Stanley Donen
Encyclopedia
Stanley Donen; (born April 13, 1924) is an American film director
and choreographer whose most celebrated works are Singin' in the Rain
and On the Town
, both of which he co-directed with Gene Kelly
. His other noteworthy films include Royal Wedding
, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Funny Face
, Indiscreet, Damn Yankees!
, Charade and Two for the Road. He received an Honorary Academy Award in 1998 for his body of work and a Career Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival
in 2004.
Donen has been hailed by film critic David Quinlan
as "the King of the Hollywood musicals". He began his career in the chorus line on Broadway for director George Abbott
, where he befriended Gene Kelly. Donen then went to Hollywood and worked as a choreographer for several years before he and Kelly made On the Town in 1949. He then worked as a contract director for MGM under producer Arthur Freed
and continued to gain critical acclaim both as a solo director and for his work with Kelly. Donen's relationship with Kelly had (from Donen's perspective) been shaky for several years and deteriorated after the two completed their final collaboration It's Always Fair Weather
in 1955. He then broke his contract with MGM and became an independent producer of his own work in 1957. By the end of the 1950s the Hollywood musical was losing popularity and Donen began to focus on comedies instead, continuing to make hits until the late 1960s. After that his films became fewer and his last theatrical film was in 1984. He briefly returned to the stage as a director in the 1990s and again in 2002.
Donen is credited with helping to transition Hollywood musical films from more realistic backstage dramas where the songs were motivated by a stage setting or the physical presence of musicians to a more integrated, surrealistic form where the music was unmotivated and the songs were a more natural continuation of the story being told. The popular films of Busby Berkeley
, for all of their extravagant stylization, were often set in a stage or Broadway environment where the musical numbers were justified realistically. Donen has stated that what he was doing was a "direct continuation from the Astaire
-Rogers
musicals...which in turn came from René Clair
and from Lubitsch
...What we did was not geared towards realism but towards the unreal." Film critic Jean-Pierre Coursodon has said that his contributions to the evolution of the Hollywood musical "outshines anybody else's, including Vincent Minnelli's."
to Mordecai Moses Donen, a dress-shop manager, and Helen Cohen. He has one younger sister: Carla Donen Davis, born in August 1937. Although born to Jewish parents, Donen himself became an atheist in his youth. Donen has described his childhood as lonely and unhappy due to being one of the few Jews in Columbia. He was occasionally bullied and called names by anti-semitic classmates at school. To help cope with his isolation, he spent much of his youth in the local movie theaters and was especially fond of westerns, comedies and thrillers. The film that had the strongest impact on Donen at that time was the Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers
musical Flying Down to Rio
in 1933. Donen said that he "must have seen the picture thirty or forty times. I was transported into some sort of fantasy world where everything seemed to be happy, comfortable, easy and supported. A sense of well-being filled me." He also shot home movies with an 8 mm
camera and projector that his father bought him.
Inspired by Astaire, Donen began to take dance lessons in Columbia, and later in New York City
during summer vacation where he frequently saw Broadway musicals. One of his early dance instructors in New York was Ned Wayburn
, who had taught an eleven-year-old Fred Astaire in 1910. In Columbia, he performed at the local Town Theater. After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen, Donen attended the University of South Carolina
for one summer semester, studying psychology. Encouraged and supported by his mother, he moved to New York City to pursue dancing on the stage in 1940. He was cast as a chorus dancer in the original Broadway production of Rodgers
and Hart's
Pal Joey, which was directed by George Abbott
and starred Gene Kelly
. George Abbott then asked Donen to appear in the chorus of his next Broadway show, Best Foot Forward
. He quickly became the assistant stage manager and Gene Kelly asked him to be his assistant choreographer for the show. Eventually Donen was fired from Best Foot Forward, but in 1942 he was the stage manager and assistant choreographer for George Abbott's next show Beat the Band. In 1946, he briefly returned to Broadway to help choreographer a few dance numbers for the show Call Me Mister
.
, the successful Metro Goldwyn Mayer producer of musicals, bought the rights to Best Foot Forward
. Donen moved to Hollywood and auditioned for the film version, starring Lucille Ball
and William Gaxton
. This resulted in Donen signing a one-year contract with MGM. In Best Foot Forward, Donen both appeared as a chorus dancer and was made assistant choreographer by Charles Walters
. While at MGM, Donen renewed his friendship with Gene Kelly
, who was already under contract and was quickly becoming a popular supporting actor. When Kelly was loaned out to Columbia Pictures
for a film with Rita Hayworth
, he was also offered the chance to choreograph his own dance numbers and asked Donen to be his assistant choreographer on the film. Donen accepted and helped choreograph three dance sequences with Kelly in Cover Girl
, released in 1944. Donen came up with the idea for the "Alter Ego" dance sequence where Kelly's reflection jumps out of a shop window and dances with him. Director Charles Vidor
insisted that the idea would never work, so Donen and Kelly directed the scene themselves and Donen spent over a year perfecting it in the editing room before the film's release. The film made Gene Kelly a star and is considered to be an important and innovative musical. Donen signed a one-year contract with Columbia and choreographed several films, but returned to MGM when Kelly wanted his help.
In 1944, Donen and Kelly teamed up to choreograph the musical Anchors Aweigh
, released in 1945 and co-starring Frank Sinatra
. The most famous scene in this film is when Kelly dances with the cartoon mouse Jerry
. The animation was supervised by William Hanna
and Joseph Barbera
and is credited to cartoonist Fred Quimby
, however Donen has stated that the idea was his own. Originally Donen and Kelly had wanted to use either Mickey Mouse
or Donald Duck
for the sequence, and met with Walt Disney
to discuss the idea. At the time Disney was working on a similar idea, The Three Caballeros
and was unwilling to allow one of his characters to appear in an MGM film. The scene took two months to shoot Kelly's dancing and Donen spent a year perfecting it frame by frame. According to Joseph Barbera "the net result at the preview of Anchors Away that I went to, blew the audience away."
While Kelly completed his service in the U.S. Naval Air Service
as a photographer from 1944 to 1946, Donen worked uncredited as a choreographer on a number of musical films. Of this period, Donen said "I practiced my craft, working with music, track and photography. I often directed the sequences. I always tried to have an original idea about how to do musical sequences." Donen has stated that he was rejected from military service as 4-F for having high blood pressure. When Kelly returned to civilian life, he and Donen directed and choreographed Kelly's dance scenes in Living in a Big Way
. They then began work on an original story about two baseball players in the early 20th century who spend their off season as vaudevillian song and dance men. This film would eventually become Take Me Out to the Ball Game
in 1949. Kelly and Donen had hoped to co-direct the film, but Arthur Freed hired Busby Berkeley
instead and Kelly and Donen only directed Kelly's dance numbers. The film starred Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin.
, Arthur Freed
gave Donen and Gene Kelly
the chance to direct their next film: On the Town
, released in 1949. The film was an adaptation of the Comden
and Green
musical about sailors on leave in New York City
(the original Broadway score by Leonard Bernstein
was not used in the film). This was the first movie musical to be filmed partially on location. Donen and Kelly had wanted to shoot the entire film in New York City, but producer Arthur Freed
would only allowed them to spend one week away from the studio. From this week they created the films famous opening number New York, New York
. On the Town stars Kelly, Frank Sinatra
, Ann Miller
, Betty Garrett
, Jules Munshin, and Vera-Ellen
. Kelly, Sinatra and Munshin play three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City whose romantic ambitions get they more than they bargained for. The film was an instant success both financially and critically. It won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture. Screenwriters Comden and Green won the Writers Guild of America Award
for Best Written American Musical.
Like Orson Welles
, Donen made his film debut at the age of 25. Donen has stated that Kelly was "responsible for most of the dance movements. I was behind the camera in the dramatic and musical sequences." With cinematographer Harold Rosson
, Donen took full advantage of this opportunity, especially in the films opening song New York, New York. Away from both studio interference and sound stage constrictions, Donen shot a dazzling scene on the streets on New York City that utilizes many cinematic techniques which would not be used again until they were popularized by the French New Wave
ten years later, including spacial jump cuts, 360 degree pans, hidden cameras, abruptly changing screen direction and non-professional actors. Never gratuitous or amateurish, this scene also establishes character development and sets up the plot of the film while creating a fun, fast paced, kinetic energy that influenced all musicals that came afterwards. Donen biographer Joseph A. Casper has said that "Today the film is regarded as a turning point: the first bona fide musical that moved dance, as well as the musical genre, out of the theater and captured it with and for film rather than on film; the first to make the city an important character; and the first to abandon the chorus."
With the enormous success of On the Town
, Donen was able to sign a seven year contract with MGM as a director. His next two films would both be made for producer Arthur Freed
, but without Gene Kelly
. After being replaced as director for the Esther Williams
film Pagan Love Song over personal differences with Williams, Donen was given the chance to direct his boyhood idol Fred Astaire
.
Royal Wedding
starred Astaire and Jane Powell
as a brother-sister American dancing team performing in England during the time of the royal wedding. Judy Garland
was originally going to play the lead role, but was fired for absenteeism (and made her first suicide attempt shortly afterwards) and was replaced by Powell. In the film Powell's love affair with a wealthy Englishman (played by Peter Lawford
) threatens to ruin the brother-sister act, while Astaire has found his own local love interest in Sarah Churchill
. The film is loosely based on Astaire's real life career with his sister and early dancing partner Adele Astaire
, who married an English Lord in 1932. The film contains one of Astaire's most famous dance sequences: the You're All the World to Me number where Astaire defies gravity by dancing first on the walls and then on the ceiling. The shot was achieved by building the set inside a rotating steel-reinforced cylindrical chamber with the camera attached to the base. Both Astaire and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner
have claimed credit for the idea for the scene. The film included music by Burton Lane
and Alan Jay Lerner and was released in 1951.
In 1951 Donen made Love Is Better Than Ever
. The film stars Larry Parks
, who was fresh off his Oscar
nominated success The Jolson Story
. In the film, Parks plays a streetwise show-biz agent who finds himself compelled to marry an innocent young dance teacher played by Elizabeth Taylor
. Gene Kelly briefly appears in a cameo. The film remained unreleased for over a year after Parks admitted to the House Un-American Activities Committee
that he had been a member of the Communist party
and named the names of other members. The film was unsuccessful at the box office.
In 1952, Donen reunited with Gene Kelly
, who had just made An American in Paris
and was at the height of his fame. The second Donen-Kelly collaboration was Singin' in the Rain
and would become one of the most highly praised movies in film history. The film was produced by Arthur Freed
, written by Comden
and Green
, photographed by Harold Rosson
and starred Kelly, Debbie Reynolds
, Donald O'Connor
and Jean Hagen
. Instead of original music, the score (mostly) consists of old songs that were written by Freed and Nacio Herb Brown
in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The film is a satire on Hollywood's transition from silent film
s to "talkie
s" in the late 1920s, poking fun at both the first musical films that came out of that period and the technical difficulties with early sound films. Singin' in the Rain contains many "in-jokes", such as the characters of producer R. F. Simpson and director Roscoe Dexter being loosely based on Arthur Freed and Busby Berkeley
.
In the film Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Hagen) are two silent film stars in Hollywood whose careers are threatened by the invention of "talkies". Lockwood and Lamont attempt to train their voices to better suit the new medium and turn their latest film into a musical. Lockwood has no difficulty with this task, but Lamont's grating voice is hopeless for sound films. With help from his best friend Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) and love interest Kathy Selden (Reynolds), Lockwood decides to dub Selden's voice over Lamont's in the film, thus saving his (and Lamont's) careers. In the end the truth is revealed to an audience at the film's premiere and Selden is on her way to a great career as a star in movie musicals.
The film was a hit when it was released in April 1952, earning over $7.6 million. Kelly's An American in Paris
had been the surprise Best Picture winner at the Oscars
in March 1952 (where Arthur Freed also won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award and Kelly won an Academy Honorary Award
for his career achievements). MGM decided to re-release the film and Singin' in the Rain got pulled from many theaters in order to showcase the new Best Picture winner. Singin' in the Rain was nominated for two Academy Awards
: Best Supporting Actress
for Hagen and Best Original Score
for Lennie Hayton
. Initially the film was dismissed by film critics such as Bosley Crowther
and did not begin to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made until the late 1960s. One of the films earliest supporters was film critic Pauline Kael
, who said that it "is perhaps the most enjoyable of all movie musicals- just about the best Hollywood musical of all time." It was re-released in 1975 to enormous critical and popular success. Among the films many honors it was included in the first group of films to be included in the National Film Registry
at the Library of Congress
in 1989 and has been included on Sight and Sounds prestigious list of "Top Ten Films" twice, in 1982 and in 2002. Charlie Chaplin
and Francois Truffaut
were among its earliest fans, and Billy Wilder
called the film "one of the five greatest pictures ever made",
in 1952. Based on a true story, the film stars Carleton Carpenter
as a GI who brought his tamed lion with him when he joined the army. Next came the musical Give a Girl a Break
in 1953. The film stars Debbie Reynolds
, Marge Champion
and Helen Wood as three aspiring dancers all competing for the lead role in a new Broadway musical. Bob Fosse
, Gower Champion
and Kurt Kasznar
also appear in the film, with music by Burton Lane
and Ira Gershwin
. The films most famous sequence is the Give a Girl a Break dance between Reynolds and Fosse. The scene was choreographed backwards and then played back in reverse so as to create the illusion that the two are being surrounded by hundreds of balloons that instantly appear at the touch of their fingers. Shooting the film became a bitter experience due to a major fight over the films choreography between Fosse and Gower Champion. The fight split the cast with Reynolds and Marge Champion taking Gower Champion's side and Donen taking Fosse's side. The film was not well reviewed upon release, but in later years its reputation has grown.
