GOLDEN DOOR SPEAKER SERIES: PATRICIA WARD KELLY
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- Опубліковано 17 лип 2024
- Biographer and film historian Patricia Ward Kelly is the widow of Gene Kelly. She has worked as a writer at a film production company, as a contributing scholar for the authoritative Northwestern/Newberry Writings of Herman Melville, and as a freelance journalist. She and Kelly met at the Smithsonian in 1985, when he was the host/narrator for a television special for which she was a writer. Soon after, he invited her to California to write his memoirs, a job for which she recorded his words nearly every day for over ten years, and they were together until his death in 1996.
Currently, she serves as Trustee of The Gene Kelly Image Trust and Creative Director of Gene Kelly: The Legacy, a corporation established to commemorate Kelly’s centenary worldwide. She lives in Los Angeles and is completing the book about her late husband.
I loved Gene Kelly he made me love to dance
one of the greatest entertainers of the twenty first century
He died on my bday 😭 wonderful man Gene Kelly and this was absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for posting this! 💕🥂
How does she not know about Singin’ In The Rain, or who Gene Kelly was? Come on now.
This is one wonderful human being - Gene Kelly made dance accessible to the everyday guy and girl - and we are so blessed to have her loving account of a genius whom generations will all recognise and connect with - keep up the great work ❤️
Again I disagree.
We remember him for HIS GREAT TALENT AND LEGACY.
She is living off his name and legacy.
Who was she before she became Gene Kelly's thitlrd wife.?
Had his lovely second wife Jeanne Coyne lived a long life andnot passed away at 50 from Leukemia.
There would never have been this woman living off his name. Shame.
We're all eternal and he never left. None of us does. Only now he has an eternal perspective unbounded by time or space and will be inspiring artists and dancers for centuries throughout all time - and not just through the work he left behind. I know he's still watching over his wife and everyone and everything he loved. I think it's wonderful that she fell for him and that they had so much in common before she even knew who he was. It could almost be a movie. She's a very talented lady and I think it's remarkable she had an agent at 26.
Vulnerable older rich man. Younger woman who was unknown before she met him.
@@elissaschornstein9399 *Vulnerable, rich older man.
What a amazing interview from a wonderful intelligent woman! Gene Kelly id a Monument !!! Thank you for this!
*an amazing *Gene Kelly is
Pittsburgh is an unforgettably enchanting town, I love visiting there 🍸 And Gene's seemingly romantic capacity is heartwarmingly interesting..and then his notes coupled to his love of words reveal further how mightily joyful his playfulness would become 🍷
Great interview. She seems like such a lovely genuine lady and truly loved her husband.
Acting a part.
She is the total opposite.
Read Betsey Blair’s autobiography or read what his 3 children have to say about this cold, manipulative cruel woman, who completely isolated him from his friends and family in his final 6 years whilst married to her!
(Great book of you are a Gene Kelly fan. Blair was married to him for 16 years. (They fell in love when he was 28 and she was a 16 year old dancer! Married when she was 17)
‘A NEW book by Gene Kelly's first wife, Betsy Blair, charges that his widow robbed the Hollywood legend of his love for life and the love of his friends,
and that she stole from his children Kerry, Tim and Bridget.
Blair skewers Los Angeles socialite Patricia Ward Kelly in the prologue of her
just-released "The Memory of All That."
Calling Kelly's second wife Jeanne Coyne "a lovely woman," Blair notes she and
all of his children were close to Kelly - until he married Patricia Ward a few years before his death in 1996.
Among the book's claims:
* Kelly's "new young wife was welcomed by his children... sadly, she betrayed him and them...
She took a great deal away from him - first his pride and then his joie de vivre.
And in the end, she had most of his fortune."
* "After his first stroke... Kerry and Tim left messages [at the hospital] of love and concern.
They had the impression Gene was not told about these calls. (Ward controlled all communications)
* "At the time of his second stroke.... he was cut off from EVERYONE familiar:
Lois, his beloved secretary for fifty years, was no longer welcome in the house;
the locks were changed;
there was a new housekeeper.
His doctor, his business manager and his lawyer were all fired and replaced (blatant isolation and control technique)
* "Old friends who left messages received no calls back...
Bridget was told not to call by, to make an appointment.
In 1995 when I was in Los Angeles for
only three days, I had to INSIST that I would not be stopped [from seeing Kelly]."
At that meeting, Blair claims, Ward pretentiously insisted on having tea served by a maid.
"Even the Queen of England pours tea at her own table🙄," Blair writes.
At the end of the meeting "Gene asked me to please come back the next day, and to bring our friend Ted Reid."
Ward later cancelled the meeting.
Blair writes, "Gene was deprived of everything towards the end. I cannot
forgive his widow, not because she got almost all of the children's inheritance,
but because I don't think he had the happy ending he deserved."
