Gene Kelly movies." "Anchors Aweigh" became one of the most successful films of 1945 and Kelly was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In "Ziegfeld Follies" (1946)—which was produced in 1944 but not released until 1946—Kelly collaborated with Fred Astaire, for whom he had the greatest admiration, in the famous "The Babbitt and the Bromide" challenge dance routine. After Kelly returned to Hollywood in 1946, MGM had nothing planned and used him in a routine, black-and-white movie: "Living in a Big Way". The film was considered so weak that the studio asked Kelly to design and insert a series of
Gene Kelly The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and won three. In 1970, he made another television special: "Gene Kelly and 50 Girls" and was invited to bring the show to Las Vegas, Nevada—which he did for an eight-week stint on the condition he be paid more than any artist had ever been paid there. He directed veteran actors James Stewart and Henry Fonda in the comedy western "The Cheyenne Social Club" (1970), which performed poorly at the box office. In 1973 he worked again with Frank Sinatra as part of Sinatra's Emmy nominated TV special, "Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra".