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Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams
by Alvin Yudkoff
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Billboard Books (2001-09-01)
ISBN: 0823088197
EAN: 9780823088195
Dewy Decimal #: 791.43028092
Paperback: 240 pages
SKU: V129BEB
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: Has some highlighting. Bumped Corners. Crease on cover. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. All orders include an e-Book about starting your own Internet Business in PDF format. FREE Domestic DELIVERY CONFIRMATION! We ship daily Mon-Sat and will let you know when your item has shipped along with your e/DC number. [HI, AK, PR, VI, GUAM, SAIPAN & West Coast customers, please use Expedited Shipping, otherwise it may take longer than the estimated 14 business days.] Items are from a smoke free and air conditioned environment.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
In this candid biography, the beloved dancer, choreographer, actor, and director is depicted for the first time not just as the genius and star whom millions still watch with awe, but as the complex and difficult man his family, intimates, and colleagues knew. Documenting Kelly's astonishing gifts--his innovations in movie choreography in such films as An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain--the book also examines his late career struggles, stormy relationships, and political convictions. Structured as a retrospective of the star's life and artistry, this multi-dimensional portrait is the first to be drawn since Kelly died in 1996, and includes rare photos. Alvin Yudkoff, a producer of television, film, and video documentaries, is also a published fiction author. He lives in Water Mill, Long Island, New York.
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Customer Reviews
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Shamefully shoddy......
Rating  (1)
Date: 2006-01-13
7 out of 8 customers found this reveiw helpful
I have my own personal barometer to indicate whether or not a book is second-rate (or worse). I start counting the typos, and when I hit "five," I officially distrust the author/editors. I hit five by the third chapter and knew I was in for a bumpy ride. This author should have concentrated on spell-checking and fact-checking, rather than obsessing with his thinly veiled,homophobic assertions (as mentioned by another reader, his repeated reference to "Leo McCrary" nearly made me hurl the book across the room!). This really was a maddening read, and it is hardly the biography that the great Gene Kelly deserves. Makes one even sadder to ponder that Kelly's own autobiography was lost when his house burned down in the 80's. That would have been a helluva read.
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I'd throw this away if I hadn't gotten it at the library
Rating (1)
Date: 2005-11-22
11 out of 13 customers found this reveiw helpful
I'm currently only up to page 175, and for the first time in recent memory, I'm giving up on a book. I've wasted way too much time on this piece of utter garbage. I have to thank the other knowledgeable and discerning reviewers here on Amazon for making me realize that there's just no point in continuing with this thing.
From what I've actually managed to get through, it's clear that Yudkoff is many things, but, first and foremost, he's a bad writer. No, strike that: He's a horrible writer. One thing I've always felt is important with biographies is accuracy. Not Yudkoff. He seems to value contradictions and poor research. How poor? I just read the section about HUAC, and he expressed great disdain for director Leo McCarey. He had several paragraphs about him, and mentioned his name numerous times. Now, if you're going to mention someone over and over in your book, one would think that you would at least research him enough to get his name right. Yudkoff calls him Leo McCrary.
The inaccuracies aren't the worst part of the book, by far. Yudkoff seems to be a Communist sympathizer, and that viewpoint is one of the main thrusts of his book. A couple years ago, I read Myrna Loy's autobiography. She was one of those who let her politics run her life, instead of the other way around, and every opinion, encounter and experience was tinged/tainted by her political view. She seemed to have a desire to bed every man in Hollywood, but only if they were a "good Democrat." As awash with politics as her book was, though, it pales in comparison to the hammer and sickle-waving contempt for all things right of Lennin found here. Combined with the glaring inaccuracies (not to mention the outright libel in some passages--Yudkoff takes courage from Cary Grant being in the grave to state his rumored homosexuality as fact), it's impossible to take this book seriously, and nearly impossible to take it at all.
One thing that's essential when reading a biography is trust: you have to be able to trust the author and his account of the person's life, otherwise it's a wasted effort. Very little of what Yudkoff writes--outside of direct quotes (and even those are suspect based on his glaringly poor fact-checking)--can be accepted as fact. This book was clearly written with an agenda, but unfortunately, that agenda doesn't seem to include an accurate retelling of Kelly's life. Avoid this like the bird flu.
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Bored me in the first chapter
Rating  (2)
Date: 2005-08-09
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I love Gene Kelly but I don't love this book. I don't see the point in the AFI tribute, just get to the history. The only good thing I can say about this book is that Gene Kelly's talent and determination come through, but that is nothing the author did, that was Gene Kelly and you can get that from any book, any movie, and any story told about him.
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ONE star is TOO NICE . Is this a fictional account?
Rating (1)
Date: 2004-10-20
38 out of 39 customers found this reveiw helpful
Ugh, where to begin? As others have written before me, there are so many basic errors in this book that I wonder at the author's "research." If he had spent more time getting the facts straight instead of pretending to know what Gene Kelly was thinking during the AFI tribute, then this book may not be the shambles we readers have had to endure. As I was reading, finding the errors actually became a game for me. I would sit there with my book and pen and paper, just daring Yudkoff to pitch out another mistake. Here are the ones I found: (I'm sure there are several others.)
