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Stanley Donen, director of films as elegant and exuberant as "Singin 'in the Rain", "Funny Face" and "Two for the Road" and the latest director of the Hollywood age, died at age 94.
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune tweeted that one of his sons had confirmed the news to him.
Although he has never been nominated for an Oscar for any of the many films he has made, Donen has been awarded an Oscar for his Oscar achievements in 1998, "In Recognition of a set of works imbued with grace, elegance, wit and visual innovation ".
His films were known for their fast pace, witty scripts, and elegant looks (thanks to cinematography, editing, costumes, and art direction that created vivid visuals). Even after he stopped making musicals, his camera movements and blockages in subsequent comedies and dramas reflected the choreographer's precise work that he was.
In his early films, Donen's contributions were often overshadowed by the public with the talents he worked with, including Gene Kelly and George Abbott. But Donen has imposed himself as an energetic director of popular shows with musicals such as "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" as well as sophisticated romantic comedies ("Indiscreet") and romantic thrillers ("Charade").
Yet he was often underestimated, accused (wrongly) of favoring style over substance. But many of his films have gained stature over time. Although "Funny Face" and "The Bedazzled" of 1967 were not a huge success at the time, they were successful later (and the last was redone in 2000). In the same way, the audience enjoyed the hits more like "Singin 'in the Rain" of 1952, which many have since described as the best Hollywood musical of all time.
Still, Donen rarely won awards and although he was never nominated for an Oscar, he stole the show at the 70th Oscars. He seduced the audience by singing "Cheek to Cheek" and performing a tap-dancing act, with the statuette as their partner.
In addition to Kelly and Abbott, Donen has collaborated with many of the great choreographers and musical dancers of the time, including Bob Fosse, Gower Champion and Michael Kidd, and he was a major creative force in the 1940s and 1950s of MGM. Arthur Freed.
Donen also had a knack for romantic comedy, as he proved it again and again; his "Two for the Road" was one of the great romantic movies of the sixties.
The native of Columbia, S.C., began taking dance classes at the age of 7 and left the house soon after high school for Broadway. His first work was in the choir of "Pal Joey", where he met Kelly, who was playing in the musical Rodgers & Hart. Another choral work in "Best Foot Forward" led to a solo in the "Beat the Band" issue.
With Kelly, he came to Hollywood to appear in the film version of "Best Foot Forward" and was signed by MGM, where he also worked on "Girl Crazy". He was loaned to Columbia for "Cover Girl," on which he was Kelly's assistant. When MGM did not renew his contract, he stayed at Col, unfortunately working on a dozen "less than B" photos, as he had once called them.
Kelly took him back to the MGM to be director of the "Anchors Aweigh" dance of 1945 and he joined Jack Donahue, Charles Walters and Don Loper on the studio's dance team.
From 1946, he was choreographer on such images as "Holiday in Mexico", "No Leave, No Love", "Big City", "A Date With Judy" and "The Kissing Bandit".
With Kelly, he then co-wrote and choreographed "Play me Balloon", after which he was co-directed by "On the Town" in 1949. The tuner set up in New York was shot in full sun . – a pioneer for musicals on the screen. Whereas it was then considered the zenith of the musical, it was also a sign of the eventual disappearance of this genre insofar as it emphasized the art facticity of form in a period after the Second World War. world, when the public lost its taste for such a tariff.
Donen and Kelly have returned to a deliberately artificial environment in their other classic collaboration, "Singin 'in the Rain," an old-fashioned, fashionable, tongue-in-cheek musical.
The MGM entrusted Donen the role of director in "Royal Wedding" with Fred Astaire and Jane Powell, as well as in the first film of Elizabeth Taylor "Love is better than ever".
Donen also directed Fosse and Debbie Reynolds in the musical "Give a Girl Break", but his solo breakthrough was "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" from 1954, choreographed by Kidd. He is one of the best in MGM and was one of the last studio musicals to be heavily dance oriented.
Donen collaborated with Kelly for the last time on "It's Always Fair Weather" (1955), his latest film at MGM.
He then helped Abbott film two Broadway musicals, "Pajama Game" and "Damn Yankees," both featuring Fosse's signature choreography. "Pajama Game" also marked the debut of Donen as a producer. From this photo, he produced each of the next 15 films he made, with the exception of the 1975 film "Lucky Lady".
Paramount's 1957 "Funny Face" musical, using the vintage tunes of George and Ira Gershwin, was not a major success at the time, but remains a cult favorite thanks to several spectacular twists by Astaire, Audrey Hepburn and Kay Thompson, and a fashion. montage sequence filmed by Richard Avedon.
"Funny Face", shot partly on Parisian sites, and the previous "On the Town" paved the way for musicals on the scene such as "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music".
In the 1960s, the musical film was becoming an endangered species and Donen transferred his talents to the romantic comedy. Cary Grant ("Indiscreet", "The Grass is Greener"), and he teamed again with the actor and Hepburn in "Charade" from 1963, a model of romantic suspense.
Donen tried the same formula three years later with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in "Arabesque". Without having as much success as "Charade", she provided stylish moments.
After the success of photos such as "My Fair Lady," "Mary Poppins," and "The Sound of Music," Hollywood has produced a series of musicals, most of them clunkers. Donen chose to miss this tuner clock and experiment with new directions.
"Bedazzled", a diabolical film about Faustian starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and the romantic drama "Two for the Road" are two of Donen's best non-musical films. Although their style and subject are very different, they both boasted of wit, charm and style.
Subsequently, Donen's style is largely outdated, without the help of photos such as "Staircase" (1969), "Lucky Lady", "Saturn 3" (1980) and his last effort " Blame It on Rio "(1984). .
Meanwhile, he did two musicals at a time when Hollywood stopped making them. He had a poor success with "The Little Prince" in 1974, a late collaboration of Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe that will be remembered best when he remembered a spectacular tour of Pit as a devilish snake .
Four years later, "Movie, Movie" was a two-hour feature film, a tribute / parody of old Hollywood boxing movies followed by a similar look at behind-the-scenes musicals. Featuring a Busby Berkeley-style music section with a Kidd choreography, it was a reminder of the lost stint of musical form.
In 1993, Donen made his Broadway debut with the short film "The Red Shoes". He did not make any films after "Blame It on Rio", but continued to perform, including staging the 1985 Academy Awards and choreographing a sequence. for the television series "Moonlighting".
A 2010 documentary, "Stanley Donen: Just Do It," celebrated his achievements.
Donen is married five times, including Jeanne Coyne, Marion Marshall and Yvette Mimieux. In the following years, he was the constant companion of Elaine May.
Survivors include his sons, agent producer Josh Donen and Mark Donen. Another son, Peter, visual effects supervisor, died in 2003 from a 50-year-old heart attack.
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