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Saturday, April 06, 2002

By Patricia Ward Kelly

One of my responsibilities as trustee of the "Gene Kelly Image" is to make decisions about the use of Gene's name and likeness. Fortunately, Gene always involved me in the decision-making process, so I learned firsthand what he considered appropriate. "It should always be classy," he said. "Don't sell yourself too cheap," and, in his vernacular, "Never hawk products." Sometimes the decisions were clear and straightforward, but often they were more complicated.

	Patricia Ward Kelly is Gene Kelly's widow and lives in Los Angeles, Calif.

Occasionally it even came down to a hunch. "Would he or wouldn't he?" became the haunting question. And just as the world had judged Gene's choices, I knew they would judge mine, perhaps even more harshly, as I was acting in his stead.

So when Stephanie Flom of the East Liberty Development organization approached me about lending Gene's name to the old Regent Theatre in East Liberty, adding that it would be linked to that of jazz great Billy Strayhorn, the process of consideration began. At first blush, naming the theater after Gene seemed like a good idea. His East Liberty upbringing was a vital element in what he was to become, both as a creative influence and as a man. He spoke often of the place, evoking vivid images of his childhood spent in the dim lights of the movie theaters along Penn Avenue. He talked about the real influences on his art -- not famous dancers like Pavlova ,who had put him to sleep when he was a young boy, but the vibrant swashbuckling of his hero Douglas Fairbanks Sr., who made grace and manhood an acceptable alliance.

But then I began to have second thoughts. It seemed that each of these giants could -- and perhaps should -- stand alone. Was linking Kelly and Strayhorn a positive thing or a kind of disservice to them both? Stephanie told me to go back to my hotel and think about it before I gave her an answer. That night, I finally concluded that the idea of the "Kelly-Strayhorn" was, in fact, very appropriate.

In "Lush Life," the story of Billy Strayhorn by David Hajdu, I read that the young Strayhorn had walked in Frick Woods to think and to find solace. Gene had done the same. That densely wooded area, with paths meandering to and from the river, was where he sought solitude from the world, where he "ran like the wind" along Nine-Mile Run and discovered a hiding place he named "Hidden Rock" to escape the "yammering" at home. Reading the passages about the two men, I imagined these two "isolatoes" traversing the same paths, in search of something they could not find elsewhere in soot-blackened Pittsburgh. And the more I read, the more the connections between them bordered on the magical.

Even their conversations were loftier than most. While Hadju says Strayhorn spoke of "composers, authors, playwrights" with his young friends, Gene turned to history, politics and economics. Both loved words, learned French, modified their diction and were called "sissy" by outsiders; and both, because of their talents, were included in worlds that otherwise would have been off-limits. Both jerked sodas to help make ends meet -- Strayhorn at Pennfield Drugs and Gene at Reymer's; both were exposed to "race records" when they were young; both were pushed by their mothers into "the world of culture"; both were indefatigable readers; both were influenced by Gershwin; and both had a tremendous passion to make a mark.

Gene's desire to dance like an American common man was rooted in the popular music of the era. Not wishing to continue in the European ballroom tradition, he wanted instead to broaden the horizon, to "break the bonds." Tantalized by the movement of modern dance and the pioneering choreography of Doris Humphrey and Charles Wideman, he turned to the music he loved and began linking it to his new concept of bringing dance into the streets. Strayhorn, who "idolized" Gershwin, would similarly expand the musical world, creating some of the most memorable sounds in the history of American music.

Eugene Curran Kelly was born Aug. 23, 1912. "Baby Boy Strayhorn" came into the world three years later, Nov. 29, 1915. Gene graduated from Peabody High on June 25, 1929, tied with two other boys for "Best Dancer" in the high school yearbook. According to Strayhorn's biographer, the winter 1934 commencement exercises for Westinghouse High included "a performance of William Strayhorn's Concerto for Piano and Percussion." Although it is doubtful that the paths of these two remarkable men overlapped in these early years, I am convinced that they came together later in their lives.

But did they? I checked my notes from interviews with Gene. Duke Ellington, Lena Horne and Lennie Hayton appear repeatedly -- breezy and fun "bumming around" Paris with Gene in the early '60s -- but no mention of Strayhorn. I assume he was there, but, as often, he was overshadowed by Ellington. I checked the index in Hajdu's book. No Kelly. I called Gene's friend, the jazz writer Gene Lees, to see if he knew. He referred me to Strayhorn's partner Aaron Bridgers, who at 84 lives in Paris. "I never saw Kelly with Strayhorn," said Bridgers, but he, too, was inclined to think the two men had met.

Gene once referred to a line from Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady": "By the way," he said, "Billy Strayhorn, who wrote that, was from Pittsburgh, from Westinghouse High. It was the neighboring high school to Peabody, and we were competitors all the time. Billy Strayhorn was one of the many great musicians who came from that place. It's amazing the theatrical talent that came from Pittsburgh, 'cause it was a tough, grimy town .... But that town produced great writers and performers, singers and dancers. It was an amazing background for them."

When I received a final sketch of the marquee for the newly renovated theater, I revisited my decision. Seeing the signatures of the two men artfully conjoined on the sign that would emblazon the avenue they had walked as young men, I knew that Gene would have been more than proud.