1. Shirley Maclaine's dress at the AFI Tribute is BLACK not RED. An error that is SO basic, it shows how careless this author is throughout the entire book.
2. In For Me and My Gal, Judy Garland's character was NOT engaged to the George Murphy character. Hey Yudkoff, it would help if you saw the movies of the person about whom you're writing, don't you think???
3. Again, in For Me and My Gal, the Judy Garland and Gene Kelly characters are NOT "immediate sensations," as the author states. Sheesh.
4. Yup, another one regarding For Me and My Gal: the "author" (I'm beginning to use this term more loosely) states that Gene Kelly's character is a solo act in Europe. NOT TRUE. Watch the movie you careless dolt!
5. In Living in a Big Way, Yudkoff says that there is a dance with a trained dog and a dance with a statue. AHEM! They are the same dance. Yikes, this is getting embarrassing! I'm glad I'm not this author!
6. Here's one of the worst: When Yudkoff refers to Vera-Ellen's character in On the Town as "MISS SUBWAYS!" Oh my gosh. Her title was "Miss Turnstiles." Hmm..sounds like someone really needs to sit down with some of the movies before writing any more books.
7. Now here's something I've never seen before in any book, using the exact same quote TWICE. On page 197 and on page 202 he uses the same GK quote in referring to the pioneering on-location film technique of On the Town. (Of course, by this time, who knows if those are even real quotes? So much has already been fabricated!)
SHAME ON THE AUTHOR, THE EDITOR, and THE PUBLISHER who bought the book!!! Gene Kelly fans have waited for 20 years for an updated biography of this legendary dancer, choreographer, and director. The readers deserve better and so does Mr. Kelly himself.
Other annoying things are the way the author's internal monologue Gene Kelly is having with himself at the AFI Tribute(which I gave up on and stopped reading) basically just criticizes and insults everyone. And don't even get me started on the way he keeps hinting at homosexual rumors and portrays a young Betsy Blair as this side of a nymphomaniac. Plus, the book only focuses on about half of Gene Kelly's life. Twenty years are sideswiped in a couple of paragraphs and 40-some years are glossed over in a few pages. How about giving Gene Kelly some credit for being a single widowed father who raised his two younger children who lost their mother to cancer at ages 8 and 11? How about informing your readers that this generous father turned down numerous projects so that he could provide a stable home for his children and this was when he was in his 60's? All Yudkoff cares about are the glamour days. Not a nice way to treat your subject, who you claim to admire.
If you're as frustrated as I am, do what the author did, just learn what you can about Gene Kelly from the 1974 book written by Clive Hirschhorn. You get several treats in one: ACTUAL quotes from Gene Kelly and those who knew him, ACTUAL facts about the man, and a thoroughly enjoyable read.
As for this book: IT IS A DISGRACE! The entire thing is written like the author is wearing a neon sign saying, "Hey everyone! Look at me! I'm writing a book about Gene Kelly!" OK! So you wrote your terrible book, now do something useful like apologize to your readers. If I was Betsy Blair, or Kerry, Timothy, or Bridget Kelly, I would sue the pants off this guy. Ugh, ugh, and again I say, UGH!
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Strange but true . . . sort of
Rating  (3)
Date: 2004-09-26
5 out of 7 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a rather strange little tome that succeeds to some extent almost in spite of itself. It has a cheap look and feel. It is not especially well-written, and it contains many, many factual errors. But it nevertheless turns out to be a fairly interesting read -- especially once Gene hits the big-time on Broadway and in Hollywood. (The first -- and dullest -- part of the book contains way too much detail about Gene's life and times running his chain of dance studios in Pittsburgh, PA, and the surrounding 'burghs. This part may be of some regional interest to those from the Pittsburgh area, but otherwise it can easily be skipped by the reader.) In any event, the author takes the high road throughout, focusing almost exclusively on Gene's many professional successes (and, of course, a few major failures) as he climbed the ladder to 1940s and 1950s superstardom. A bit more information about Gene's family life, particularly with his first wife, actress Betsy Blair (who was blacklisted as a Commie sympathizer during the Red scare of the '50s, and had to leave the United States to find work -- which this book doesn't mention, by the way, and who, also by the way, a few years ago wrote a wonderful and heartfelt memoir of her exceptional life -- including the periods before and after her marriage to Gene -- entitled "The Memory of All That," that is well worth reading) and his three children, might have added some additional interest. But it would also appear Gene may have had a few . . . ummmmm . . . pecadillos (concerning his attraction to "barely legal" young ladies -- one of whom, the aforementioned Betsy Blair, he married when he was over thirty and she was just 18) that are best left to the imagination, so the author's discretion in terms of Gene's personal life may be a blessing in disguise. Anyway, this is not a bad book for what is it, and it may come in handy as a ready-reference the next time "For Me and My Gal," "Cover Girl," "An American in Paris," "Singin' in the Rain," "Brigadoon," and many other film's graced by Gene's one-of-kind talent appears on TV. But if you want a true taste of Gene's genius, get ahold of a copy of the DVD entitled "Gene Kelly: Anatomy of Dancer."
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