Donen solidified his solo career and scored another hit with the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét
, the film has music by Saul Chaplin
and Gene de Paul
, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer
and choreography by Michael Kidd
. The cast included Howard Keel
and Jane Powell
. In the film, Powell plays Milly, a frontierswoman who marries Adam (Howard Keel) only hours after meeting him. When she returns with Adam to his log cabin in the Oregon backwoods, Milly discovers that her husband's six brothers are uncivilized and oafish. She makes it her duty to civilize them and, upon Milly's sarcastic suggestion, the brothers kidnap six women from a neighboring town to make them their brides. The film was shot in the relatively new format CinemaScope
and is most well known for its dance sequences, particularly the "barn raising scene" in which architecture and construction become aerobatic ballet steps. Since its release, the film has been greatly criticized as being anti-woman. Novelist Francine Prose
has called the film "one of the most repulsive movies about men and women that has ever been made" and calls it a musical about rape. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was one of the highest grossing films of 1954 and appeared on many critics 10 Best Films lists. The films success was a surprise to MGM, which had invested more money into two other musicals: the Jeanette MacDonald
and Nelson Eddy
operetta Rose Marie
and Vincent Minnelli's Brigadoon
, starring Gene Kelly
. It was more profitable than both On the Town and Singin' in the Rain and its success was a major turning point for Donen's career.
Later in 1954 Donen made Deep in My Heart, a biography of the Hungarian-born American operetta
composer Sigmund Romberg
starring José Ferrer
. The film included cameo appearances by many of MGM's contract players, including the only screen pairing of Gene Kelly and his brother Fred Kelly. Although it received only mediocre reviews, it was a hit financially.
In 1955 Donen teamed up with Gene Kelly
for the third and final time. It's Always Fair Weather
is a musical produced by Arthur Freed
, written by Comden
and Green
with music by André Previn
. The film starred Kelly, Dan Dailey
, Cyd Charisse
, Michael Kidd
, and Dolores Gray, and was again shot in CinemaScope
. Originally envisioned as a sequel to On the Town
, Kelly, Dailey and Kidd play three ex-GI's who reunite 10 years after World War II and discover that none of their lives have turned out quite how they had expected. Kelly had approached Donen with this project as their next collaboration, and at first Donen was reluctant to accept the offer now that he was an established director on his own. Their friendship deteriorated during production of the film and Donen has said that "the atmosphere from day one was very tense and nobody was speaking to anybody." Unlike their experience on On the Town, MGM would not allow Donen and Kelly to shoot on location in New York. It's Always Fair Weather was a moderately profitable film, but no where near the hit that On the Town or Singin' in the Rain had been. It was Donen's last film with Kelly, as well as his last with Arthur Freed. After the films completion he fulfilled his MGM contract agreement as a loan out to other studios over the next few years. His last project for MGM was completing the final four days of shooting Kismet
in July 1955 when director Vincent Minnelli had other commitments.
Donen's next film was at Paramount Pictures
for producer Roger Edens
. Funny Face
contains four of the original George
and Ira Gershwin
songs from the 1927 Broadway show of the same name
that had starred Fred Astaire
, although it is not an adaptation of that show. The film was loosely based on the life of fashion photographer Richard Avedon
, who was also the visual consultant and designed the opening title sequence for the film, and was written by Leonard Gershe
. Donen and Edens began pre-production at MGM, but had difficulty juggling Astaire's and Audrey Hepburn
's Paramount contracts, the Warner Brothers owned rights to the Gershwin music that they wanted and their own contracts at MGM. Eventually a deal was reached that both released Donen from his MGM contract and allowed him to make his next two films at Paramount and Warner Brothers respectively. In the film Astaire plays an aging fashion photographer who discovers the intellectual bohemian Hepburn at a used bookstore in Greenwich Village
and turns her into his new model while falling in love with her in Paris
. The film pokes fun of Astaire's advanced age in comparison to his much younger love interest Hepburn, and was one of his last musical films. It was also Hepburn's first musical and, unlike the later My Fair Lady
, she sings all the songs herself. Donen, Avedon and cinematographer Ray June collaborated very closely to give the film an abstract, smokey look that resembled the fashion photography of the time period, despite the protests of Paramount which had spent a fortune developing the crisp VistaVision
. Funny Face was screened in competition at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival
and received good reviews from critics like Bosley Crowther
, however Sight and Sound accused the film of being anti-intellectual.
While in pre-production on Funny Face, Donen received a letter from his old boss George Abbott
inviting him to make a film version of his stage hit The Pajama Game
at Warner Brothers Pictures. As part of the deal to secure the Gershwin music he wanted for Funny Face, Donen was able to accept and the two co-directed the film version in 1957. The Pajama Game
stars Doris Day
and John Raitt
, with music by Richard Adler
and Jerry Ross
and choreography by Bob Fosse
. In the film, Raitt plays plant supervisor at a nightwear factory who is in constant disputes with union organizer Day. When there is a pajama production crisis, the workers go on strike, but Day and Raitt end up falling in love. The film was shot in six weeks and Donen described his working relationship with Abbott as relaxed, stating that "[Abbott would] play tennis, come watch on the set for an hour, then watch the rushes, then go home." The film was only a modest financial success, but film critic Jean-Luc Godard
praised the film and declared "Donen is surely the master of the movie musical. The Pajama Game exists to prove it."
Donen's next film was Kiss Them for Me
. Donen was personally asked by Cary Grant
to direct the film and began developing it while still under contract at MGM. With a plot that strongly resembles On the Town, Grant, Ray Walston
and Larry Blyden
star as three navy officers on leave in San Francisco in 1944. Unlike the original, this film is a dark comedy that contrasts the officers selfless heroism with their self-absorbed hedonism while on leave. The film was released in 1957 and received mostly poor reviews. It is also more famous for being the fourth and last mainstream Hollywood film that Jayne Mansfield
would receive top billing in, despite her role being a supporting one.
After these three films in 1957, Donen became an independent producer and director. He had reluctantly agreed to direct Kiss Them for Me on condition that 20th Century Fox
bought out his remaining contract with MGM. Now free from any legal obligations, he formed his own production company with Cary Grant: Grandon Productions, with a distribution deal through Warner Brothers Pictures. Donen would produce nearly all of his films from then on, although the company is sometimes credited as Stanley Donen Productions. Donen and Grant inagurated their company in 1958. Indiscreet is based on a play by Norman Krasna
and stars Cary Grany and Ingrid Bergman
. Because of Bergman's schedule, the film was shot on location in London
, where Donen utilized such landmarks as the Leicester Galleries, the Royal Opera House
and the Garrick Club
much like he had in his directorial debut. In the film, Bergman plays a famous and reclusive actress who falls in love with the playboy-diplomat Grant. Grant tells Bergman that he is already married and cannot get out of it. When Bergman discovers that he has been lying about having a wife, she invents a charade with another man in order to win Grant's full affection. The films most famous scene involves Donen's clever circumvention of the strict Production Code
. In the scene, Grant is in Paris while Bergman is still in London, and the two exchange pillow talk over the phone. Donen used a split screen of the two stars with synchronized movements to make it appear as though they were in the same bed together. The film was a financial and critical success and Donen was compared to such great directors of comedy films as Ernst Lubitsch
and George Cukor
.
Donen briefly returned to the musical genre with Damn Yankees
in 1958. He again co-directed with George Abbott
in the same hands-off method of collaboration as their first film. Like The Pajama Game, the film includes music by Richard Adler
and Jerry Ross
and choreography by Bob Fosse
. It stars Tab Hunter
, Gwen Verdon
, and Ray Walston
. Damn Yankees is an adaptation of the Faust
legend involving a fan of the baseball team the Washington Senators
who mentions that he would sell his soul for a good hitter for the losing team. Walston plays the Brooks Brothers suit wearing Devil, who grants Shafer his wish and transforms him into the muscular young hitter Joe Hardy (Hunter). Donen was able to shoot three real Senator-Yankee
games on location with as many as seven hidden cameras at once. The low budget film was a moderate financial success and received good reviews. It was also Donen's last musical film for many years.
movement.
In the late 1950s, Donen signed a non-exclusive, three film deal with Columbia Pictures
. His first film to fulfill this contract was Once More, with Feeling!
released in 1960. The film was adapted by Harry Kurnitz
from his own stage play and was shot in Paris. It starred Yul Brynner
and Kay Kendall
. In the film Brynner plays a tyrannical orchestra conductor whose mistress (Kendall) grows tired of his tantrums and plots to marry him in order to quickly divorce him for money. Kendall was terminally ill with leukemia
during the shooting of the film and died before its release. The film was not successful financially or critically. Donen quickly re-teamed with Brynner and Kurnitz for the film Surprise Package
, also released in 1960. In this film Brynner plays an American gangster who is deported to the Greek island of Rhodes. Mitzi Gaynor
plays his "surprise package" that is sent to the island to appease Brynner and Noël Coward
plays the King of Rhodes who Brynner plots to dethrone. The film was not a financial success and Donen has stated that the film was made because he "desperately needed money for personal reasons...it was one of the few times I've made a movie for money." These were the only two films that Donen completed for his Columbia contract. The studio cancelled the deal after their poor box office results and Donen was unable to produce the projects that he was pursuing at that time: playwright Robert Bolt
's A Man for All Seasons
and A Patch of Blue
, both of which would go on to be successful films by other directors.
Grandon Productions produced Donen's next film, The Grass Is Greener
, released through Universal Pictures
in 1960. In the film Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr
play the earl and countess of a large estate in England who are forced to permit guided tours of their mansion in order to help their financial problems. Robert Mitchum
plays an American oil tycoon who has fallen in love with Kerr and Jean Simmons
plays an eccentric an American heiress and Grant's former girlfriend. The film was a financial disappointment in the US, but successful in England, where the original stage version had been a West End success.
In 1963 Donen made one of his most praised films: Charade, starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau
, James Coburn
, George Kennedy
and Ned Glass
. Donen had "always wanted to make a movie like one of my favorites, Hitchcock
's North by Northwest
." The film has been referred to as "the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made." Charade was produced by Stanley Donen Productions and released through Universal. It was adapted by Peter Stone
from his own novel, had a memorable score by Henry Mancini
and opening credits by Maurice Binder
. In the film, Hepburn plays Reggie Lampert, a rich woman who returns home from a vacation to Paris where she discovers that her husband has been murdered and (at least) three sinister men are all searching for the $250,000 in gold that he had hidden somewhere. Peter Joshua (Grant) befriends Reggie and helps her fight off the three thugs while the two begin to fall in love. In the end no one is quite who they seem to be. The film was released in December 1963, only two weeks after the Kennedy Assassination and the word "assassinate" had to be redubbed
twice. It was Donen's most financially successful film and influenced a number of romantic comedy-thrillers released in the years preceding it. Film critic Judith Crist
called it a "stylish and amusing melodrama" and Pauline Kael
said it had "a freshness and spirit that makes [it] unlike the films of any other country" and was "probably the best American film of last year". In 2002 the film was remade as The Truth About Charlie
, directed by Jonathan Demme
.
In 1966 Donen made another Hitchcock inspired film, Arabesque
, starring Sophia Loren
and Gregory Peck
. Although the film was written by Julian Mitchell and Stanley Price, Peter Stone was brought in to do an uncredited rewrite. In the film, Peck plays an American professor at Oxford University and an expert in ancient hieroglyphics. He is approached by a Middle Eastern Prime Minister to investigate an organization that is attempting to assassinate him and use hieroglyphic codes to communicate. The investigation leads Peck to one mystery after another, often involving the Prime Minister's ambiguous mistress, played by Loren. Once again, the film was a box office success
In 1967 Donen made Two for the Road, starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney
. The film was conceived by Donen and written by novelist Frederic Raphael
, who was nominated for an Academy Award. It features a score by Henry Mancini and a supporting roles by Eleanor Bron
and Jacqueline Bisset
early in her career. The film has been called one of Donen's most personal, "with glints of passion never disclosed before" and is "a veritable textbook on film editing." The films complicated and non-linear story is about the 12-year relationship between Hepburn and Finney over the course of four separate road trips that they took together throughout the years in the south of France, which are interwoven together. The film was moderately successful at the box office, while the critical reception was extremely mixed. Bosley Crowther called the film "just another version of commercial American trash." Since its release the film has attained a cult following and been cited as an early example of non-linear storytelling in film. It is also the film that Donen is most frequently asked about by film students.
While living in England Donen had become a fan of the British variety show Beyond the Fringe
and wanted to work with the shows comedy duo Peter Cook
and Dudley Moore
. The resulting film was Bedazzled
, an updated version of the Faust
legend in 1967. The film was written by Cook and featured music by Moore, and also starred Eleanor Bron
and Raquel Welch
. In the film, Moore plays a lonely young man whose unrequited love of his co-worker (Bron) leads him to commit suicide. Just then the devil (Cook) appears and offers him seven wishes in exchange for his soul. The films fun loving association with the Swinging London
of the 1960s divided critics. Roger Ebert
called the film's satire "barbed and contemporary ... dry and understated," and overall, a "magnificently photographed, intelligent, very funny film." Time Magazine, on the other hand, called the film the feeblest of all known variations on the Faust theme. The film was a hit, and was especially popular among American college students. It was remade
by director Harold Ramis
in 2000 with Brendan Fraser
and Elizabeth Hurley
. Donen considered it one of his favorite's of his own films, and called it "a very personal film in that I said a great deal about what I think is important in life."
In 1969 Donen directed Staircase
, an adaptation of the autobiographical stage play by Charles Dyer, with music by Dudley Moore. Rex Harrison
and Richard Burton
star as a middle-aged gay couple who run a London barber shop and live together in a "bad marriage". The film was shot in Paris for tax purposes and was not a financial success. It received poor reviews upon release, but has since been reevaluated by film critic Armond White
in 2007. White called the film "a rare Hollywood movie to depict gay experience with wisdom, humor and warmth", and "a lost treasure".
. Composers Alan Jay Lerner
and Frederick Loewe wrote the music and screenplay and filming was done on location in Tunisia. The Little Prince
stars Steven Warner in the title role, with Richard Kiley, Bob Fosse
, Gene Wilder
and Donna McKechnie
. It was Donen's first musical film since Damn Yankees. Although it contained very little dancing, Fosse choreographed his own dance scenes as the snake. It was released in 1974 and was considered a financial disaster.
Donen's next film was Lucky Lady
, starring Liza Minnelli
, Gene Hackman
and Burt Reynolds
. In the film, Minnelli plays a Prohibition era bootlegger who transports alcohol from Mexico to California with the help of Hackman and Reynolds, who both compete for her affection. Donen has stated that he "really cared about [the film] and gave three years of my life to it...I think its a very good movie." The film was over-budget and unsuccessful at the box office. Most critics were unenthusiastic, however Jay Cocks
praised the film for having "the glistening surface and full-throttle frivolity that characterized Hollywood films in the 1930s."
Nostalgia for old Hollywood films would be a theme of Donen's next film, Movie Movie
, produced by Lew Grade
's ITC Entertainment
. The film, scripted by Larry Gelbart
, is actually two shorter films presented as an old fashioned double feature
, complete with a fake movie trailer and an introduction by comedian George Burns
. The film starred George C. Scott
, Trish Van Devere
, Red Buttons, Michael Kidd
and Eli Wallach
and was submitted in competition at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival
in 1978. The first of the two films is Dynamite Hands, a black and white tribute to boxing- morality films. The second film is Baxter's Beauties of 1933, a tribute to the extravagant musicals of Busby Berkely in color. Once again it was unsuccessful both financially and critically.
In 1980 Donen made the science fiction
film Saturn 3
, starring Kirk Douglas
, Farrah Fawcett
and Harvey Keitel
. Donen first read the script when its writer (and Movie Movies set designer) John Barry
showed it to him, prompting Donen to pass it along to Grade. Donen was hired as producer of the film, but when first time director Barry proved to be unable to direct a film Grade asked Donen to complete the film. According to Donen, "only a tiny bit of what Barry shot ended up in the finished film." The film was a critical and financial disaster, and initially Donen did not want to be credited as director.
Donen's last theatrical film to date was the May–December romance Blame It on Rio
in 1984. The film is a remake of the 1977 Claude Berri
film Un moment d'égarement and was written by Larry Gelbert and Charlie Peters. The film stars Michael Caine
, Joseph Bologna
, Michelle Johnson
, Valerie Harper
and Demi Moore
and was shot on location in Rio de Janeiro
. In the film Caine and Bologma play wealthy executives on vacation with their families, and Caine begins a romance with Bologna's teenage daughter (Johnson). The film received poor reviews, but was a modest success financially.
In 1986 Donen directed a musical sequence for for an episode
of the popular TV series Moonlighting
. Also in 1986, Donen directed the music video for Lionel Richie
's song "Dancing on the Ceiling
". He was the producer for the televised ceremony of the 58th Academy Awards
, which included a musical performance of the song "Once a Star, Always a Star" with June Allyson
, Leslie Caron
, Marge Champion
, Cyd Charisse
, Kathryn Grayson
, Howard Keel
, Ann Miller
, Jane Powell
, Debbie Reynolds
, and Esther Williams
. Later in the show Gene Kelly
, Donald O'Connor
, and Debbie Reynolds
presented the awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.
In 1989 Donen was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of South Carolina
. In his commencement address, Donen stated that he thought he was unique in being the first tap dancer to be a doctor and then proceeded to tap dance for the graduates. At around the same time Donen taught a seminar on film musicals at the Sundance Institute
at the request of Robert Redford
.
In 1993 Donen was preparing to produce and direct a movie musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson
's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Michael Jackson
. After allegations that Jackson had molested young boys at his Neverland ranch became a tabloid scandal, the project was abandoned. Later that year Donen directed a stage version of The Red Shoes
at the George Gershwin Theater. Donen replaced the original director Susan Schulman just six weeks before the show opened. It closed after four days.
In 1998 Donen was granted an Honorary Academy Award
"in appreciation of a body of work marked by grace, elegance, wit and visual innovation." In his acceptance speech, he danced with his Oscar statue while singing Irving Berlin
's "Cheek to Cheek
", a song first popularized by his boyhood idol Fred Astaire
. After listing the names of many of the actors, musicians and technicians that he had worked with during his career, Donen modestly declared one of the secrets to being a great director is "You show up--and stay the hell out of the way. But you gotta show up or else you can't take the credit and win one of these guys." Martin Scorsese
presented the award and created a montage of Donen's films for the show.
Donen's last film to date was the 1999 made-for-TV movie Love Letters, which aired on ABC
. The film starred Steven Weber
and Laura Linney
and was based on the play
by A.R. Gurney. In the film, Webber plays a successful US Senator who finds out that his long lost love Linney has recently died. The two had only corresponded through letters over the years, and Webber remembers Linney through his collection of old love letters.
In 2002 Donen directed Elaine May
's musical play Adult Entertainment starring Danny Aiello
and Jeannie Berlin
in Stanford, CT.
are credited with helping to further the art of movie musicals by transitioning them from realistic backstage settings to abstract surrealistic films. After the success of The Jazz Singer
in 1927, Hollywood quickly switched over to sound films and hired many songwriters and actors from the Broadway musical stage (as depicted in Singin' in the Rain
). Arthur Freed
and Nacio Herb Brown
were one of many lyricist and composer teams that moved to Hollywood during this time period and helped create the movie musical genre. Amongst other films, the team contributed songs to the 1929 Best Picture
winner Broadway Melody, which was promoted as the first "all singing, all talking, all dancing" Hollywood film and was satirized in Singin' in the Rain. Another major musical in the early days of sound film was 42nd Street
, the first major success of Busby Berkeley
, who directed the musical numbers. This film helped establish the Backstage musical
, in which the film's plot revolves around a musical show and the people involved in putting the show on. The musical performances in the film are therefore realistic in that they are justified by the plot, but at the same time do nothing to futher the story in and of themselves. Berekeley continued to make highly successful musicals of this kind throughout the 1930s. Donen has stated that he disliked the musicals of Busby Berkeley and that his own films were "a reaction against those backstage musicals." Other successful musicals of the 1930s include the Astaire
/Rogers
musicals and the Nelson Eddy
-Jeanette MacDonald
operattes. Often the musical numbers in these films were either within the context of a stage performance in the plot of the film itself or they seemed tacked on and gratuitious, doing nothing to futher the story or develop the characters. Although Donen credits earlier musicals by René Clair
, Ernst Lubitsch
and Fred Astaire
as having been integrated musicals, he also states that "in the early musicals of Lubitsch and Clair, they made it clear from the beginning that their characters were going to sing operatically. Gene and I didn't go that far. In 'Moses Supposes', he and Donald sort of talk themselves into a song."
Arthur Freed was eventually promoted to producer in 1939 and established the Freed Unit, which was famous for producing all of the musicals for MGM. Donen credits Freed as being the driving force behind the evolution in movie musicals, stating that "why Arthur made such a big contribution to musical movies was because he was singularly equipped to do so...[he] just had some sort of instinct to change the musical from a backstage world into something else. he didn't quite know what to change it into, just that it had to change."
Cover Girl is credited with transitioning musicals from the filmed Broadway shows that had been made since the innovation of sound films to a musical films that integrated the music into the story and characters. Donen and Kelly are usually considered to be the main contributors to this new style in movie musicals.
Martin Rubin has credited Take Me Out to the Ball Game (which was directed by Berkeley) as an "indication of changing trends in musical films" and were a step away from the Berkeley spectacles towards a "relatively small-scale affairs that place the major emphasis on comedy, transitions to the narrative, the cleverness of the lyrics and the personalities and performance skills of the stars, rather than on spectacle and group dynamics." Rubin credits Donen and Kelly with making musicals more realistic, compared to Berkeley's stlye of a "separation of narrative space from performance space"
David Thomson
dismisses most of Donen's later comedy films, but praises him for leading "the musical in a triumphant and personal direction: out of doors...Not even Minnelli can rival the fresh-air excitement of such sequences. And few can equal his integration of song, dance and story." Andrew Sarris
dismisses Donen as being without a personal style of his own and as being dependent upon his collaborators on his better films.
Among Donen's admirers are film directors Lindsay Anderson
, Charlie Chaplin
, Jules Dassin
, Jean-Luc Godard
, Stanley Kubrick
, Karel Reisz
, Martin Scorsese
and Francois Truffaut
. Donen's skill as a director has been praised by such actor's as Cyd Charisse
and Audrey Hepburn
. Debbie Reynolds
has downplayed his contributions to Singin' in the Rain, stating that "Stanley just operated the camera, because Stanley didn't dance."
was strained and he often spoke bitterly of Kelly in interviews decades after having last worked with him. Kelly was never explicitly negative about Donen in interviews, however Donen's biographer Stephen Silverman asserts that Kelly's comments were often condescending and demonstrated "a long-standing attempt to diminish Donen's contributions to their collective work." The reasons for the conflict between the two men were both personal (due to both men having been married to dancer Jeanne Coyne
) and professional differences (due to Donen always feeling that Kelly did not respect him or treat him as an equal). It is also debatable as to which of the two deserves more credit for the films they made together. They co-directed three films and choreographed (and unofficially co-directed) the dance scenes in four other films.
Jeanne Coyne was a professional dancer, choreographer and sometimes actress born in 1923. At the age of seven Coyne enrolled in the Gene Kelly Studio of Dance in Johnstown, PA and developed a schoolgirl crush on Kelly that lasted her entire life. As a young woman, she went to New York and landed a role in Best Foot Forward, where she reconnected with Kelly and first met Donen. Like both Kelly and Donen, she moved to Hollywood in the early 1940s and worked as a dancer and choreographer at MGM. She and Donen eloped in 1948, but their marriage became strained in 1949 until they separated in 1950 and finally divorced in 1951. During this period Coyne was working as Kelly's personal assistant on films like On the Town, Summer Stock
and An American in Paris
. When Donen was frustrated with Kelly during the making of On the Town, he confided his anger to Coyne only to find that she immediately took Kelly's side. There had been rumors that Kelly and Coyne were having an affair both during and after Coyne's marriage to Donen, as well as rumors that Donen was in love with Kelly's first wife Betsy Blair
, and that she reciprocated his affection. Blair's autobiography makes no mention of an affair between Kelly and Coyne or of any romantic attachments to or from Donen. However she does state that Donen's marriage to Coyne was unhappy and that Donen was very close to Kelly and herself. Kelly always thought that Donen's impulsive marriage to Coyne showed an emotional immaturity and lack of good judgement in Donen and in an interview Kelly stated that "Jeanne's marriage to Stanley was doomed from the start. Because every time Stanley looked at Jeanne, he saw Betsy, whom he loved; and every time Jeanne looked at Stanley, I guess she saw me. One way or another it was all pretty incestuous." Kelly's marriage to Blair ended in 1957, after which he moved in with Coyne. They married in 1960 and had two children together. Coyne was diagnosed with leukemia and died in 1973.
