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
That's Entertainment, Part II as Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and a montage of iconic stars such as Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, James Stewart, Lana Turner, and Greta Garbo. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire hosted the film and Kelly directed the introductory segments featuring him and Astaire, which included location footage of Kelly returning to Paris, the city featured in two of MGM's most famous productions, "An American in Paris" and "Gigi". This was the last film Kelly directed. Several new musical numbers featured Astaire and Kelly, including a couple of routines in which they danced