When Kelly died, Blair says his children were not allowed to stay at their father's house for the funeral and "never got to say goodbye." to their dad.
Ward Kelly didn't return calls.’
(His children corroborate Blair’s claims.)
@@OldRaver This is very sad.
We’ve all heard the story about the young women marrying the much older men just for his money, well with Patricia Kelly I see a woman who truly and deeply loved and cared for her late husband.
Gene Kelly was very fortunate to have her by his side in the last years of his life.
I think not so much. Read my comments on this woman.
Highly unlikely. Read his first wife’s book, Betsy Blair’s, you’ll understand what miss thing here is about...& it’s not love.
She didn’t know who he was, so where was she when her mother and father watched his movies when she was little? I read her parents were big fans 🤷🏻♀️
Happy birthday to a great man’
She’e never heard of him? I was born in the 90s and I heard of him in my teens. I find it hard to believe that a woman born in the 50s had never heard of one of the most famous actors in the US. It’s incredibly annoying when the spouses of ultra famous people try to pretend they’d been living under a rock and had no clue who their now spouse was when they first met them.
I ABSOLUTELY CAN'T STAND this woman! Patricia Ward Kelly!!!!!!!
She tells such RIDICULOUS stories!
Did she REALLY think that the incredibly famous GENE KELLY was a WOMAN!!! Before she was introduced to him!!!
And are we supposed to believe that she
had never heard of the greatest musical film of all time "Singing in the Rain"!! Where was she living in a cloistered nunnery or a cave?
Even after she had met him at the conference after he left another woman had to tell her that he was a very famous person.
She wasn't a very good researcher she didn't know this after attending a week long conference !!
This one is one hell of gold digger!!!
She moved into Gene's house and his life when she was 26 years old and he was 73 years old and possibly very lonely and vulnerable. She was researching and going to write his life story.
She married him 5 years later. When she was 31 and he was 77.
His children and his friends didn't attend the wedding. Gene's family and friends were suspicious of her motives.
She still hasn't written the famous book!
She must make more money and receive lots of fame by doing her one woman show and has become famous for promoting her husbands name and his legacy.
She is supposely keeping his name alive but actually it's HIS GENIUS and LEGACY of WORK that KEEPS HIM ALIVE AND RELEVANT.
She inherited all of Gene's money and a nice mansion and his three children were robbed of their inheritance!! This was pointed out in
the biography written by Gene's 1st wife Betsy Blair!
Plus the biography of Gene Kelly by written by the Authors Cynthia & Sara Brideson. "He's Got Rythym" tells the same story.
Apparently towards the very end of Gene's life after a couple of strokes he was very fragile. She supposedly isolated him from his employees, friends and Children and family.
Firing staff that had been with him for 50 years.?
Gene requested in his will that he be cremated not buried and not have a big memorial service.
She cremated him 4 hours after death and BEFORE his kids got to see him!! Plus she spent an awkward 30 mins., Showing them all the flowers that had been sent by famous people. There were not allowed to stay at the house they had lived in as children growing up with their Father.
They didn't get to see their Father towards the end of his life.
Whilst he was hospital she told his children not to visit the hospital. Phone calls were not acknowledged.
Bridget Kelly Gene's youngest daughter had to fight to see him in the hospital.
Doesn't sound too good to me.
Betsy Blair thinks His wife purposely cut Gene off from his family and friends. Their phone call were never returned and they couldn't speak to him. I think the poor man was very unhappy at the end of his life and couldn't help himself.
This is not an uncommon occurrence when a famous person remarries and doesn't take out a prenuptial agreementyo protect his assets and his family.
It has happened with a number of other famous Actors.
So the Children are still fighting with her over their Father's estate. Patricia is supposed to give them a percentage of the royalties from their Father's movies etc.
So this woman has become famous by doing a one woman show dedicated to Gene all over the USA and still hasn't written her husband's biography after their first meeting 34 years ago when she first met him!!!.
I believe her. I took a very a female athlete to Batman in a movie theater in the late '90s. When Vicky Vail goes into the Batcave and sees Bruce Wayne, she turns to me in a loud voice and says, "You mean Batman is Bruce Wayne?" The ENTIRE theater turned around to see who the dullard was. Some people are stuck in their own world.
According to a documentary on UA-cam, a house fire in 1983 destroyed the house Gene bought in Beverly Hills after WWII, and he had a house built exactly like the house that burned down.
@@ambrosecars2124 In an interview on UA-cam I watched today, his children Tim and Kerry say that she alienated them from Gene.
I always loved watching Gene Kelly dance because he danced like a man...he didn’t feminize the movements.
He made 2. Bombs its always fair weather that movie was shown in a drive in movie and also HELLO DOLLY
You're knocking two films that I love, especially 'Always Fair Weather'. But everybody is entitled to their opinion.
???..she never heard of Gene Kelly...and never knew what a limosuine was?? (and she was/is a writer??)