Donen and Kelly first met during production on the stage show Pal Joey, and became collaborators and friends during production of Best Foot Forward. The relationship between the two has been described as similar to that of the characters Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown in Singin' in the Rain
. Kelly described Donen as being like a son to him and Donen initially idolized Kelly, while still finding him to be "cold, egotistical and very rough." Although Donen has credited Kelly for "jump-starting his career as a filmmaker", he has also stated that MGM producer Roger Edens
was his biggest promoter. Many sources believe that Donen owes everything to Kelly and Kelly biographer Clive Hirschhorn as described Donen as having "no particular identity or evident talent...and was just a kid from the south who wanted to make it in show business." However it is also true that a sixteen-year-old Donen came to New York with no connections or friends and after only two auditions landed a role on Broadway with one of its most successful directors. Donen has stated that he moved to Hollywood of his own accord, however other sources claim that he followed Kelly, who then helped him get his first job. Kelly would sometimes embarrass and patronize Donen in public, such as berating Donen for not being able to keep up with his dance steps during the rehearsals for Cover Girl. Donen has admitted that he did not consider himself to be a very good performer. Despite Donen's growing resentment of Kelly he was able to compartmentalize his personal feelings and professional attitude during their collaborations. Tensions between the two exploded on the set of their last collaboration as co-directors on It's Always Fair Weather. Donen had recently had a major hit with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and did not want to make another film with Kelly. They fought on the set for the first time, with the now more confident Donen asserting himself. Donen almost quit the film and his friendship with Kelly ended. In later years Donen would state that he had nothing nice to say about Kelly. At a 1991 tribute to Comden
and Green
, Kelly said in a public speech that Donen "needed [him] to grow up with" but added "I needed Stanley at the back of the camera." He also described Donen as being thought of as his whipping-boy at MGM. Although Donen often complained that Kelly never gave him enough credit for their work, Kelly did credit him for the Jerry the Mouse and "Alter Ego" dances. In 1992 Donen said "I'm grateful to him, but I paid back the debt, ten times over. And he got his money's worth out of me." Donen was consistently bitter about Kelly in later interviews, which Betsy Blair claimed to be "surprised and bemused" of.
The equality of contributions of Donen and Kelly's collaborations is debatable. David Thomson
has written about "the problem in assessing [Donen's] career: who did what in their collaboration? And what is Donen's real standing as a director?" Thomson goes on to hypothesize that "nothing in his career suggests that Gene Kelly could have filmed himself singing in the rain with the exhiliration of Donen's retreating crane shot." Donen has stated that "by the time you hash it through from beginning to end ten million times, you can't remember who did what except in a few instances where you remember getting an idea. Gene is responsible for most of the dance movements. I was behind the camera in the dramatic and musical sequences." Composer Saul Chaplin
said that "Gene was the prime mover and Stanley an eager and talented pupil." Comparing Donen and Kelly's films as directors, Donen's were usually more critically acclaimed and financially successful than Kelly's films. Kelly's 1969 film Hello Dolly!
was the most expensive musical ever made upon its release and is credited with effectively killing the Hollywood musical. The two men were competitive about their separate careers. During the making of It's Always Fair Weather, Donen's self-confidence was high due to having just made two hit films: Deep in My Heart and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, while Vincent Minnelli's Brigadoon
(which Kelly was closely involved in and had wanted to direct) was a flop and Kelly's own ambitious film Invitation to Dance
had been shot in 1952 but was not released by MGM until 1956, and was then financially unsuccessful. Kelly's problems at that time also included unsuccessfully attempting to branch out into dramatic acting with The Devil Makes Three
and Seagulls Over Sorrento
, both of which had flopped, as well as his marriage to Betsy Blair beginning to fall apart. During the shooting of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Donen often complained about his budgetary constraints preventing him from having better sets or the luxury of shooting on location, while Brigadoon had a much larger budget.
Donen has been married five times and has three children. All of his marriages ended in divorce. His first wife was dancer, choreographer and actress Jeanne Coyne
. She married Donen on April 14, 1948. They separated in April 1950 and officially divorced in May 1951. Donen's second wife was actress Marion Marshall
, who had been the girlfriend of Howard Hawks
and later married actor Robert Wagner
. Donen and Marshall had two sons together: Peter Donen, born in 1953, and Joshua Donen, born in 1955. These sons comprise the name of Cary Grant's character in the 1963 film Charade. Donen and Marshall were married from 1952 until 1959. Donen's third wife was Adelle, Countess Beatty. She had previously been the second wife of the 2nd Earl Beatty. They had one son, Mark Donen and lived together in London. They were married in 1960 and separated in 1969 before divorcing in 1971. Donen's fourth wife was the French actress Yvette Mimieux
. They were married from 1972 until 1985, but remained close friends after their divorce. Donen's fifth wife was Pamela Braden, who was thirty-six years younger than him. Donen proposed to her four days after having met her. They were married from 1990 until 1994.
In the early 1940s Donen dated actress Judy Holliday
while still working on Broadway. He also dated Elizabeth Taylor
for a year between his first and second marriages. Donen's current long time companion is writer and director Elaine May
.
Donen's eldest son Peter Donen was a successful visual effects artist who worked on such films as Superman III
, Spaceballs
, The Bourne Identity
and The Truth About Charlie
. He also designed the title credits for Blame It on Rio
. Peter Donen died of a heart attack in 2003 at the age of 50. Donen's second son Joshua Donen is a Film producer. He has worked on such films as The Quick and the Dead, Drag Me to Hell
and the TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand
. Donen's third son Mark worked as a Production Assistant on Blame It on Rio.
In 1959, Donen's father Mordecai Donen died at the age of 59 in Beufort, South Carolina. His mother Helen Donen died in 1989 at the age of 84. Donen delivered the eulogy at his mother's funeral.
With the deaths in the 2000s of Billy Wilder
, Elia Kazan
, Robert Wise
and Jules Dassin
, Stanley Donen became the last surviving notable film director of Hollywood's Golden Age
. He has never officially retired and occasionally makes appearances at film festivals and retrospectives of his work. He was the subject of the 2010 documentary Stanley Donen: You Just Do It.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and choreographer whose most celebrated works are Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
and On the Town
On the Town (film)
On the Town is a 1949 musical film with music by Leonard Bernstein and Roger Edens and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It is an adaptation of the Broadway stage musical of the same name produced in 1944, although many changes in script and score were made from the original stage...
, both of which he co-directed with Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
. His other noteworthy films include Royal Wedding
Royal Wedding
Royal Wedding is a 1951 Hollywood musical comedy film known for Fred Astaire's dance performance on a ceiling and another with a coat rack. The story is set in London in 1947 at the time of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and stars Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah...
, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Funny Face
Funny Face
Funny Face is an American musical film released in 1957 in VistaVision Technicolor, with assorted songs by George and Ira Gershwin. The film was written by Leonard Gershe and directed by Stanley Donen. It stars Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, and Kay Thompson...
, Indiscreet, Damn Yankees!
Damn Yankees (film)
Damn Yankees is a 1958 musical film made by Warner Bros., a modern version of the Faust story involving the New York Yankees and Washington Senators baseball teams. The film is based on the 1955 Broadway musical of the same name....
, Charade and Two for the Road. He received an Honorary Academy Award in 1998 for his body of work and a Career Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in 2004.
Donen has been hailed by film critic David Quinlan
David Quinlan (film critic)
David Quinlan is an English film critic, journalist, film historian and author.Quinlan was the film critic for TV Times from 1972 to 2006...
as "the King of the Hollywood musicals". He began his career in the chorus line on Broadway for director George Abbott
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
, where he befriended Gene Kelly. Donen then went to Hollywood and worked as a choreographer for several years before he and Kelly made On the Town in 1949. He then worked as a contract director for MGM under producer Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
and continued to gain critical acclaim both as a solo director and for his work with Kelly. Donen's relationship with Kelly had (from Donen's perspective) been shaky for several years and deteriorated after the two completed their final collaboration It's Always Fair Weather
It's Always Fair Weather
Fortunately, the original multitrack pre-recordings of the score survive to this day, having enabled Rhino Records to reissue the soundtrack in true stereo . The Original MGM soundtrack was released in 1991 by Sony Music....
in 1955. He then broke his contract with MGM and became an independent producer of his own work in 1957. By the end of the 1950s the Hollywood musical was losing popularity and Donen began to focus on comedies instead, continuing to make hits until the late 1960s. After that his films became fewer and his last theatrical film was in 1984. He briefly returned to the stage as a director in the 1990s and again in 2002.
Donen is credited with helping to transition Hollywood musical films from more realistic backstage dramas where the songs were motivated by a stage setting or the physical presence of musicians to a more integrated, surrealistic form where the music was unmotivated and the songs were a more natural continuation of the story being told. The popular films of Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
, for all of their extravagant stylization, were often set in a stage or Broadway environment where the musical numbers were justified realistically. Donen has stated that what he was doing was a "direct continuation from the Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
-Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
musicals...which in turn came from René Clair
René Clair
René Clair born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker.-Biography:He was born in Paris and grew up in the Les Halles quarter. He attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver. After the war, he started a career as a journalist...
and from Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
...What we did was not geared towards realism but towards the unreal." Film critic Jean-Pierre Coursodon has said that his contributions to the evolution of the Hollywood musical "outshines anybody else's, including Vincent Minnelli's."
Early Life and Stage Career
Donen was born in Columbia, South CarolinaColumbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
to Mordecai Moses Donen, a dress-shop manager, and Helen Cohen. He has one younger sister: Carla Donen Davis, born in August 1937. Although born to Jewish parents, Donen himself became an atheist in his youth. Donen has described his childhood as lonely and unhappy due to being one of the few Jews in Columbia. He was occasionally bullied and called names by anti-semitic classmates at school. To help cope with his isolation, he spent much of his youth in the local movie theaters and was especially fond of westerns, comedies and thrillers. The film that had the strongest impact on Donen at that time was the Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
musical Flying Down to Rio
Flying Down to Rio
Flying Down to Rio is a 1933 RKO musical film noted for being the first screen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Astaire and Rogers were not the stars of the film, however, Dolores del Río and Gene Raymond were top-billed. Among the featured players Franklin Pangborn and Eric Blore are...
in 1933. Donen said that he "must have seen the picture thirty or forty times. I was transported into some sort of fantasy world where everything seemed to be happy, comfortable, easy and supported. A sense of well-being filled me." He also shot home movies with an 8 mm
Standard 8 mm film
Standard 8 mm film, also known as Regular 8 mm film, Double 8 mm film or simply as Standard-8 or Regular-8, is a film format originally developed by the Eastman Kodak company and released onto the market in 1932....
camera and projector that his father bought him.
Inspired by Astaire, Donen began to take dance lessons in Columbia, and later in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during summer vacation where he frequently saw Broadway musicals. One of his early dance instructors in New York was Ned Wayburn
Ned Wayburn
Ned Wayburn, born Edward Claudius Weyburn, was a choreographer. He was born in Pennsylvania but spent much of his childhood in Chicago where he was introduced to theater and studied classical piano. At the age of 21, he abandoned his family’s tradition of manufacturing and began teaching at the...
, who had taught an eleven-year-old Fred Astaire in 1910. In Columbia, he performed at the local Town Theater. After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen, Donen attended the University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...
for one summer semester, studying psychology. Encouraged and supported by his mother, he moved to New York City to pursue dancing on the stage in 1940. He was cast as a chorus dancer in the original Broadway production of Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
and Hart's
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
Pal Joey, which was directed by George Abbott
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
and starred Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
. George Abbott then asked Donen to appear in the chorus of his next Broadway show, Best Foot Forward
Best Foot Forward (musical)
Best Foot Forward is a 1941 Broadway musical by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, with book by John Cecil Holm. Produced by George Abbott, the production opened on 1 October 1941 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre where it was staged for 326 performances....
. He quickly became the assistant stage manager and Gene Kelly asked him to be his assistant choreographer for the show. Eventually Donen was fired from Best Foot Forward, but in 1942 he was the stage manager and assistant choreographer for George Abbott's next show Beat the Band. In 1946, he briefly returned to Broadway to help choreographer a few dance numbers for the show Call Me Mister
Call Me Mister
Call Me Mister is a revue with sketches by Arnold Auerbach and words and music by Harold Rome. The title refers to returning soldiers who expected to be addressed as civilians instead of by their military rank....
.
