Eugene Curran Kelly August 23 1912 February 2 1996 was an American actor dancer singer filmmaker and choreographer He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style his good looks and the likable characters that he played on screen He starred in choreographed or codirected some of the most wellregarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s until they fell out of fashion in the late 1950s Kelly is best known today for his performances in films such as Cover Girl 1944 Anchors Aweigh 1945 for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor On the Town 1949 which was his directorial debut An American in Paris 1951 Singin in the Rain 1952 Brigadoon 1954 and Its Always Fair Weather 1955 Kelly made his film debut with Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal 1942 and followed by Du Barry Was a Lady 1943 Thousands Cheer 1943 The Pirate 1948 Summer Stock 1950 and Les Girls 1957 among others After musicals he starred in two films outside the musical genre Inherit the Wind 1960 and What a Way to Go 1964 In 1967 he appeared in French director Jacques Demys musical comedy The Young Girls of Rochefort opposite Catherine Deneuve Kelly solo directed the comedy A Guide for the Married Man 1967 starring Walter Matthau and later the extravagant musical Hello Dolly 1969 starring Barbra Streisand recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Picture Kelly cohosted and appeared in Ziegfeld Follies 1946 Thats Entertainment 1974 Thats Entertainment Part II 1976 Thats Dancing 1985 and Thats Entertainment Part III 1994 His many innovations transformed the Hollywood musical and he is credited with almost singlehandedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences Kelly received an Academy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements the same year An American in Paris won six Academy Awards including Best Picture He later received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors 1982 and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute In 1999 the American Film Institute also ranked him as the 15th greatest male screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema Description above from the Wikipedia article Gene Kelly licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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