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Gene Kelly (born Eugene Curran Kelly) was a legendary musical and dance star (but he also appeared in straight dramatic roles) from the 1940s through the 1990s. Together with Fred Astaire, he is one of the two best remembered stars of dancing musicals, and yet he was far from an overnight success. He made his first movie in 1942, "For Me and My Gal", when he was 30 years old, and for most of the 1940s, he did not make many appearances in musicals. Between 1948 and 1951, he appeared in several memorable musicals, but he and his wife, Betsy Blair, were caught up in the blacklisting scandals of the early 1950s, and while he himself was not blacklisted, it did hurt his career. Some of his movies include: Singin' in the Rain, Inherit the Wind, On the Town, An American in Paris, Anchors Aweigh (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), and scores of others! He passed away in 1996 at the age of 83.

Important Added Info: Note that this item has been personally autographed (signed) by Gene Kelly!

Note that this autographed item is part of a remarkable collection. In our last three all-signed auctions, we auctioned hundreds of items from this collection and now we are auctioning 224 more items (mostly 8x10 stills and repro 8x10s, but also 54 small photos)!
     In the 1970s, our consignor was a teacher who taught a film class, and he also part-time ran the local movie theater (and he saved all the presskits from the movies the theater showed).
     Starting in the late 1970s through the late 1980s, he wrote to famous celebrities, and enclosed an 8x10 still or repro (or sometimes another item) from his collection, and he wrote a literate personalized letter, talking about his work as a film teacher, and discussing his favorite movie by that star.
     He received signed photos back from a good percentage of the people he wrote to, and if the people simply sent him a stock photo back, he did not save it, but if he felt the autograph was genuine, and if they added a personalized note, then he did save them.
     In the late 1980s, he pretty much stopped sending letters and photos, simply because he was just too busy. So this photo (and the vast majority of the other photos we are auctioning for this consignor) were obtained in the late 1970s or 1980s, through personal correspondence with this star. This is of course excellent, because back at that time celebrities were not selling their signatures nearly as much, and many of the stars were pretty forgotten and were happy to get letters from people like our consignor!
     He of course does not have any "Certificates of Authenticity", but he only kept ones he felt were surely authentic, and those are the ones we are auctioning. However, bidders can certainly compare the signatures to known examples on the internet to judge for themselves.

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

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Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775