1943-1949: Move to Hollywood as a Choreographer
In 1943, Arthur FreedArthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
, the successful Metro Goldwyn Mayer producer of musicals, bought the rights to Best Foot Forward
Best Foot Forward (musical)
Best Foot Forward is a 1941 Broadway musical by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, with book by John Cecil Holm. Produced by George Abbott, the production opened on 1 October 1941 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre where it was staged for 326 performances....
. Donen moved to Hollywood and auditioned for the film version, starring Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
and William Gaxton
William Gaxton
William Gaxton was a star of vaudeville, film, and theatre.Born as Arturo Antonio Gaxiola in San Francisco, he appeared on film and onstage. He debuted on Broadway in the Music Box Revue on October 23, 1922...
. This resulted in Donen signing a one-year contract with MGM. In Best Foot Forward, Donen both appeared as a chorus dancer and was made assistant choreographer by Charles Walters
Charles Walters
Charles Walters was a Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies in from the 1940s to the 1960s....
. While at MGM, Donen renewed his friendship with Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
, who was already under contract and was quickly becoming a popular supporting actor. When Kelly was loaned out to Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
for a film with Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
, he was also offered the chance to choreograph his own dance numbers and asked Donen to be his assistant choreographer on the film. Donen accepted and helped choreograph three dance sequences with Kelly in Cover Girl
Cover Girl (1944 film)
Cover Girl is a 1944 American musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. The film tells the story of a chorus girl given a chance at stardom when she is offered an opportunity to be a highly-paid cover girl...
, released in 1944. Donen came up with the idea for the "Alter Ego" dance sequence where Kelly's reflection jumps out of a shop window and dances with him. Director Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor was a film director.-Biography:Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I...
insisted that the idea would never work, so Donen and Kelly directed the scene themselves and Donen spent over a year perfecting it in the editing room before the film's release. The film made Gene Kelly a star and is considered to be an important and innovative musical. Donen signed a one-year contract with Columbia and choreographed several films, but returned to MGM when Kelly wanted his help.
Anchors Aweigh (film)
Anchors Aweigh is a 1945 American musical comedy film directed by George Sidney in which two sailors go on a four-day shore leave in Hollywood, accompanied by music and song, meet an aspiring young singer and try to help her get an audition at MGM...
, released in 1945 and co-starring Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. The most famous scene in this film is when Kelly dances with the cartoon mouse Jerry
Jerry Mouse
Jerry Mouse is a fictional animated character, one of the main characters in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoon short films. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Jerry is a brown anthropomorphic mouse, who first appeared in the 1940 MGM animated short Puss...
. The animation was supervised by William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...
and Joseph Barbera
Joseph Barbera
Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
and is credited to cartoonist Fred Quimby
Fred Quimby
Frederick C. "Fred" Quimby was an American cartoon producer, best known as a producer of Tom and Jerry cartoons, for which he won seven Academy Awards...
, however Donen has stated that the idea was his own. Originally Donen and Kelly had wanted to use either Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
or Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
for the sequence, and met with Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
to discuss the idea. At the time Disney was working on a similar idea, The Three Caballeros
The Three Caballeros
The Three Caballeros is a 1944 American animated feature film, produced by Walt Disney and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The film premiered in Mexico City on December 21, 1944. It was released in the United States on February 3, 1945...
and was unwilling to allow one of his characters to appear in an MGM film. The scene took two months to shoot Kelly's dancing and Donen spent a year perfecting it frame by frame. According to Joseph Barbera "the net result at the preview of Anchors Away that I went to, blew the audience away."
While Kelly completed his service in the U.S. Naval Air Service
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
as a photographer from 1944 to 1946, Donen worked uncredited as a choreographer on a number of musical films. Of this period, Donen said "I practiced my craft, working with music, track and photography. I often directed the sequences. I always tried to have an original idea about how to do musical sequences." Donen has stated that he was rejected from military service as 4-F for having high blood pressure. When Kelly returned to civilian life, he and Donen directed and choreographed Kelly's dance scenes in Living in a Big Way
Living in a Big Way
Living in a Big Way is an American musical comedy film starring Gene Kelly and Marie McDonald as a couple who marry during World War II after only knowing each other a short time.- Synopsis :...
. They then began work on an original story about two baseball players in the early 20th century who spend their off season as vaudevillian song and dance men. This film would eventually become Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Take Me Out to the Ball Game (film)
Take Me Out to the Ball Game is a 1949 Technicolor musical film starring Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, and Gene Kelly. The movie was directed by Busby Berkeley. The title and nominal theme is taken from the unofficial anthem of American baseball, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"...
in 1949. Kelly and Donen had hoped to co-direct the film, but Arthur Freed hired Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
instead and Kelly and Donen only directed Kelly's dance numbers. The film starred Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin.
1949: On the Town
After the success of Take Me Out to the Ball GameTake Me Out to the Ball Game (film)
Take Me Out to the Ball Game is a 1949 Technicolor musical film starring Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, and Gene Kelly. The movie was directed by Busby Berkeley. The title and nominal theme is taken from the unofficial anthem of American baseball, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"...
, Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
gave Donen and Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
the chance to direct their next film: On the Town
On the Town (film)
On the Town is a 1949 musical film with music by Leonard Bernstein and Roger Edens and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It is an adaptation of the Broadway stage musical of the same name produced in 1944, although many changes in script and score were made from the original stage...
, released in 1949. The film was an adaptation of the Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
and Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
musical about sailors on leave in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
(the original Broadway score by Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
was not used in the film). This was the first movie musical to be filmed partially on location. Donen and Kelly had wanted to shoot the entire film in New York City, but producer Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
would only allowed them to spend one week away from the studio. From this week they created the films famous opening number New York, New York
New York, New York (On The Town)
"New York, New York" is a song from the 1944 musical On the Town and the 1949 MGM musical film of the same name. The music was written by Leonard Bernstein and the lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The best known line of this song is, "New York, New York, a helluva town...
. On the Town stars Kelly, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Ann Miller
Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
, Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
, Jules Munshin, and Vera-Ellen
Vera-Ellen
Vera-Ellen was an American actress and dancer, principally celebrated for her filmed dance partnerships with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye and Donald O'Connor.-Early life:...
. Kelly, Sinatra and Munshin play three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City whose romantic ambitions get they more than they bargained for. The film was an instant success both financially and critically. It won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture. Screenwriters Comden and Green won the Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
for Best Written American Musical.
Like Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, Donen made his film debut at the age of 25. Donen has stated that Kelly was "responsible for most of the dance movements. I was behind the camera in the dramatic and musical sequences." With cinematographer Harold Rosson
Harold Rosson
Harold G. "Hal" Rosson, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer during the early and classical Hollywood cinema. He is best known for his work on the 1939 masterpiece The Wizard of Oz.-Biography:Rosson came from a film-making family...
, Donen took full advantage of this opportunity, especially in the films opening song New York, New York. Away from both studio interference and sound stage constrictions, Donen shot a dazzling scene on the streets on New York City that utilizes many cinematic techniques which would not be used again until they were popularized by the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
ten years later, including spacial jump cuts, 360 degree pans, hidden cameras, abruptly changing screen direction and non-professional actors. Never gratuitous or amateurish, this scene also establishes character development and sets up the plot of the film while creating a fun, fast paced, kinetic energy that influenced all musicals that came afterwards. Donen biographer Joseph A. Casper has said that "Today the film is regarded as a turning point: the first bona fide musical that moved dance, as well as the musical genre, out of the theater and captured it with and for film rather than on film; the first to make the city an important character; and the first to abandon the chorus."
1949-1952: Contract Director at MGM
On the Town (film)
On the Town is a 1949 musical film with music by Leonard Bernstein and Roger Edens and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It is an adaptation of the Broadway stage musical of the same name produced in 1944, although many changes in script and score were made from the original stage...
, Donen was able to sign a seven year contract with MGM as a director. His next two films would both be made for producer Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
, but without Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
. After being replaced as director for the Esther Williams
Esther Williams
Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team...
film Pagan Love Song over personal differences with Williams, Donen was given the chance to direct his boyhood idol Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
.
Royal Wedding
Royal Wedding
Royal Wedding is a 1951 Hollywood musical comedy film known for Fred Astaire's dance performance on a ceiling and another with a coat rack. The story is set in London in 1947 at the time of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and stars Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah...
starred Astaire and Jane Powell
Jane Powell
Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...
as a brother-sister American dancing team performing in England during the time of the royal wedding. Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
was originally going to play the lead role, but was fired for absenteeism (and made her first suicide attempt shortly afterwards) and was replaced by Powell. In the film Powell's love affair with a wealthy Englishman (played by Peter Lawford
Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting...
) threatens to ruin the brother-sister act, while Astaire has found his own local love interest in Sarah Churchill
Sarah Churchill (actress)
Sarah Millicent Hermione Tuchet-Jesson, Baroness Audley, usually known as Sarah Churchill , was a British actress and dancer.- Early life :...
. The film is loosely based on Astaire's real life career with his sister and early dancing partner Adele Astaire
Adele Astaire
Lady Charles Cavendish , better known as Adele Astaire, was an American dancer and entertainer. She was Fred Astaire's elder sister. Her birthdate was often given as 1897 or 1898, but the 1900 U.S...
, who married an English Lord in 1932. The film contains one of Astaire's most famous dance sequences: the You're All the World to Me number where Astaire defies gravity by dancing first on the walls and then on the ceiling. The shot was achieved by building the set inside a rotating steel-reinforced cylindrical chamber with the camera attached to the base. Both Astaire and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...
have claimed credit for the idea for the scene. The film included music by Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
and Alan Jay Lerner and was released in 1951.
In 1951 Donen made Love Is Better Than Ever
Love Is Better Than Ever
Love Is Better Than Ever is a 1952 American romantic comedy film directed by Stanley Donen from a screenplay by Ruth Brooks Flippen, starring Larry Parks and Elizabeth Taylor. The plot concerns a small-town girl who falls in love with a big-city talent agent.-Cast:*Larry Parks as Jud...
. The film stars Larry Parks
Larry Parks
Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...
, who was fresh off his Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
nominated success The Jolson Story
The Jolson Story
The Jolson Story is a 1946 musical biography which purports to tell the life story of singer Al Jolson. It stars Larry Parks as Jolson, Evelyn Keyes as "Julie Benson" , William Demarest as his manager, Ludwig Donath and Tamara Shayne as his parents, and Scotty Beckett as the young Jolson.The...
. In the film, Parks plays a streetwise show-biz agent who finds himself compelled to marry an innocent young dance teacher played by Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
. Gene Kelly briefly appears in a cameo. The film remained unreleased for over a year after Parks admitted to the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
that he had been a member of the Communist party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
and named the names of other members. The film was unsuccessful at the box office.
1952: Singin' in the Rain
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
, who had just made An American in Paris
An American in Paris (film)
An American in Paris is a 1951 MGM musical film inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, and Nina Foch, the film is set in Paris, and was directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner...
and was at the height of his fame. The second Donen-Kelly collaboration was Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
and would become one of the most highly praised movies in film history. The film was produced by Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
, written by Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
and Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
, photographed by Harold Rosson
Harold Rosson
Harold G. "Hal" Rosson, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer during the early and classical Hollywood cinema. He is best known for his work on the 1939 masterpiece The Wizard of Oz.-Biography:Rosson came from a film-making family...
and starred Kelly, Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
, Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
and Jean Hagen
Jean Hagen
-Early life:Hagen was born as Jean Shirley Verhagen in Chicago, Illinois, to Christian Verhagen , a Dutch immigrant, and his Chicago-born wife, Marie. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana when she was 12 and she subsequently graduated from Elkhart High School...
. Instead of original music, the score (mostly) consists of old songs that were written by Freed and Nacio Herb Brown
Nacio Herb Brown
Nacio Herb Brown was an American writer of popular songs, movie scores, and Broadway theatre music in the 1920s through the early 1950s.-Biography:...
in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The film is a satire on Hollywood's transition from silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s to "talkie
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
s" in the late 1920s, poking fun at both the first musical films that came out of that period and the technical difficulties with early sound films. Singin' in the Rain contains many "in-jokes", such as the characters of producer R. F. Simpson and director Roscoe Dexter being loosely based on Arthur Freed and Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
.
In the film Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Hagen) are two silent film stars in Hollywood whose careers are threatened by the invention of "talkies". Lockwood and Lamont attempt to train their voices to better suit the new medium and turn their latest film into a musical. Lockwood has no difficulty with this task, but Lamont's grating voice is hopeless for sound films. With help from his best friend Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) and love interest Kathy Selden (Reynolds), Lockwood decides to dub Selden's voice over Lamont's in the film, thus saving his (and Lamont's) careers. In the end the truth is revealed to an audience at the film's premiere and Selden is on her way to a great career as a star in movie musicals.
