Director Stanley Donen dies at 94

Washington: Stanley Donen, 94, the director of Singin’ in the Rain and other classics in Hollywood, has died.

Singin’ in the Rain, from 1952, starring Gene Kelly became a mainstay of popular culture. Donen also danced and worked as choreographer for movies.

The musicals On the Town (his first film, from 1949 and starring Kelly, his co-director, and Frank Sinatra), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Funny Face (1957), starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn were among the films he had directed.

Along with Cary Grant he made four films: Kiss Them For Me (1957), Indiscreet (1958), The Grass is Greener (1960) and Charade, also starring Hepburn (1963).

His last theatrically released film was the Michael Caine sex comedy Blame it on Rio, which flopped in 1984.

The Chicago Tribune, in a tweet on Saturday said one of Donen’s sons had confirmed his father’s death. Film critic Michael Phillips said the director was “a huge, often neglected talent”.

At the 1997 Oscars, Donen was given an honorary award.

Introducing it, the director Martin Scorsese, then himself unrecognised by the Academy, said: “Once upon a time, a lonely boy in South Carolina was sparked by the wonder of movies, captivated by everything from cowboys to comedians to movie monsters. And then he saw his first musical, Flying Down to Rio.”

In a Vanity Fair interview in 2013, Donen said: “I saw Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio when I was nine years old, and it changed my life.

It just seemed wonderful, and my life wasn’t wonderful. The joy of dancing to music! And Fred was so amazing, and Ginger [Rogers] – Oh, God! Ginger!”

Donen danced on Broadway, where he met Kelly, with whom he worked as a choreographer in Hollywood.

They co-directed On the Town but the partnership was not a smooth one, as Donen told the New York Times in 1996.

“Gene, as a performer, was among the wonders of the 20th century,” he said. “His agility and his talents at being what he would call a song and dance man were very winning.

“What I didn’t like … was his manner offscreen. He could be difficult with me and everyone else. It was always a complicated collaboration, partly because when we began he was a star and I was in the chorus. Then we became co-choreographers. It wasn’t always the happiest thing.”

After Donen’s first marriage ended in divorce, Kelly married his ex-wife, Jeanne Coyne.