I believe she said that she'd never seen a limo in person before not that she didn't know what a limo was.
@@lionelraoul Cynthia she was YOUNG.
Absolutely my point!
Read my comments above.
Ythis is a so called educated woman.
Where was living in a CAVE! Didn't watch TV or see any movies. Read newspapers.
Gene was a great star.
Her story is ridiculous.
She was young? I was younger and I knew what limos were and who Gene Kelly was. Nonsense! She WAS" "Young" enough to read his quarterly dividend bank statements.
She had « no idea » who he was? What planet did she come from? And she was a journalist? He is a big part of American culture history and she had no idea who he was ????? Ok. I don’t know... there’s something about her I don’t like... somehow...
She was born in 1959 in the United States. I was born 1965 in Sweden. I have known about him all my life... She is not a genuine sincere person. She never mentions his kids and his parenthood...
It's plausible. Broadway dancer Harvey Evans mentioned that he came to speak to the dance students at a mid-western college. When he brought up Gene Kelly's name, one of the kids said 'Who's she?' In a college dance program!! Also when he was in the 2002 'Oklahoma!' on Broadway some younger members of the ensemble had no idea who Debbie Reynolds was. We will all eventually be forgotten. Or perhaps it's true that each new generation is significantly dumbed down.
It appears as though Mr. Kelly "lucked out" with this phenomenal lady. I do hope that their age difference wasn't too much of a barrier, but it looks like he was able to cope with the disparity.... It must have been hard for her to keep up with him, but I'm sure he was a gentleman about it and overlooked her youth.
Oh please!
She should have been honoured to have met him.
Let alone marry this gorgeous talented man.
I am her age! And GENE KELLY was and is part of Hollywood history.
I also would have married him. But wouldn't have taken him away from his family and friends.
@@elissaschornstein9399She kept his kids away.
Seems she did like Tony Curtis’ and Jerry Lewis’ widows did--alienated his adult children as Kelly got old and sick. And she didn’t know who he was? Yeah, I am not buying that.
well even just by watching this and not knowing the rest, one has conclude that she's a total phony and the whole thing is an act. Because if it were real it would be really pathetic. But doing all this for money and fame is another kind of insane. Poor Gene Kelly, he really deserved a better ending than this.
*, one has concluded
The reality of life is everything is about money.
She rubs me the wrong way. Argh! Plus, I'm from DC and even back in the 80s, you'd see limos/motorcades all the time, carrying dignitaries around. They were everywhere. It just seems like an odd remark. I'll tell ya tho, I wouldn't have minded a passionate kiss from Kelly.
Funny how both Kelly and Astaire, so different in style and character, both contracted marriages late in life, as widowers, which alienated their families.
Kelly's second wife, Jeanne Crain, made him mellower and less competitive, but after 'It's Always Fair Weather', 'Les Girls' and 'Gigot' tanked, his brief spell of glory from 'The Pirate' to 'Singin' in the Rain' seemed well behind him. People noticed that without Stanley Donen as co-director he seemed less effective either performing or behind the camera.
He had comebacks, but each was soon followed by a commercial setback: his ballet 'Pas de Dieux' by 'Les Demoiselles de Rochefort', 'A Guide for the Married Man' by 'Hello, Dolly'. His last 20 years were mainly about reminiscing, paying tributes to himself and appearing on junk TV shows.
His second wife's name is Jeanne Coyne.
This woman loves the sound of her own voice and her deceased husband's estate. His children STILL want nothing to with the robotic "cling on". Yuck.
Thank you. You've said it all.
She is a parasite living off his name and fame.
Awful.
@@elissaschornstein9399 I"ve written this before - she does celeb autograph circuits. Why? And she speaks SO strained, like Eliza Doolittle after her first eloqution lesson.
@@elissaschornstein9399 ...and she disses Xanadu",his last film. It is a semi camp, innocent classic w/ great tunes. Still in theatres 40 yrs on... She mks it to all! If Gene hadn't done Xanadu, his legacy / last "film" wld hv bn a TV bio pic of Evil Kneival! Oh, "Mrs. Kelly"... "X" is still paying for your limos now!
@@user-jl7ym4en5b *elocution
She is disdained by his “old family” because she pushed them away. Shame on the speaker series for using this forum to advance her time with Gene. He is still my dance hero. But admitting she had had no knowledge of his career gives her NO platform to promote her dribble.
How dare she? Don’t care she’s a writer. His children all refer to her as pushing them away. And that you had no awareness of whom he was to all of his fans and contemporaries age-wise. I started ballet and tap age nine in 1951 at a small dance school south of Seattle. My mother made beautiful costumes. Then added hula age eleven. Univ of Wash 1960-63 modern dance on campus.
Had four different hula instructors in No Cal.
So once again, how dare you, shut your door on his children? You say it’s his memoir but all his personal history? Not being even tangentially aware of Gene Kelly just defines you as a SNOB.