The film was a hit when it was released in April 1952, earning over $7.6 million. Kelly's An American in Paris
An American in Paris (film)
An American in Paris is a 1951 MGM musical film inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, and Nina Foch, the film is set in Paris, and was directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner...
had been the surprise Best Picture winner at the Oscars
24th Academy Awards
The 24th Academy Awards is an event that honored the Greatest Films of 1951.Best Picture was awarded to An American in Paris, which, like A Place in the Sun, received six academy awards...
in March 1952 (where Arthur Freed also won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award and Kelly won an Academy Honorary Award
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
for his career achievements). MGM decided to re-release the film and Singin' in the Rain got pulled from many theaters in order to showcase the new Best Picture winner. Singin' in the Rain was nominated for two Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
: Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for Hagen and Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
for Lennie Hayton
Lennie Hayton
Leonard George "Lennie" Hayton was an American Jewish composer, conductor and arranger. His trademark was the wearing of a captain’s hat, which he always wore at a rakish angle....
. Initially the film was dismissed by film critics such as Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
and did not begin to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made until the late 1960s. One of the films earliest supporters was film critic Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
, who said that it "is perhaps the most enjoyable of all movie musicals- just about the best Hollywood musical of all time." It was re-released in 1975 to enormous critical and popular success. Among the films many honors it was included in the first group of films to be included in the National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in 1989 and has been included on Sight and Sounds prestigious list of "Top Ten Films" twice, in 1982 and in 2002. Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
and Francois Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
were among its earliest fans, and Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
called the film "one of the five greatest pictures ever made",
1952-1955: Continued Success as a Director and break from MGM
Now established as a film director, Donen continued his solo career at MGM with Fearless FaganFearless Fagan
Fearless Fagan is a 1952 film directed by Stanley Donen and stars Janet Leigh and Carleton Carpenter. It is about a clown who is drafted into the military and tries to sneak his pet lion into the service....
in 1952. Based on a true story, the film stars Carleton Carpenter
Carleton Carpenter
Carleton Carpenter is an American movie/television/stage actor, a magician, author and songwriter....
as a GI who brought his tamed lion with him when he joined the army. Next came the musical Give a Girl a Break
Give a Girl a Break
Give a Girl a Break is a 1953 musical comedy film directed by Stanley Donen, starring Debbie Reynolds and the dance team of Marge and Gower Champion. A young Bob Fosse has a featured role.-Plot:...
in 1953. The film stars Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
, Marge Champion
Marge Champion
Marge Champion is an American dancer, choreographer, and pedagogue. In addition, she also worked in film and appeared in a number of television variety shows.-Early years:...
and Helen Wood as three aspiring dancers all competing for the lead role in a new Broadway musical. Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
, Gower Champion
Gower Champion
Gower Carlyle Champion was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer.-Early years:Champion was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School...
and Kurt Kasznar
Kurt Kasznar
-Early life:Kasznar was born in Vienna, Austria as Kurt Servischer. His father left when Kurt was very young, his mother married a Hungarian restaurateur named Ferdinand Kasznar, and Kurt assumed his surname. He emigrated to the United States in the mid-1930s for The Eternal Road in which he...
also appear in the film, with music by Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
. The films most famous sequence is the Give a Girl a Break dance between Reynolds and Fosse. The scene was choreographed backwards and then played back in reverse so as to create the illusion that the two are being surrounded by hundreds of balloons that instantly appear at the touch of their fingers. Shooting the film became a bitter experience due to a major fight over the films choreography between Fosse and Gower Champion. The fight split the cast with Reynolds and Marge Champion taking Gower Champion's side and Donen taking Fosse's side. The film was not well reviewed upon release, but in later years its reputation has grown.
Stephen Vincent Benét
Stephen Vincent Benét was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body , for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By...
, the film has music by Saul Chaplin
Saul Chaplin
Saul Chaplin was an American composer and musical director.He was born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York.He had worked on stage, screen and television since the days of Tin Pan Alley...
and Gene de Paul
Gene de Paul
Gene de Paul was an American pianist, composer and songwriter.-Biography:Born in New York City, he served in the United States Army during World War II....
, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...
and choreography by Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there...
. The cast included Howard Keel
Howard Keel
Harold Clifford Keel , known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s...
and Jane Powell
Jane Powell
Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...
. In the film, Powell plays Milly, a frontierswoman who marries Adam (Howard Keel) only hours after meeting him. When she returns with Adam to his log cabin in the Oregon backwoods, Milly discovers that her husband's six brothers are uncivilized and oafish. She makes it her duty to civilize them and, upon Milly's sarcastic suggestion, the brothers kidnap six women from a neighboring town to make them their brides. The film was shot in the relatively new format CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
and is most well known for its dance sequences, particularly the "barn raising scene" in which architecture and construction become aerobatic ballet steps. Since its release, the film has been greatly criticized as being anti-woman. Novelist Francine Prose
Francine Prose
Francine Prose is an American writer. Since March 2007 she has been the president of PEN American Center. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991....
has called the film "one of the most repulsive movies about men and women that has ever been made" and calls it a musical about rape. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was one of the highest grossing films of 1954 and appeared on many critics 10 Best Films lists. The films success was a surprise to MGM, which had invested more money into two other musicals: the Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
and Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
operetta Rose Marie
Rose Marie (films)
The 1924 Broadway musical Rose-Marie has been the basis of three MGM films of the same title. The best-known film adaptation was released in 1936; however, a silent version was released in 1928 and another film was released in 1954. All three versions are set in the Canadian wilderness...
and Vincent Minnelli's Brigadoon
Brigadoon (film)
Brigadoon is a 1954 MGM musical feature film made in CinemaScope and Ansco Color based on the Broadway musical of the same name by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse...
, starring Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
. It was more profitable than both On the Town and Singin' in the Rain and its success was a major turning point for Donen's career.
Later in 1954 Donen made Deep in My Heart, a biography of the Hungarian-born American operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
composer Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
starring José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
. The film included cameo appearances by many of MGM's contract players, including the only screen pairing of Gene Kelly and his brother Fred Kelly. Although it received only mediocre reviews, it was a hit financially.
In 1955 Donen teamed up with Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
for the third and final time. It's Always Fair Weather
It's Always Fair Weather
Fortunately, the original multitrack pre-recordings of the score survive to this day, having enabled Rhino Records to reissue the soundtrack in true stereo . The Original MGM soundtrack was released in 1991 by Sony Music....
is a musical produced by Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
, written by Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
and Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
with music by André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
. The film starred Kelly, Dan Dailey
Dan Dailey
Daniel James Dailey Jr. was an American dancer and actor.-Early life and career:Born in New York City on December 14, 1915, to James J. and Helen Dailey, both born in New York City. He appeared in a minstrel show when very young, and appeared in vaudeville before his Broadway debut in 1937 in...
, Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s...
, Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there...
, and Dolores Gray, and was again shot in CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
. Originally envisioned as a sequel to On the Town
On the Town (film)
On the Town is a 1949 musical film with music by Leonard Bernstein and Roger Edens and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It is an adaptation of the Broadway stage musical of the same name produced in 1944, although many changes in script and score were made from the original stage...
, Kelly, Dailey and Kidd play three ex-GI's who reunite 10 years after World War II and discover that none of their lives have turned out quite how they had expected. Kelly had approached Donen with this project as their next collaboration, and at first Donen was reluctant to accept the offer now that he was an established director on his own. Their friendship deteriorated during production of the film and Donen has said that "the atmosphere from day one was very tense and nobody was speaking to anybody." Unlike their experience on On the Town, MGM would not allow Donen and Kelly to shoot on location in New York. It's Always Fair Weather was a moderately profitable film, but no where near the hit that On the Town or Singin' in the Rain had been. It was Donen's last film with Kelly, as well as his last with Arthur Freed. After the films completion he fulfilled his MGM contract agreement as a loan out to other studios over the next few years. His last project for MGM was completing the final four days of shooting Kismet
Kismet (1955 film)
Kismet is an American musical film in Cinemascope and Eastman Color released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is the fourth movie version of Kismet—the first was released in 1920 and the second in 1930 by Warner Brothers—and the second released by MGM...
in July 1955 when director Vincent Minnelli had other commitments.
1956-1959: Career as a Hollywood Director and Independent Producer
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
for producer Roger Edens
Roger Edens
Roger Edens was a Hollywood composer, arranger and associate producer, and is considered one of the major creative figures in Arthur Freed's musical film production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the "golden era of Hollywood".-Early career and work with Judy Garland:Edens was born in...
. Funny Face
Funny Face
Funny Face is an American musical film released in 1957 in VistaVision Technicolor, with assorted songs by George and Ira Gershwin. The film was written by Leonard Gershe and directed by Stanley Donen. It stars Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, and Kay Thompson...
contains four of the original George
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
songs from the 1927 Broadway show of the same name
Funny Face (musical)
Funny Face is a 1927 musical composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and book by Fred Thompson and Paul Gerard Smith.Originally called Smarty, it starred Fred Astaire and his sister Adele Astaire. It opened in Philadelphia to poor reviews, and amidst major re-writes,...
that had starred Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, although it is not an adaptation of that show. The film was loosely based on the life of fashion photographer Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
, who was also the visual consultant and designed the opening title sequence for the film, and was written by Leonard Gershe
Leonard Gershe
Leonard Gershe was an American playwright, screenwriter, and lyricist.Born in New York City, Gershe made his Broadway debut as a lyricist for the 1950 revue Alive and Kicking. He wrote the book for Harold Rome's musical stage adaptation of Destry Rides Again in 1959, and in 1969 a play, ...
. Donen and Edens began pre-production at MGM, but had difficulty juggling Astaire's and Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
's Paramount contracts, the Warner Brothers owned rights to the Gershwin music that they wanted and their own contracts at MGM. Eventually a deal was reached that both released Donen from his MGM contract and allowed him to make his next two films at Paramount and Warner Brothers respectively. In the film Astaire plays an aging fashion photographer who discovers the intellectual bohemian Hepburn at a used bookstore in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
and turns her into his new model while falling in love with her in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The film pokes fun of Astaire's advanced age in comparison to his much younger love interest Hepburn, and was one of his last musical films. It was also Hepburn's first musical and, unlike the later My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady (film)
My Fair Lady is a 1964 musical film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical, of the same name, based on the 1938 film adaptation of the original stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The ballroom scene and the ending were taken from the previous film adaptation , rather than from...
, she sings all the songs herself. Donen, Avedon and cinematographer Ray June collaborated very closely to give the film an abstract, smokey look that resembled the fashion photography of the time period, despite the protests of Paramount which had spent a fortune developing the crisp VistaVision
VistaVision
VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954....
. Funny Face was screened in competition at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival
1957 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*André Maurois *Jean Cocteau *Maurice Genevoix *Georges Huisman *Maurice Lehmann *Marcel Pagnol *Michael Powell *Jules Romains...
and received good reviews from critics like Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
, however Sight and Sound accused the film of being anti-intellectual.
While in pre-production on Funny Face, Donen received a letter from his old boss George Abbott
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
inviting him to make a film version of his stage hit The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded...
at Warner Brothers Pictures. As part of the deal to secure the Gershwin music he wanted for Funny Face, Donen was able to accept and the two co-directed the film version in 1957. The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game (film)
The article is about the 1957 film. For other uses see The Pajama Game .The Pajama Game is a 1957 musical film based on the stage musical of the same name...
stars Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
and John Raitt
John Raitt
John Emmett Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theater.-Early years:...
, with music by Richard Adler
Richard Adler
Richard Adler is an American lyricist, composer and producer of several Broadway shows.-Biography:Born in New York City, Adler had a musical upbringing, his father being a concert pianist. After serving in the Navy he began his career as a lyricist, teaming up with Jerry Ross in 1950...
and Jerry Ross
Jerry Ross (composer)
Jerry Ross was an American lyricist and composer whose works with Richard Adler for the musical theater include The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, winners of Tony Awards in 1955 and 1956 respectively in both the "Best Musical" and "Best Composer and Lyricist" categories.-Biography:Ross was born...
and choreography by Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
. In the film, Raitt plays plant supervisor at a nightwear factory who is in constant disputes with union organizer Day. When there is a pajama production crisis, the workers go on strike, but Day and Raitt end up falling in love. The film was shot in six weeks and Donen described his working relationship with Abbott as relaxed, stating that "[Abbott would] play tennis, come watch on the set for an hour, then watch the rushes, then go home." The film was only a modest financial success, but film critic Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
praised the film and declared "Donen is surely the master of the movie musical. The Pajama Game exists to prove it."
Donen's next film was Kiss Them for Me
Kiss Them for Me (film)
Kiss Them for Me is a 1957 comedy film starring Cary Grant and Jayne Mansfield, directed by Stanley Donen. Co-stars included Suzy Parker, Leif Erickson, Ray Walston, and Werner Klemperer....
