Customer Reviews

Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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!

Gene Kelly : A Life of Dance and Dreams is well written and researched (the errors are only minor, such as the fact that Vera-Ellen did not speak at Gene's AFI salute since she died in 1981). Despite a fantastic and thorough beginning, the book really falls short in the end when it tries to cover the years 1952-1996 in only 35 pages. The second half of Gene's life deserves at least as much time as the first half! It's like there needs to be a second volume, but this one was going to press. More info was needed on Gene's relationships with his family, especially after the emphasis on his love of family in his early life. It was apparent that the author was unable to speak to Gene's surviving family members in writing this book. Despite that, the author did a good job with the sources he did use.

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.

I just bought the new bio and have to be honest: I'm disappointed, especially with the author and his technique. Although he claims he talked to many people, especially Kelly's longtime secretary (which is one good point), the author uses very few direct quotes from sources, and many of those have been previously published. Often he is vague, and makes a few claims I find completely unbelievable. And he uses a technique I find irritating- extensively ''recreating'' the subject's thoughts, or private incidents. Now, he doesn't know what Gene Kelly's thoughts were, unless he had access to a journal or diary or his autobiographical notes--which clearly he did not, because he does not cite such notes as a source. And if by chance he did, quote THOSE, don't use fiction. This is a trend in biographies, but not one that, to me, creates a believable insight into the person concerned.

I don't expect to see Gene Kelly portrayed as someone without flaws, but I do expect an honest, balanced, well-researched portrait. Colleagues and friends interviewed for the 1974 biography by Clive Hirschorn, a work Yudkoff quotes frequently if selectively, were honest about his perfectionism and high standards, his competitiveness and Irish temper, and his demanding rehearsal techniques. But this author, it seems, tries to give the man flaws he didn't possess.

For example, it portrays him as a kind of absentee father, vowing to spend more time with his kids and never quite managing, but his eldest daughter spoke to Hirschorn of his dedication and concern as a father even at the height of his career, and said of him, ''He wanted so desperately to be an excellent father-and he was.''

Another example: Yudkoff tells a story that one night, LB Mayer asked Kelly to dance with Vivien Leigh, which he did, but that she was so drunk that Kelly asked her if they could sit out the rest of the dance. Kelly told this story differently to his biographer; for example, that Leigh asked him to dance, not the other way round. Yudkoff quotes only part of Kelly's story, without explaining that he tells the story very differently from Kelly, portraying his rude treatment of her as fairly intentional, while Kelly used the story to illustrate his awkwardness at big social functions. Nor does Yudkoff cite a source for his version. Since this incident is used to illustrate Gene Kelly's character (with some fictional recreation of his thoughts), the discrepancy is disturbing.

This new bio makes a few revelations, but in the absence of direct quotes from sources, it's hard to know what is reliable. There is no real in-depth insight into his relationships or artistry. Anyway, it makes me hope his autobiography will still be published. There is definitely a place for it.

I'm up to page 185, and fully intend to finish the whole book, but I thought I'd look it up here at Amazon.com to see if I could learn anything about the author's credentials -- the paperback offers none -- and, also, see how other readers had felt about the book. For me, it started strong with the Pittsburgh material and New York days, the formative years of Kelly's life with which I was so unfamiliar. But the deeper I've gotten into the book, the more I've discovered such careless mistakes (see the other Reader Reviews) that I can't help but worry about the veracity in the earlier passages as well. (Incidentally, one whopper which no one else has mentioned is that Yudkoff completely reverses the production sequence of THE PIRATE and EASTER PARADE, which in turn leads to many misstatements of fact.) I was willing to tolerate the infamous AFI interior monlogues -- at least, unlike Reagan's biographer, Yudkoff didn't attempt to pass himself off as one of Kelly's dancing partners -- but by this point in the book I'm finding myself very annoyed with all the sloppy mistakes. And now, thanks to the Reader Reviews, I see that Yudkoff is going to leave me in the lurch after 1952, which is frankly infuriating. And, yes, disappointing.

POSTSCRIPT: I kept on reading, and it got even worse. Yudkoff's description of the title number in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, incredibly, is erroneous in its description. It's one thing for Yudkoff to fudge the descriptions of the dances in LIVING IN A BIG WAY, an obscure -- though not IMPOSSIBLE to view -- Kelly movie, but to blow the facts on his most famous number in his most famous film...!

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.

