I got started dancing because I knew it was one way to meet girls.
I'd studied dance in Chicago every summer end taught it all winter, and I was well-rounded. I wasn't worried about getting a job on Broadway. In fact, I got one the first week.
My mother had gotten a job as a receptionist at a dancing school and had the idea that we should open our own dancing school; we did, and it prospered.
When Ginger Rogers danced with Astaire, it was the only time in the movies when you looked at the man, not the woman.
Gene was offered the chance to direct Cabaret (1972) but turned it down.
Gene was promised the lead part in Pal Joey (1957) by Columbia Studios head Harry Cohn in 1944 but so much time elapsed getting it to screen that Gene was contractually bound to MGM Studios at that point and was unable to do it, so Frank Sinatra received the role instead.
Gene's brother, Fred, was also an actor.
Gene only appeared on-screen once with his competitor/fellow dance great Fred Astaire, in Ziegfeld Follies. (1946)
Gene was nominated twice for the Director's Guild award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement In Motion Pictures, for Singin' In The Rain (1952) which he shared with Stanley Donen, and Hello Dolly (1969).
Gene was married twice, with both his wives being dancers. His first wife, Betsy Blair, he met on the set of Diamond Horseshoe (1945), where she was a dancer and he was the choreographer. His second wife, Jeanne Coyne, was his dancing assistant before their marriage in 1960, and was a dancer in several films including Singin' In The Rain and Kiss Me Kate.
Gene was inducted into the Theater Hall Of Fame in 1992.
Gene was nominated in 1946 for Best Actor Oscar for Anchors Aweigh (1945).
Gene was given a special Oscar in 1951 "in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film." He was later re-awarded this Oscar in 1984 after his home had burned in a fire and he had lost the original.
Gene met Paula Abdul after noticing the style of an animated cat in the music video for her song "Opposites Attract" was very much like his own. Gene had been a personal idol of Paula and they met every week after that, for tea, until Gene died.
Gene is mentioned in Madonna's hit song, "Vogue".
Gene was awarded the Legion D'Honneur by the French government in 1960.
Gene filmed his famous rain-dancing sequence in Singin' In The Rain (1952) while sick with a 103-degree fever.
Gene directed the classic musical Hello, Dolly! (1969)
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