. Donen was personally asked by Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
to direct the film and began developing it while still under contract at MGM. With a plot that strongly resembles On the Town, Grant, Ray Walston
Ray Walston
Ray Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J...
and Larry Blyden
Larry Blyden
Larry Blyden was an American actor and game show host, best known for his appearances on Broadway and as the host of the game show What's My Line?-Personal life:...
star as three navy officers on leave in San Francisco in 1944. Unlike the original, this film is a dark comedy that contrasts the officers selfless heroism with their self-absorbed hedonism while on leave. The film was released in 1957 and received mostly poor reviews. It is also more famous for being the fourth and last mainstream Hollywood film that Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...
would receive top billing in, despite her role being a supporting one.
After these three films in 1957, Donen became an independent producer and director. He had reluctantly agreed to direct Kiss Them for Me on condition that 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
bought out his remaining contract with MGM. Now free from any legal obligations, he formed his own production company with Cary Grant: Grandon Productions, with a distribution deal through Warner Brothers Pictures. Donen would produce nearly all of his films from then on, although the company is sometimes credited as Stanley Donen Productions. Donen and Grant inagurated their company in 1958. Indiscreet is based on a play by Norman Krasna
Norman Krasna
Norman Krasna was an American screenwriter, playwright, and film director. He is best known for penning screwball comedies, melodrama, and early films noir. Krasna also directed three films during a forty-year career in Hollywood...
and stars Cary Grany and Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
. Because of Bergman's schedule, the film was shot on location in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where Donen utilized such landmarks as the Leicester Galleries, the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
and the Garrick Club
Garrick Club
The Garrick Club is a gentlemen's club in London.-History:The Garrick Club was founded at a meeting in the Committee Room at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on Wednesday 17 August 1831...
much like he had in his directorial debut. In the film, Bergman plays a famous and reclusive actress who falls in love with the playboy-diplomat Grant. Grant tells Bergman that he is already married and cannot get out of it. When Bergman discovers that he has been lying about having a wife, she invents a charade with another man in order to win Grant's full affection. The films most famous scene involves Donen's clever circumvention of the strict Production Code
Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the...
. In the scene, Grant is in Paris while Bergman is still in London, and the two exchange pillow talk over the phone. Donen used a split screen of the two stars with synchronized movements to make it appear as though they were in the same bed together. The film was a financial and critical success and Donen was compared to such great directors of comedy films as Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
and George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
.
Donen briefly returned to the musical genre with Damn Yankees
Damn Yankees (film)
Damn Yankees is a 1958 musical film made by Warner Bros., a modern version of the Faust story involving the New York Yankees and Washington Senators baseball teams. The film is based on the 1955 Broadway musical of the same name....
in 1958. He again co-directed with George Abbott
George Abbott
George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
in the same hands-off method of collaboration as their first film. Like The Pajama Game, the film includes music by Richard Adler
Richard Adler
Richard Adler is an American lyricist, composer and producer of several Broadway shows.-Biography:Born in New York City, Adler had a musical upbringing, his father being a concert pianist. After serving in the Navy he began his career as a lyricist, teaming up with Jerry Ross in 1950...
and Jerry Ross
Jerry Ross (composer)
Jerry Ross was an American lyricist and composer whose works with Richard Adler for the musical theater include The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, winners of Tony Awards in 1955 and 1956 respectively in both the "Best Musical" and "Best Composer and Lyricist" categories.-Biography:Ross was born...
and choreography by Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
. It stars Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter is an American actor, singer, former teen idol and author who has starred in over forty major films.-Background:...
, Gwen Verdon
Gwen Verdon
Gwenyth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon was an actress and dancer who won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances. With flaming red hair and an endearing quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s...
, and Ray Walston
Ray Walston
Ray Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J...
. Damn Yankees is an adaptation of the Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
legend involving a fan of the baseball team the Washington Senators
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...
who mentions that he would sell his soul for a good hitter for the losing team. Walston plays the Brooks Brothers suit wearing Devil, who grants Shafer his wish and transforms him into the muscular young hitter Joe Hardy (Hunter). Donen was able to shoot three real Senator-Yankee
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
games on location with as many as seven hidden cameras at once. The low budget film was a moderate financial success and received good reviews. It was also Donen's last musical film for many years.
1960-1969: Working in England
After the production of Indiscreet, Donen made England his home base until the early 1970s. The demise of the Hollywood musical caused the string of successes Donen had directed to stall. He said that his "London base afforded me the advantage of being away from the Hollywood rat race. Just going your own way in spite of whatever anyone else is doing or in spite of what you've done already was satisfying. I also had the advantage of the European influence: their way of looking at life, of making movies." During his time in England in the early 1960s, he was credited as an influence on the then emerging British New WaveBritish New Wave
The British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The label is a translation of Nouvelle Vague, the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.There is considerable overlap...
movement.
In the late 1950s, Donen signed a non-exclusive, three film deal with Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. His first film to fulfill this contract was Once More, with Feeling!
Once More, with Feeling!
Once More, with Feeling! is a British comedy film directed and produced by Stanley Donen from a screenplay by Harry Kurnitz, based on his play. The film was released by Columbia Pictures and has music by Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Richard Wagner, arranged by Muir Mathieson...
released in 1960. The film was adapted by Harry Kurnitz
Harry Kurnitz
Harry Kurnitz was an American playwright, novelist, and prolific screenwriter who wrote swashbucklers for Errol Flynn and comedies for Danny Kaye.-Early years:...
from his own stage play and was shot in Paris. It starred Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
and Kay Kendall
Kay Kendall
Kay Kendall was an English actress.Kendall began her film career in the 1946 musical London Town. Though the film was a financial failure, Kendall continued to work regularly until her appearance in the comedy Genevieve brought her widespread recognition...
. In the film Brynner plays a tyrannical orchestra conductor whose mistress (Kendall) grows tired of his tantrums and plots to marry him in order to quickly divorce him for money. Kendall was terminally ill with leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
during the shooting of the film and died before its release. The film was not successful financially or critically. Donen quickly re-teamed with Brynner and Kurnitz for the film Surprise Package
Surprise Package (film)
Surprise Package is a 1960 American comedy film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Yul Bryner, Mitzi Gaynor, Noel Coward, Eric Pohlmann and Barry Foster. An American gangster living on a Greek island and a deposed King hatch a plan to steal some crown jewels....
, also released in 1960. In this film Brynner plays an American gangster who is deported to the Greek island of Rhodes. Mitzi Gaynor
Mitzi Gaynor
-Life and career:Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago, Illinois to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director. The family first moved to Detroit and when she was eleven to Hollywood, California.She trained as a ballerina...
plays his "surprise package" that is sent to the island to appease Brynner and Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
plays the King of Rhodes who Brynner plots to dethrone. The film was not a financial success and Donen has stated that the film was made because he "desperately needed money for personal reasons...it was one of the few times I've made a movie for money." These were the only two films that Donen completed for his Columbia contract. The studio cancelled the deal after their poor box office results and Donen was unable to produce the projects that he was pursuing at that time: playwright Robert Bolt
Robert Bolt
Robert Oxton Bolt, CBE was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter.-Career:He was born in Sale, Cheshire. At Manchester Grammar School his affinity for Sir Thomas More first developed. He attended the University of Manchester, and, after war service, the University of...
's A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons is a play by Robert Bolt. An early form of the play had been written for BBC Radio in 1954, and a one-hour live television version starring Bernard Hepton was produced in 1957 by the BBC, but after Bolt's success with The Flowering Cherry, he reworked it for the stage.It was...
and A Patch of Blue
Elizabeth Kata
Elizabeth Katayama was an Australian writer under the pseudonym Elizabeth Kata, best known for Be Ready with Bells and Drums , which was made into the award-winning film A Patch of Blue ....
, both of which would go on to be successful films by other directors.
Grandon Productions produced Donen's next film, The Grass Is Greener
The Grass Is Greener
The Grass Is Greener is a 1960 comedy film featuring an ensemble cast consisting of screen veterans Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Jean Simmons,directed by Stanley Donen...
, released through Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
in 1960. In the film Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
play the earl and countess of a large estate in England who are forced to permit guided tours of their mansion in order to help their financial problems. Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
plays an American oil tycoon who has fallen in love with Kerr and Jean Simmons
Jean Simmons
Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J...
plays an eccentric an American heiress and Grant's former girlfriend. The film was a financial disappointment in the US, but successful in England, where the original stage version had been a West End success.
In 1963 Donen made one of his most praised films: Charade, starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
, James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
, George Kennedy
George Kennedy
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. is an American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. He is perhaps most familiar as the convict Dragline in Cool Hand Luke , airline troubleshooter Joe Patroni in the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s and...
and Ned Glass
Ned Glass
Ned Glass was an American character actor who appeared in more than eighty films and on television more than one hundred times, frequently playing nervous, cowardly or weasely characters...
. Donen had "always wanted to make a movie like one of my favorites, Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's North by Northwest
North by Northwest
North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...
." The film has been referred to as "the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made." Charade was produced by Stanley Donen Productions and released through Universal. It was adapted by Peter Stone
Peter Stone
Peter Hess Stone was an American writer for theater, television and movies.-Life and career:Stone was born in Los Angeles. His mother, Hilda , was a film writer, and his father, John Stone was the writer and producer of many silent films, including Shirley Temple and Charlie Chan movies...
from his own novel, had a memorable score by Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...
and opening credits by Maurice Binder
Maurice Binder
Maurice Binder was a film title designer best known for his work on 14 James Bond films including the first, Dr. No in 1962 and for Stanley Donen's films from 1958. He was born in New York City, USA, but mostly worked in Britain from the 1950s onwards...
. In the film, Hepburn plays Reggie Lampert, a rich woman who returns home from a vacation to Paris where she discovers that her husband has been murdered and (at least) three sinister men are all searching for the $250,000 in gold that he had hidden somewhere. Peter Joshua (Grant) befriends Reggie and helps her fight off the three thugs while the two begin to fall in love. In the end no one is quite who they seem to be. The film was released in December 1963, only two weeks after the Kennedy Assassination and the word "assassinate" had to be redubbed
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
twice. It was Donen's most financially successful film and influenced a number of romantic comedy-thrillers released in the years preceding it. Film critic Judith Crist
Judith Crist
Judith Crist is an American film critic. She appeared regularly on the Today show from 1964-1973 and has appeared in one film, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories...
called it a "stylish and amusing melodrama" and Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
said it had "a freshness and spirit that makes [it] unlike the films of any other country" and was "probably the best American film of last year". In 2002 the film was remade as The Truth About Charlie
The Truth About Charlie
The Truth About Charlie is a 2002 remake of the 1963 film Charade. It is also an homage to François Truffaut's 1960 film Shoot the Piano Player complete with that film's star, Charles Aznavour, making two surreal appearances singing his song "Quand tu m'aimes" .The Truth About Charlie was produced,...
, directed by Jonathan Demme
Jonathan Demme
Robert Jonathan Demme is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the Academy Award for Best Director, he has also directed the acclaimed movies Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, the Talking Heads concert movie Stop...
.
In 1966 Donen made another Hitchcock inspired film, Arabesque
Arabesque (film)
Arabesque is a 1966 thriller starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. The movie is based on Gordon Cotler's novel The Cypher and directed by Stanley Donen.-Plot:Professor David Pollock is an expert in ancient hieroglyphics at Oxford University...
, starring Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
and Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
. Although the film was written by Julian Mitchell and Stanley Price, Peter Stone was brought in to do an uncredited rewrite. In the film, Peck plays an American professor at Oxford University and an expert in ancient hieroglyphics. He is approached by a Middle Eastern Prime Minister to investigate an organization that is attempting to assassinate him and use hieroglyphic codes to communicate. The investigation leads Peck to one mystery after another, often involving the Prime Minister's ambiguous mistress, played by Loren. Once again, the film was a box office success
In 1967 Donen made Two for the Road, starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
. The film was conceived by Donen and written by novelist Frederic Raphael
Frederic Raphael
Frederic Michael Raphael is an American-born, British-educated screenwriter, and also a prolific novelist and journalist.-Life and career:...
, who was nominated for an Academy Award. It features a score by Henry Mancini and a supporting roles by Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
and Jacqueline Bisset
Jacqueline Bisset
Jacqueline Bisset is an English actress. She has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award. She is known for her roles in the films Bullitt , Airport , The Deep , Class , and the TV series Nip/Tuck in 2006...
early in her career. The film has been called one of Donen's most personal, "with glints of passion never disclosed before" and is "a veritable textbook on film editing." The films complicated and non-linear story is about the 12-year relationship between Hepburn and Finney over the course of four separate road trips that they took together throughout the years in the south of France, which are interwoven together. The film was moderately successful at the box office, while the critical reception was extremely mixed. Bosley Crowther called the film "just another version of commercial American trash." Since its release the film has attained a cult following and been cited as an early example of non-linear storytelling in film. It is also the film that Donen is most frequently asked about by film students.
