Gene Kelly's Pittsburgh Plaque

This plaque, honoring Hollywood star and Pittsburgh native Gene Kelly, stands proudly outside the William Pitt Union at the University of Pittsburgh.

In 1987, to mark the bicentennial of its founding, the University of Pittsburgh honored the Hollywood song-and-dance man with a star-shaped plaque. It celebrates Kelly, an economics major who graduated in 1933, as “an outstanding alumnus and a great artist.”

At the ceremony, the university president also presented Kelly with a medallion and then screened rare footage of the star’s undergraduate performances.

At the end of the day, a reporter wanted to know why Kelly spent the “four best years of a dancer’s life in college” rather than onstage on onscreen. His response: “It made me more of a person, aided me as a creative artist, and to any young person, I would say, ‘Get an education; never stop learning.’”