GENE KELLY and SHIRLEY MacLAINE
The Academy Award winning actor and actress are shown from the waist up in this black and white photograph.
Photograph signed: "Gene Kelly" and "Love & Life/Shirley MacLaine/[draws a heart with an arrow through it]", B/w 8x10. Actor, director and innovative dancer/choreographer Gene Kelly (1912-1996) was a major star in 1950s and 1960s MGM musicals, including Singin' in the Rain (1952). In 1951, he received a special Academy Award "in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and especially for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film". Although Kelly, along with Fred Astaire, was the most successful song-and-dance man in film history, his 1952 film marked the peak of his career, and Kelly moved to Europe to take advantage of tax exemptions. Shortly after he returned to Hollywood, Kelly starred in Brigadoon (1954). His other films include Anchors Aweigh (1945; Best Actor Academy Award nomination), Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Marjorie Morningstar (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), What a Way to Go! (1964) and Xanadu (1980), and Kelly also hosted and starred in several TV series and miniseries and made guest appearances on a number of TV shows from 1954-1984. Shirley MacLaine took dance lessons from the age of two, first performed publicly when she was four and at 16 went to New York, making her Broadway debut as a chorus girl in Me and Juliet (1953). Her dancing skills were evident in the films Can-Can (1960) and Sweet Charity (1969). She received one of her five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for portraying Deedee, the former dance colleague of Emma (Anne Bancroft), in The Turning Point (1977). Deedee chose marriage and motherhood instead of a career while Emma became a prima ballerina. The film was nominated for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, Director and four for acting, but won none. MacLaine won the 1983 Oscar for Best Actress (Terms of Endearment). Lightly creased. Otherwise, fine condition.