Gene Nelson | WatchedThis
Gene Nelson
Acting
Biography
Gene Nelson was an American dancer, actor, screenwriter, and director. Born Leander Eugene Berg in Astoria, Oregon, his family moved to Seattle when he was a year old. He was inspired to become a dancer by watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers when he was a child. After serving in the Army during World War II during which he also performed in the musical This Is the Army, Nelson landed his first Broadway role in Lend an Ear, for which he received the Theatre World Award. He also appeared onstage in Follies, which garnered him a Tony Award nomination, and Good News. Nelson's longtime professional dance partner during the 1950s was actress JoAnn Dean Killingsworth. Gene Nelson co-starred with Doris Day in "Lullaby of Broadway" in 1951. He played Will Parker in the film Oklahoma! In 1959, he appeared in Northwest Passage as a young man trying to prove his innocence in a murder case. Nelson appeared on the March 17, 1960 episode of "You Bet Your Life", hosted by Groucho Marx. He and Groucho's daughter, Melinda, performed a dance number together. Nelson directed eight episodes of The Rifleman in the 1961-62 season, the original Star Trek, the first season of I Dream of Jeannie, Gunsmoke, The Silent Force, and The San Pedro Beach Bums. He directed the Elvis Presley films Kissin' Cousins, which screenplay he wrote, and Harum Scarum. For the Kissin' Cousins screenplay he received a WGA award nomination for best written musical. He later taught in the Theater Arts Department at San Francisco State University in the late 1980s. He starred as Buddy in the 1971 Broadway musical Follies, for which he received a 1972 Tony Award nomination for Featured Actor In A Musical. The production featured a score by Stephen Sondheim and was co-directed by Michael Bennett and Harold Prince. For contribution to the motion picture industry, in 1990, Nelson was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nelson's star is located at 7005 Hollywood Boulevard. Description above from the Wikipedia article Gene Nelson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Tea for Two
In this reworking of "No, No, Nanette," wealthy heiress Nanette Carter bets her uncle $25,000 that she can say "no" to everything for 48 hours. If she wins, she can invest the money in a Broadway show featuring songs written by her beau, and of course, in which she will star. Trouble is, she doesn't realize her uncle's been wiped out by the Stock Market crash.
Oklahoma!
In the Oklahoma territory at the turn of the twentieth century, two young cowboys vie with a violent ranch hand and a traveling peddler for the hearts of the women they love.
Lullaby of Broadway
Pretty Melinda Howard has been abroad singing with a musical troupe. She decides to return home to surprise her mother whom she thinks is a successful Broadway star with a mansion in Manhattan. She doesn't know that her mother is actually a burnt-out cabaret singer with a love for whiskey. When she arrives at the mansion, she is taken in by the two servants who are friends of her mother's. The house actually belongs to Adolph Hubbell, a kind-hearted Broadway producer who also gets drawn into the charade. Hubbell takes a shine to Melinda and agrees to star her in his next show. Melinda also finds romance with a handsome hoofer who's also in the show. All is going well for Melinda except that she wants to see her mother who keeps putting off their reunion.
Dial 999
A man tells his wife that the police are after him for having killed a bookie during an alcoholic binge, but that he is innocent and is being framed for the murder. The wife and her brother hide him and try to find out who the real killer was. The more they investigate, the more holes they begin to find in the husband's story.
Crime Wave
Reformed parolee Steve Lacey is caught in the middle when a wounded former cellmate seeks him out for shelter. The other two former cellmates then attempt to force him into doing a bank job.
The West Point Story
A Broadway director helps the West Point cadets put on a show, aided by two lovely ladies and assorted complications.
Timeslip
An atomic scientist is found floating in a river with a bullet in his back and a radioactive halo around his body. The radioactivity has put him seven-and-a-half seconds ahead of us in time. He teams up with a reporter to stop his evil double from destroying his experiments in artificial tungsten.
The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady
An Irish horsecar driver's daughter meets New York showman Tony Pastor and goes into vaudeville.
She's Working Her Way Through College
Shapely burlesque dancer Hot Garters Gertie aka Angela Gardner meets her future drama professor. Her new landlady proves to be the professor's wife. Angela helps breath life into the annual school stage show...but someone has discovered her secret past.
She's Back on Broadway
When Catherine Terris's career in Hollywood hits the skids, she heads back to the site of her first great triumphs...Broadway! She takes the lead in a play which is being directed by Gordon Evans, the man who was both her Svengali and her lover. Evans is still bitter that she walked out on him to become the toast of Hollywood years earlier. Can Terris and Evans put aside their mutual animosity long enough to make a go of this production. The way things start off, it doesn't seem likely.
Production
Harum Scarum
Johnny Tyronne, action movie star and ladies man, is traveling through the Middle East on a goodwill tour to promote his latest movie, "Sands of the Desert". Once he arrives, however, he is kidnapped by a gang of assassins who were so impressed with his on-screen adventures that they want to hire him to carry out an assassination for them.
Kissin' Cousins
An Army officer returns to the Smoky Mountains and tries to convince his kinfolk to allow the Army to build a missile site on their land. Once he gets there, he discovers he has a look-alike cousin.
Your Cheatin' Heart
The story of the country and western singer Hank Williams.
Hand of Death
A scientist spills a new serum in his lab, accidentally inhales its fumes, and turns into a murderous monster who kills anyone he touches.
The Cool Ones
A young, millionaire rock promoter creates a new boy/girl team for his teen TV dance show. Will the ambitious go-go dancer and has-been pop star fall in love for real?
Wake Me When the War Is Over
During the latter days of WWII an American Lieutenant accidentally falls out of an airplane into German territory. He is taken in by a Baroness who becomes smitten with him and doesn't want him to leave, so she doesn't tell him that the war has ended...for five years!
Hootenanny Hoot
The marriage of television director Ted Glover and television producer A.G. Bannister has gone on the rocks because she has permitted her career to take precedence over romance.
The Letters
Story of people whose lives were changed because of a year-long delay in the delivery of some letters.
Where's Everett?
Arnold Barker starts every day by going out on his porch to pick up the milk and the newspaper but on this day he brings in something different — an invisible alien baby who's been left on his doorstep!
Kissin' Cousins
An Army officer returns to the Smoky Mountains and tries to convince his kinfolk to allow the Army to build a missile site on their land. Once he gets there, he discovers he has a look-alike cousin.
Gallery
