Favourite Things Friday: Gene Kelly

Any man who looks like a sissy while dancing is just a lousy dancer. –Gene Kelly

If you could spend a day with any one person in history, living or dead {boundaries of time, distance and money are not an object} who would you choose to meet? For me, it would have to be Gene Kelly, circa 1952, and I would want to spend the day doing dance lessons. Oh, and I might ask him to sing while we dance.

You know the theory that there are only six degrees of separation between you and any other person on the planet? It all depends on who you know . I have this amazing friend, Sparkle, and Sparkle's Grandma-in-law took dancing lessons from Gene Kelly. That's only two degrees between me and Gene Kelly . If Sparkle were to introduce me to her Gram-in-law, Gram could introduce me to Gene Kelly. And I could have those dancing lessons. If Gene hadn't died in 1996. Details. Whatever. This is my Land of Make-Believe.

My crush on Gene Kelly started when I was about 16. Around that time, I started having problems with insomnia and the only thing on TV at 2:00 am were old movies on PBS. I loved them all, but soon decided that my favorites were the musicals and among the musicals, the ones starring Gene Kelly were my most favorite. I started to watch the TV listings for his movies and make a point to be there for them. Singin' in the Rain is one of my all-time favorites. Debbie Reynolds is absolutely adorable, Donald O'Connor is fabulous as the comic relief and The Man himself is unstoppable. He had a fever of 103˚ when he shot this scene. You'd never know it.


Did you know that Gene Kelly taught Frank Sinatra to dance using baseball moves? Gene was incredibly talented and graceful. It is one thing to look graceful in tap shoes, but a wholly other thing to do it on roller skates. From It's Always Fair Weather, 1955.


These next two clips pair Gene Kelly with another of my favorite performers, Julie Andrews, and they are just delightful. From The Julie Andrews Hour.




And last, but not least, from 1980 {and probably the first Gene Kelly movie I ever saw}, Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly with Whenever You're Away From Me from Xanadu. At 68, he still gives a wonderful performance. Sorry about the sound and picture quality. It was the best I could find of the entire clip.


Quoting Irving Berlin, Gene Kelly's last words recorded on film were, The song has ended, but the melody lingers on. And while Gene Kelly is no longer with us his, music, his dance, his melody lingers and will remain forever in my heart.

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Favourite Things Friday: Dancing With the Stars

It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer. –Shanna LaFleur

I've mentioned before that Dancing With the Stars is one of my favorite things. But this being Favourite Things Friday and all, I thought I'd give it another mention. Because it is fabulous. And it makes me happy.

This is the sixth season I've watched and I find myself wondering why some of the professional dancers always end up with partners who are duds and some seem to always get the most talented stars. All of the professionals are amazingly talented and beautiful dancers. But there are a handful who always have really talented {non-professional} partners and they are always at the head of the pack. One of those dancers is Derek Hough. He seems to always have the most talented star in the group. After thinking about it, I think that it has less to do with the dancing talent of his star partners and more to do with his ability as a teacher.

This season Derek is paired with Jennifer Grey. She's 50, has two pins in her neck and a pinched nerve in her foot, but they always come out on top. They have received the highest judges scores three out of the four weeks in this season and this week they received two 10's on their performance and a total of 56 out of 60 points. None of the other couples even came close.



This week I also particularly enjoyed the musical performance by the Goo Goo Dolls. I think their name is hilarious {especially since they are big, dude-y rock stars}, but I also love their music. When I first started watching, the ballroom style dancing to contemporary music was a little hard to get used to, but there is such an artistry to it and now DWTS is just one of my favorite things.

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Dancing With the Stars

Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is not mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. -Havelock Ellis

I love to watch Dancing With the Stars. It just makes me smile. I love the music and the movement and the expression. I

love to dance too (although my dancing shoes are pretty dusty these days). I think it would be totally awesome if they'd pair up office managers and stay-at-home-moms and gas station attendants with the pro dancers for Dancing With the Regulars to see who comes out on top. It would be the perfect thing to liven up the boring schedule of re-runs they play all summer. I would totally go for it. I think I'd like to be paired up with Tony Dovolani or Derek Hough or maybe Louis van Amstel. I have the perfect place for that Mirror Ball Trophy.

This week, each of the five couples was assigned a dance which were paired up with an era to be represented within that style. Nicole Scherzinger and Derek Hough were assigned the Paso Doble and drew the 1950's. Derek said . . . '50's and Paso . . . it's like . . . imPASOble. Derek is a very talented dancer and choreographer and Nicole is right in step with him. This is one of the most incredible dances I've seen on Dancing With the Stars. Just watch the magic.


P.S. Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. -Faith Whittlesey