Certain images of Gene Kelly are so indelible – dancing and singing in the rain, say … or hailing New York, New York at the Brooklyn Navy Yard – that we tend to forget, perhaps, the sheer joyous breadth of the man’s artistic accomplishments.

Consider the astonishing “Alter Ego” number from 1944’s Cover Girl, in which Kelly dances and argues with himself. The entire brilliant number, still fresh and innovative even today, was designed, created and choreographed by Kelly.

Or take “The Hat My Dear Old Father Wore Upon St. Patrick’s Day” from Take Me Out To The Ball Game in 1949. Kelly’s six-plus minute solo song-and-dance is as delicious a valentine to the Irish as has ever been put on film.

The list goes on – I Got Rhythm and the Newspaper Dance and the Roller Skating number and the Tom & Jerry dance and the Rope dance –

And on – Good Mornin’ and the Garbage Can dance and Moses Supposes and Gotta Dance and For Me And My Gal and Go Home With Bonnie Jean …

And on.

But Gene Kelly was not simply a great song-and-dance man, he was a very fine actor. Though often overlooked, Gene Kelly was an actor of depth and considerable subtlety.

In the unfairly neglected Christmas Holiday, Kelly plays a murderer. He’s pitch-perfect, offering a multi-layered performance. Watch him in The Black Hand, with a solid Italian accent in a story of Italian hoods in early 20th Century NYC. Or in Inherit the Wind, as a cynical reporter. In the film’s ultimate scene, Kelly and Spencer Tracy put on an acting clinic.

Or, watch Kelly in An American In Paris, as he explains why it’s difficult for a painter to give up his paintings, unlike a novelist or musician selling their works. He invests the scene with a depth of emotion which is rare indeed in the musical genre.

As if singer, dancer, choreographer, actor, wasn’t enough, Gene Kelly was also a director. And if some of his directorial efforts fell short, one aspect of his directorial endeavors never fell short, his ability to elicit the best from his actors. One prime example, the early scenes in The Cheyenne Social Club, in which cowboy friends James Stewart and Henry Fonda are riding for days on end. That’s all, no action, no histrionics, no f/x. Just two old pros with some wonderful dialogue, a director who knew where to put the camera and when to give actors their head, and what you’ve got is a wonderful sequence.

Tune in to ICONS Radio Hour this Sunday, August 12 – which happens to be Gene Kelly’s birthday -- at 8 pm ET, as Kerry Kelly Novick discusses her father’s remarkable career as singer, dancer, actor, choreographer, and director. Kerry also elaborates on her father’s liberal politics and his involvement with the hot-button issues of his times. Kerry knows her father’s career, but she also knows well the man behind the public song-and-dance man image, the man who was her father.