Stanley Donen, who has directed some of Hollywood's iconic musicals, dies at the age of 94.

February 24, 2019, 01:26 GMT

By Associated press

LOS ANGELES – The filmmaker Stanley Donen, a giant of the Hollywood musical who, thanks to classics such as "Singin & # 39; in the Rain" and "Funny Face", helped create sounds and sounds. some of the happiest images in the history of cinema, has passed away. He was 94 years old.

Donen, who has often teamed with Gene Kelly but also worked with Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire, died Thursday in New York from heart failure, confirmed his sons Joshua and Mark Donen.

The 1940s and 50s were the main era of Hollywood musicals, and no filmmaker contributed so much to magic as Donen, one of the last survivors of that era, and one who was willing to push the boundaries of singing and dancing in the unreal.

It was part of the unit behind scenes as unforgettable as that of Kelly dancing with animator Jerry of the mouse in "Aweigh Anchors", the challenge defying any gravity of Astaire in "Royal Wedding" and in the triumph of all time, Kelly, splashing with joy. about as he performs the title number in "Singin 'in the Rain".

Steven Spielberg reminded Donen as a "friend and early mentor" for whom life and film were inseparable.

"His generosity, which consists of devoting as many weekends in the late sixties to filming students like me to learn to tell stories, to place lenses and to direct actors, is a moment that I do not know. will never forget, "said Spielberg.

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro said, "Before Stanley Donen's actors sang, they danced, he made the camera dance and sang the colors."

In 2007, a survey conducted by the American Film Institute on the top 100 American movies ranked "Singin 'in the Rain" ("Singin' in the Rain"), with its inventive interpretation of the transition Hollywood dumb images in talking pictures in the 1920s and Kelly's famous dance # 5.

In 2002, Donen was asked if filmmakers knew that "Singin 'in the Rain", released in 1952 and starring Debbie Reynolds and Donald O' Connor, would be revered a few decades later.

"You can not get through a movie if you do not think it's good," he told The Associated Press. "Of course, we thought it was good, more than that, I do not know, you do not think about it, you just think about how you can do it."

The film and Donen were first underestimated. "Singin 'in the Rain" was originally considered a quality entertainment rather than an art and was not even nominated for a better movie or an Oscar. Donen, eclipsed by Kelly early in his career, has never received an Oscar nomination and waited until 1998 for an honorary award, presented by Martin Scorsese. He was more than ready. Donen danced plays cheek with his Oscar statuette, which he nicknamed "this cute little guy". The crowd shouted and applauded as he hummed: "Heaven, I'm in paradise", taken from Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek".

In his thank you speech, he explained his formula for a great musical. Use songwriters like Adolph Green and Betty Comden, and performers such as Kelly, Astaire or Sinatra. "And when filming begins," he added, "you show up and you stay away."

Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Donen would remember the movies – especially those with Astaire and Ginger Rogers – as a necessary escape from the tensions due to being one of the few Jews in his community. He took tap lessons during his teenage years and began his career in the performing arts as a performer. He danced in Pal Joey's original production on Broadway, at the age of 16. The main role was played by Kelly and the success of the show propelled her into the movies. .

Donen had his first break in Hollywood when Kelly found him a job helping with the choreography of Kelly's 1944 film, "Cover Girl". Over the following years, he worked on choreography for films such as "The Kissing Bandit", starring Sinatra, and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", starring Sinatra and Kelly, who teamed with Donen for the choregraphy.

"Singin 'in the Rain" is one of three films credited by Kelly and Donen as co-directors; the others were "On the Town", the 1949 Kelly-Sinatra musical on the sailors on leave in New York, and the darkest "It's Always Fair Weather", in which three soldier friends gather a decade later.

The generic co-director – rare in the films – stems from a tense relationship between Donen and the star, who had played such an important role in the advancement of Donen's career. Donen would later speak with bitterness of Kelly, who died in 1996, as cold and condescending and not fully recognizing his contributions. They separated definitively after "It was always nice", published in 1955.

"It could be difficult with me and everyone," said the director at The New York Times in 1996. "Collaboration has always been complicated."

Donen's other films include "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954), with his outstanding sports choreography; "Damn Yankees" (1958), the remake of Broadway's success about the temptation of a baseball fan; and "Funny Face", in which Astaire has partnered with Audrey Hepburn to play a fashion photographer and his improbable muse.

The character of Astaire in "Funny Face" is inspired by Richard Avedon, and the famous photographer served as a consultant to Donen.

"Nothing is more fun than finding someone who stimulates you and who can be stimulated by you," Donen said in John Kobal's book "Gotta Sing Gotta Dance: A Story in Movie Pictures" music. " & # 39; & # 39; The result, instead of just adding two and two, multiplies and you end up doing much better things – you are both swept away by the peak of excitement. "

Donen has worked in various genres. "Indiscreet" (1958) was a light joke starring Grant and Ingrid Bergman, and "Two for the Road" (1967), with Hepburn and Albert Finney, was an unusually bitter and tense conjugal comedy at the time, well in the deviation of the spirit of his musicals. (Donen himself was married five times and had in his New York apartment an embroidered pillow with the inscription "EAT DRINK AND RE-MARRY".

A film by Donen, the chic mystery "Charade" (1963), reminded the audience of a Hitchcock thriller. "Charade" starred Hepburn as a precocious mundane whose husband was murdered and Grant – who appeared in four Hitchcock films – as a mysterious man who might or might not help him.

Donen strongly denied Hitchcock's influence, adding that the master of suspense "does not have the genre".

Donen had three sons; the eldest, Peter, died in 2003 from a 50-year-old heart attack. His first wife, the dancer Jeanne Coyne, later married Kelly. Yvette Mimieux was his fourth wife. Over the past two decades, her partner was filmmaker-comedian Elaine May.

None of his latest films has reached the heights of his most famous work. The nadir was perhaps "Blame It on Rio" of 1984, a comedy about a man (Michael Caine) who has an affair with the girl of his friend. Roger Ebert slammed the film as "clearly intended to appeal to the prurient interests of elderly and dirty men of all ages".

Other credits include a musical segment for the 1980s television comedy "Moonlighting" and a theatrical production of "The Red Shoes". In 1999, he directed the ABC TV drama "Love Letters" starring Steven Weber and Laura Linney.

"There are limits to television," Donen told The Associated Press in 1999. "And that's what was fun: trying to find a way to be surprising in the limits I'm always looking for boundaries because then you have to be inventive. "