.”
Her drive to keep his memory alive is also part of why the Gene Kelly Legacy Instagram page has become such a meaningful project for her. She sometimes takes 2½ hours out of her day to post, read replies and personally respond to as many as she can. Gene would often talk about enjoying Broadway more than screen acting “because he felt a reciprocal thing with the audiences,” she said, and that’s what she feels on Instagram.
Last year, Kelly used the Instagram account as a means of conveying Gene’s wish to not have a movie made about his life in the wake of Tom Holland being cast in a Fred Astaire biopic. Soon after that casting news broke, it was announced that “Captain America” star Chris Evans may be playing Gene in an upcoming film.
“I guess Chris Evans has decided to cast himself in the role of Gene Kelly,” she said. “I’m just going to keep reiterating Gene’s position on that, that he asked to not have that done, and I will respect that until the end.”
It’s hard for Kelly to wrap her mind around the idea that “Singin’ in the Rain” came out 70 years ago. “It seems so contemporary and current for me.”
Though fans will often bring up other Gene Kelly classics like “The Pirate,” “Anchors Aweigh” or even “Brigadoon,” “Singin’ in the Rain” remains arguably his most defining work because it “has a universal quality that translates in any language and culture,” she said.
Though she has seen the movie many, many times, Kelly said that the 4K restoration has a “completely different quality” with its level of detail. She can’t wait to watch it with a big audience one day and hopes this rerelease leads to similar treatments for more of Gene’s movies. She shouted out 1956’s “Invitation to the Dance” as a film she’d love to see Warner Bros. restore.
“I will champion anything they wish to put out,” she said. “The more we can preserve this for posterity, the better.”
For Kelly, her late husband’s movies aren’t just artifacts from the Golden Age of Hollywood. She sees them as reminders “for us to be decent with one another and to be able to laugh and feel joy.” Given how much Hollywood history has been destroyed or lost, Kelly finds it more important than ever to make sure young people always have access to his work.
In addition, Kelly thinks Gene still serves as a beacon of what can be accomplished if you’re willing to follow where life takes you. She said that if he wasn’t a dancer, he would have probably been a professional athlete — baseball or hockey, specifically — a lawyer, or even a priest. Heck, Kelly wouldn’t have guessed she’d be promoting the 70th-anniversary restoration of a seminal Gene Kelly film in 2022.
“I was a Herman Melville scholar and I ended up marrying a legend,” she said. “Go figure.”
