Editing Gene Kelly (section)

==Personal life==
From the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, his wife Betsy Blair and he organized weekly parties at their [[Beverly Hills]] home, and they often played an intensely competitive and physical version of [[charades]], known as "The Game".<ref name="Blair" />

His papers are housed at the [[Mugar Memorial Library#Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center|Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center]] at [[Boston University]].

Late in life, Kelly was awarded Irish citizenship under Ireland's Citizenship by Foreign Birth program. The application was initiated on his behalf by his wife Patricia Ward Kelly.<ref name="Irish passport">{{cite news|last1=Kelly|first1=Patricia Ward|date=April 21, 2013|title=My Genealogy|work=[[The Irish Independent]]|url=http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/my-genealogy-29209249.html|access-date=February 2, 2016|archive-date=February 24, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160224073543/http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/my-genealogy-29209249.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

On December 22, 1983, the actor's Beverly Hills mansion burned down.<ref name="UPI">{{cite web|date=December 22, 1983|title=Oscar-winning actor Gene Kelly's mansion was destroyed early Thursday|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/12/22/Oscar-winning-actor-Gene-Kellys-mansion-was-destroyed-early-Thursday/8039440917200/|access-date=December 28, 2020|website=United Press International|archive-date=February 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210202120928/https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/12/22/Oscar-winning-actor-Gene-Kellys-mansion-was-destroyed-early-Thursday/8039440917200/|url-status=live}}</ref> Faulty Christmas tree wiring was blamed. His family and pets escaped and he suffered a burned hand.

===Marriages===
[[File:Gene Kelly Allan Warren.jpg|thumb|Kelly, photographed by [[Allan Warren]], in 1986]]
Kelly married three times. His first marriage was to 17 year old actress [[Betsy Blair]] in 1941. They met the previous year in 1940 at an audition where Kelly hired Blair to work as a dancer for a nightclub revue.<ref>{{cite web | url= https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,480424,00.html| title= An American in London }}</ref> They had one child, Kerry (b. 1942), and they divorced in April 1957.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2gcjAAAAIBAJ&pg=979,473011 |title=Marriage Ends For Gene Kelly, Actress Wife |date=April 4, 1957 |newspaper=Palm Beach Post |page=10 |access-date=December 7, 2012 }}{{Dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

In 1960, Kelly married his choreographic assistant [[Jeanne Coyne]]. She had previously been married to Stanley Donen between 1948 and 1951. Kelly and Coyne had two children, Timothy (b. 1962) and Bridget (b. 1964). This marriage lasted until Coyne died in 1973.

Kelly married Patricia Ward in 1990, when he was 77 and she was 30.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/married-to-gene-kelly-he-didn-t-seem-that-old-to-me-1.3950371 |title=Married to Gene Kelly: 'He didn't seem that old to me' |newspaper=Irish Times |access-date=October 24, 2019 |archive-date=July 23, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190723023145/https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/married-to-gene-kelly-he-didn-t-seem-that-old-to-me-1.3950371 |url-status=live }}</ref> Their marriage lasted until his death in 1996, and she has never remarried.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/03/movies/gene-kelly-dancer-of-vigor-and-grace-dies.html |title=Gene Kelly, Dancer of Vigor and Grace, Dies |last=Krebs |first=Albin |date=February 3, 1996 |newspaper=The New York Times |page=5 |access-date=December 7, 2012 |archive-date=December 15, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101215012129/http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/03/movies/gene-kelly-dancer-of-vigor-and-grace-dies.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Political and religious views===
Kelly was a lifelong supporter of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]. His period of greatest prominence coincided with the [[McCarthyism|McCarthy era]] in the US. In 1947, he was part of the [[Committee for the First Amendment]], the Hollywood delegation that flew to Washington to protest against the first official hearings which were held by the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]]. His first wife, Betsy Blair, was suspected of being a communist sympathizer, and when [[United Artists]], which had offered Blair a part in ''[[Marty (film)|Marty]]'' (1955), were considering withdrawing her under pressure from the [[American Legion]], Kelly successfully threatened MGM's influence on United Artists with a pullout from ''[[It's Always Fair Weather]]'' unless his wife was restored to the part.<ref name="Hirschhorn" /><ref name="Blair">{{cite book | last=Blair | first=Betsy | title=The Memory of All That | publisher=Elliott & Thompson | year=2004 | location=London | isbn=1-904027-30-X }}</ref> He used his position on the board of directors of the [[Writers Guild of America West]] on a number of occasions to mediate disputes between unions and the Hollywood studios.

He was raised as a [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and he was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in [[Beverly Hills, California]].<ref name="goodshepherdbh">{{cite web |url=http://www.goodshepherdbh.org/a-city-on-a-hill/our-history/ |title=Our History &#124; Church of the Good Shepherd |publisher=goodshepherdbh.org |access-date=May 18, 2015 |archive-date=January 2, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102204124/http://www.goodshepherdbh.org/a-city-on-a-hill/our-history/ |url-status=live }}</ref> After he became disenchanted with the Roman Catholic Church's support for [[Francisco Franco]]'s opposition to the [[Second Spanish Republic]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]],<ref name=ipkmpz>{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_10_29/ai_n13807354/ |work=Catholic New Times |title=Gene Kelly: cultural icon |year=2005 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119075803/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_10_29/ai_n13807354/ |archive-date=January 19, 2012}}</ref> he officially severed his ties with the church in September 1939. This separation was prompted, in part, by a trip which Kelly took to Mexico in which he became convinced that the church had failed to help the poor in Mexico.<ref name=ipkmpz /> After his departure from the Catholic Church, Kelly became an [[Agnosticism|agnostic]], as he had previously described himself.<ref>Yudkoff, Alvin ''Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams'', Watson-Guptill Publications: New York, NY (1999) pp. 42, 59</ref>