Betsy Blair was born Elizabeth Boger in 1923 into a middle-class episcopalian family in New Jersey, her mother a teacher, her father an insurance broker. By the age of 12, this prodigiously confident child performer was dancing before Eleanor Roosevelt in Washington. At the age of 16 she came to audition at Billy Rose’s Manhattan nightclub, the Diamond Horse- shoe and, as in a Hollywood musical, she mistook the resident choreographer for a waiter. He was Gene Kelly, 12 years her senior, of whom she says in her attractive and evocative biography, ‘He gave me — and the world — an unforgettable legacy of joy.’ When they married two years later and set off for Hollywood, he was a Broadway star under contract to David Selznick, she was an experienced chorus girl with high ambitions as an actress and political views far to the left of her husband’s liberal democratic convictions.
He was an immediate success in the movies, while she bore him a daughter and remained in his shadow though doing some stage work and becoming active in a number of left-wing causes of an admirable kind.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in