I don't know why I'm writing a review since I agree with most everybody's comments, but perhaps I can help you decide if this book is for you. First off, this book is both good and bad. Good because it is the first book to be written about Gene Kelly in quite a while, but bad because the author uses techniques and makes little mistakes that weaken his work. Many readers complain that Yudkoff pretends to know what Gene was thinking during certain points. Indeed, Yudkoff does use a technique that makes the book more of a novel than a strict biography. For instance, he doesn't use the "In 1940, this happened. Later that same year, this happened. In early 1941 he did this." Yudkoff creates conversations that he has no knowledge of actually occuring but I believe he did this to make the biography more readable and enjoyable. Some parts I disagreed with, but I can see why he uses this approach. One thing that hurts Yudkoff's work is his fact checking. For instance, Gene Kelly was quoted as saying that Fred Astaire retired after his wife's death. This was not true, Astaire retired years before his wife passed away. What is true is that Gene Kelly was wrong when he said this. However, if the author had done any research and doublechecked sources, he could have added a note something like "although Gene said this, it was not true that Fred retired because of his wife's death" or something along those lines. Its not a major mistake but I think it shows that Yudkoff may not have researched his topic thoroughly. In another instance, Yudkoff states that Frank Sinatra, a friend and costar of Gene's, almost intentionally angered studio head Louis B. Mayer so he would be fired and able to make "From Here To Eternity". The truth is that Sinatra was fired and didn't make "Eternity" until a year or two later, the film hadn't even been mentioned at the time he was released from MGM. I'm sure that Gene Kelly knew this and its another example of the author not knowing his subject well enough. Good biographers are able to tell you about the lives of people close to their subject, as both Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra were to Gene Kelly. Like I said, the fact that Yudkoff doesn't know these things shows a lack of research. Yudkoff also doesn't provide notes, which I always appreciate in a biography. It lets the reader know what sources were checked, who said what, etc. For instance, if unsure about a quote you can check the notes and see if it came from a close friend, acquaintance, or a different biographer. The good side, as mentioned earlier, is that this is the first biography of legendary song and dance man Gene Kelly to come out in a long time. Kelly's life is interesting not only for films but also for his time in history. He was a committed liberal and during the times of McCarthy this could prove a liability. Though this was an interesting period, it was only one part of Kelly's life. Unfortunately, Yudkoff barely talks about his later life. There is not even a mention of Gene's third child being born. I would have appreciated more detail on Kelly's very happy second marriage, but Yudkoff barely gives any.

In conclusion, this biography does leave a lot to be desired. It is by no means a definitive book. However, its a decent introduction to Kelly and is the most commercially available bio on him. I recommend that you read it with an open mind, try to corroborate with other books, and if you can find Clive Hirschhorn's excellent biography of Gene Kelly. Its hard to find, but its more fulfilling and accurate than this.

The author tries, but fails, to adequately tell Gene Kelly's life story. There are so few materials on the life and career of Kelly that this book was eagerly anticipated by his fans. Unfortnately, this one doesn't make the grade. In his "novel" approach, the author attempts to crawl inside Kelly's mind as he sits watching the American Film Institute Awards in the 1980s. He thinks Kelly's thoughts and presents them to readers, as though he inhabits a secret corner of the choreographer/dancer's mind and is literally giving us "the inside scoop" on how Kelly felt about his life, career, and relationships. He also invites himself into closed door sessions (where he couldn't possibly have known what was being said between Kelly and Mayer, Kelly and Betsy Blair, Kelly and Jeanne Coyne, Kelly and Donen, etc.). The result is half novel/half biography, all failure. When the author finally does climb out of Kelly's mind back into the reality of the dancer's life, he doesn't get all of his facts straight. In one instance he reports that Vera Ellen saluted Kelly at the American Film Institute Awards. If so, she did it from the netherworld. Ellen had been dead for several years by the time of the AFI awards.

For some odd reason writers have a hard time writing about Kelly and doing it well. Perhaps it is because Kelly's life is devoid of serious scandel; there is nothing scurrilous on which to hang juicy rumors. Let's hope, then, that Kelly's widow, Pat Ward, will soon release the biography that Kelly, himself, was working on the last few years of his life. Then we'll REALLY know what Kelly was thinking, and not have to rely upon second-hand Kelly-think.

This is a postscript to my review titled "The Book Who Couldn't Dance." For me, the last straw comes on Page 218, when Yudkoff botches his description of the "Singin' in the Rain" number. It's one thing for Yudkoff to botch the numbers in LIVING IN A BIG WAY, which after all is a fairly obscure film -- though NOT impossible to view -- but to botch the most famous Kelly number in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, the most famous Kelly film of all time?! Well, how can you trust ANYTHING in the book after that?

Dear lord! Does this man have no shame? How can he possibly know what THE MAN was thinking in all those intimate moments in his life. Only once in a while he writes "must have felt" or "possibly he felt like" but for the rest Alvin Yudkoff just plain froces his own opinions into the book. That is, to say the least, HORRIBLY ANOYING! And this isn't the only bad part of this book. To make it a true catastrophy he doesn't even bother with the last half of Gene Kelly's life. AND he uses Clive Hirschhorn's work as a safety to keep his own afloat. What a rip-off! Alvy, Dear, how do you sleep at night? I can't belive anyone claiming to be someones fan could write so carelessly about this person's life. You just can't do this to people. Ladies and gentlemen, I very VERY strongly advise you to stay far away from this terrible waste of perfectly good paper. And if you really insist on reading it, just go to a librarie it's definetly not worth the purshase price. P.S.: I would not have given this book any stars but I had to put one to post my review. Just pretend its not there.