SCREEN legend Gene Kelly, who starred in classic Hollywood musicals such as Singin in the Rain and An American in Paris, died yesterday in California. He was 83.
"Gene Kelly died peaceably in his sleep at his home this morning with his wife Patricia at his bedside," said Kelly's friend and publicist of 30 years, Mr Mort Vine.
"We've lost one of the great people not just of our business but of humanity," he added.
Kelly died at his Beverly Hills home in Los Angeles as a result of complications from two previous strokes.
Born Eugene Curran Kelly in August 1912, he originally intended to become a lawyer. But he gained a reputation as a ballroom performer while working at his brother's dance school in his native Pittsburgh.
Moving to New York during the Depression, he struggled to impress Broadway producers, but eventually made a name designing routines for the famous Diamond Horseshoe revue.
His Broadway performance in Pal Joey earned Kelly a Hollywood starring role with Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal and it transformed his career.
The success was followed by Anchors Aweigh, a film remembered chiefly for the pioneering sequence in which Kelly danced alongside a cartoon character.
His military service mirrored his dancing career where he spent much of the time playing a sailor and he went on to serve for two years in the US Navy, eventually achieving the rank of lieutenant.
With his rugged Irish American charm and athletic movements, Kelly enchanted a generation with his puddle splashing, umbrella twirling performance in Singin in the Rain.
He won a special Academy Award in 1951 for his versatility as an actor, dancer, singer and director. In 1985 the American Film Institute gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1987 he was awarded France's highest cultural award, the Order of Arts and Letters.
He danced and directed until his health began to falter.
In his private life, Kelly confessed to being restless and something of a workaholic.
His first marriage to dancer Betsy Blair failed. His second wife, Jeanne, died of cancer in 1973. He had one daughter from his first marriage, a daughter and a son from his second.
In 1990, Kelly then 77, married his 28 year old companion, Ms Patricia Ward.