While living in England Donen had become a fan of the British variety show Beyond the Fringe
Beyond the Fringe
Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller. It played in London's West End and then on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s, and is widely regarded as seminal to the rise of satire in 1960s Britain.-The...
and wanted to work with the shows comedy duo Peter Cook
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...
and Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
. The resulting film was Bedazzled
Bedazzled (1967 film)
Bedazzled is a 1967 British comedy film directed and produced by Stanley Donen. It was written by and stars Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It is a comic retelling of the Faust legend, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s...
, an updated version of the Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
legend in 1967. The film was written by Cook and featured music by Moore, and also starred Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
and Raquel Welch
Raquel Welch
Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...
. In the film, Moore plays a lonely young man whose unrequited love of his co-worker (Bron) leads him to commit suicide. Just then the devil (Cook) appears and offers him seven wishes in exchange for his soul. The films fun loving association with the Swinging London
Swinging London
Swinging London is a catch-all term applied to the fashion and cultural scene that flourished in London, in the 1960s.It was a youth-oriented phenomenon that emphasised the new and modern. It was a period of optimism and hedonism, and a cultural revolution. One catalyst was the recovery of the...
of the 1960s divided critics. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
called the film's satire "barbed and contemporary ... dry and understated," and overall, a "magnificently photographed, intelligent, very funny film." Time Magazine, on the other hand, called the film the feeblest of all known variations on the Faust theme. The film was a hit, and was especially popular among American college students. It was remade
Bedazzled (2000 film)
Bedazzled is a 2000 film remake of the 1967 film Bedazzled , originally written by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, which was itself a comic retelling of the Faust legend...
by director Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis
Harold Allen Ramis is an American actor, director, and writer, specializing in comedy. His best-known film acting roles are as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters and Russell Ziskey in Stripes , both of which he also co-wrote...
in 2000 with Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser
Brendan James Fraser is a Canadian-American film and stage actor. Fraser portrayed Rick O'Connell in the three-part Mummy film series , and is known for his comedic and fantasy film leading roles in major Hollywood films, including Encino Man , George of the Jungle , Dudley Do-Right , Monkeybone ,...
and Elizabeth Hurley
Elizabeth Hurley
Elizabeth Jane Hurley is an English model and actress who became known as a girlfriend of Hugh Grant in the 1990s. In 1994, as Grant became the focus of worldwide media attention due to the global box office success of his film Four Weddings and a Funeral, Hurley accompanied him to the film's Los...
. Donen considered it one of his favorite's of his own films, and called it "a very personal film in that I said a great deal about what I think is important in life."
In 1969 Donen directed Staircase
Staircase (film)
Staircase is a 1969 film adaptation of a two-character play, also called Staircase, by Charles Dyer. The film, like the play, is about an aging gay couple who own a barber shop in the East End of London. One of them is a part-time actor about to go on trial for propositioning a police officer...
, an adaptation of the autobiographical stage play by Charles Dyer, with music by Dudley Moore. Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
and Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
star as a middle-aged gay couple who run a London barber shop and live together in a "bad marriage". The film was shot in Paris for tax purposes and was not a financial success. It received poor reviews upon release, but has since been reevaluated by film critic Armond White
Armond White
Armond White is a New York-based film and music critic known for his provocative and idiosyncratic film criticism, which some have characterized as contrarian. He is currently the editor of City Arts, for which he also writes articles and reviews...
in 2007. White called the film "a rare Hollywood movie to depict gay experience with wisdom, humor and warmth", and "a lost treasure".
1970-2003: Later Career and return to Theater
After Donen's marriage to Adelle Beatty ended he moved back to Hollywood in 1970. Producer Robert Evans asked Donen to direct an adaptation of the beloved children's book The Little PrinceThe Little Prince
The Little Prince , first published in 1943, is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ....
. Composers Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...
and Frederick Loewe wrote the music and screenplay and filming was done on location in Tunisia. The Little Prince
The Little Prince (film)
The Little Prince is a 1974 American/British science fiction musical film with screenplay and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
stars Steven Warner in the title role, with Richard Kiley, Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
, Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder is an American stage and screen actor, director, screenwriter, and author.Wilder began his career on stage, making his screen debut in the film Bonnie and Clyde in 1967. His first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The Producers...
and Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie is an American musical theater dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She is known for her professional and personal relationship with choreographer Michael Bennett, with whom she collaborated on her most noted role, "Cassie" from the musical A Chorus Line, for which she...
. It was Donen's first musical film since Damn Yankees. Although it contained very little dancing, Fosse choreographed his own dance scenes as the snake. It was released in 1974 and was considered a financial disaster.
Donen's next film was Lucky Lady
Lucky Lady
Lucky Lady is a 1975 American film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli and Burt Reynolds, with Robby Benson. Its story takes place during Prohibition in the United States in the year 1930....
, starring Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
, Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
and Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...
. In the film, Minnelli plays a Prohibition era bootlegger who transports alcohol from Mexico to California with the help of Hackman and Reynolds, who both compete for her affection. Donen has stated that he "really cared about [the film] and gave three years of my life to it...I think its a very good movie." The film was over-budget and unsuccessful at the box office. Most critics were unenthusiastic, however Jay Cocks
Jay Cocks
Jay Cocks is a film critic and motion picture screenwriter.He is a graduate of Kenyon College. He was a critic for Time, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone, among other magazines, before moving into film writing....
praised the film for having "the glistening surface and full-throttle frivolity that characterized Hollywood films in the 1930s."
Nostalgia for old Hollywood films would be a theme of Donen's next film, Movie Movie
Movie Movie
Movie Movie is a 1978 musical comedy film directed by Stanley Donen. Movie Movie consists of two short films, both starring the husband-and-wife team of George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere, with a fake movie trailer sandwiched in between them...
, produced by Lew Grade
Lew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
's ITC Entertainment
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
. The film, scripted by Larry Gelbart
Larry Gelbart
Larry Simon Gelbart was an American television writer, playwright, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...
, is actually two shorter films presented as an old fashioned double feature
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
, complete with a fake movie trailer and an introduction by comedian George Burns
George Burns
George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
. The film starred George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
, Trish Van Devere
Trish Van Devere
Trish Van Devere is an American actress.-Early life:Van Devere was born as Patricia Louise Dressel in Tenafly, New Jersey. She was married to the actor George C...
, Red Buttons, Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there...
and Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
and was submitted in competition at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival
29th Berlin International Film Festival
The 29th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 20 to March 3, 1979.-Jury:* Julie Christie* Romain Gary* Ingrid Caven* Georg Alexander* Liliana Cavani* Jörn Donner* Paul Bartel* Pál Gábor-Films in competition:...
in 1978. The first of the two films is Dynamite Hands, a black and white tribute to boxing- morality films. The second film is Baxter's Beauties of 1933, a tribute to the extravagant musicals of Busby Berkely in color. Once again it was unsuccessful both financially and critically.
In 1980 Donen made the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
film Saturn 3
Saturn 3
Saturn 3 is a 1980 science fiction film starring Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel. Direction is credited to Stanley Donen. The project was conceived by John Barry. Barry was due to direct until a dispute with Douglas led to his replacement...
, starring Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
, Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett was an American actress and artist. A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series Charlie's Angels, in 1976...
and Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
. Donen first read the script when its writer (and Movie Movies set designer) John Barry
John Barry (set designer)
John Barry was a British film production designer, known for his work on Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.-Career:...
showed it to him, prompting Donen to pass it along to Grade. Donen was hired as producer of the film, but when first time director Barry proved to be unable to direct a film Grade asked Donen to complete the film. According to Donen, "only a tiny bit of what Barry shot ended up in the finished film." The film was a critical and financial disaster, and initially Donen did not want to be credited as director.
Donen's last theatrical film to date was the May–December romance Blame It on Rio
Blame it on Rio
Blame it on Rio is a 1984 romantic comedy film, written by Charlie Peters and Larry Gelbart and directed by Stanley Donen. The script is based on the 1977 French film, Un moment d'égarement. The original music score was composed by Kenneth Wannberg...
in 1984. The film is a remake of the 1977 Claude Berri
Claude Berri
Claude Berri , born Claude Berel Langmann, was one of the great all-rounders of French cinema: an actor, writer, producer, director and distributor. "Out of my failure as an actor was born my desire to direct. Then my relative failure as a director forced me to become a producer. In order to get my...
film Un moment d'égarement and was written by Larry Gelbert and Charlie Peters. The film stars Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
, Joseph Bologna
Joseph Bologna
Joseph Bologna is an American actor.-Life and career:Bologna was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Brown University, where he majored in art history. After a hitch with the marines, Bologna was hired to produce and direct Manhattan-based TV commercials.The actor has a long history in film...
, Michelle Johnson
Michelle Johnson (actress)
Michelle Johnson is an American actress, probably best known for her role in Blame It on Rio.-Career:Director Stanley Donen signed her, as a 17-year-old, to appear as Michael Caine's love interest in the romantic comedy film Blame It on Rio...
, Valerie Harper
Valerie Harper
Valerie Harper is an American actress, known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for her starring roles on the sitcoms Rhoda and Valerie.-Early life and career:Harper was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, Rockland County,...
and Demi Moore
Demi Moore
Demi Guynes Kutcher , known professionally as Demi Moore, is an American actress. After minor roles in film and a role in the soap opera General Hospital, Moore established her career in films such as St...
and was shot on location in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
. In the film Caine and Bologma play wealthy executives on vacation with their families, and Caine begins a romance with Bologna's teenage daughter (Johnson). The film received poor reviews, but was a modest success financially.
In 1986 Donen directed a musical sequence for for an episode
Big Man on Mulberry Street
"Big Man on Mulberry Street" is a jazz influenced song by Billy Joel from the 1986 album The Bridge .An extended version of the song was used on a season three episode of Moonlighting. The episode was titled "Big Man On Mulberry Street". In a dream sequence, Maddie Hayes envisions David Addison...
of the popular TV series Moonlighting
Moonlighting (TV series)
Moonlighting is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989. The network aired a total of 66 episodes...
. Also in 1986, Donen directed the music video for Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie
Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. , is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Since 1968, he has been a member of the musical group Commodores signed to Motown Records...
's song "Dancing on the Ceiling
Dancing on the Ceiling
Dancing on the Ceiling is Lionel Richie's third album, which was released on July 15, 1986. The title cut was the second biggest single from the album, reaching #1 in the U.S. and #7 in the UK...
". He was the producer for the televised ceremony of the 58th Academy Awards
58th Academy Awards
The 58th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1985, were held on March 24, 1986 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Alan Alda, Jane Fonda and Robin Williams. The ceremony was watched by 38.93 million viewers, tying the 78th Academy Awards as...
, which included a musical performance of the song "Once a Star, Always a Star" with June Allyson
June Allyson
June Allyson was an American film and television actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was a major MGM contract star. Allyson won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in Too Young to Kiss . From 1959–1961, she hosted and occasionally starred in her own CBS anthology...
, Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
, Marge Champion
Marge Champion
Marge Champion is an American dancer, choreographer, and pedagogue. In addition, she also worked in film and appeared in a number of television variety shows.-Early years:...
, Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s...
, Kathryn Grayson
Kathryn Grayson
Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals...
, Howard Keel
Howard Keel
Harold Clifford Keel , known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s...
, Ann Miller
Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
, Jane Powell
Jane Powell
Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...
, Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
, and Esther Williams
Esther Williams
Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team...
. Later in the show Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
, Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
, and Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
presented the awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.
In 1989 Donen was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...
. In his commencement address, Donen stated that he thought he was unique in being the first tap dancer to be a doctor and then proceeded to tap dance for the graduates. At around the same time Donen taught a seminar on film musicals at the Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981 that actively advances the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide...
at the request of Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
.
In 1993 Donen was preparing to produce and direct a movie musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
. After allegations that Jackson had molested young boys at his Neverland ranch became a tabloid scandal, the project was abandoned. Later that year Donen directed a stage version of The Red Shoes
The Red Shoes (musical)
The Red Shoes is a musical with a book by Marsha Norman, lyrics by Norman and Bob Merrill and music by Jule Styne...
at the George Gershwin Theater. Donen replaced the original director Susan Schulman just six weeks before the show opened. It closed after four days.
In 1998 Donen was granted an Honorary Academy Award
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
"in appreciation of a body of work marked by grace, elegance, wit and visual innovation." In his acceptance speech, he danced with his Oscar statue while singing Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's "Cheek to Cheek
Cheek to Cheek
"Cheek to Cheek" is a song written by Irving Berlin, and first performed by Fred Astaire in the movie Top Hat . Astaire's 1935 recording with the Leo Reisman Orchestra was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000....
", a song first popularized by his boyhood idol Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
. After listing the names of many of the actors, musicians and technicians that he had worked with during his career, Donen modestly declared one of the secrets to being a great director is "You show up--and stay the hell out of the way. But you gotta show up or else you can't take the credit and win one of these guys." Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
presented the award and created a montage of Donen's films for the show.
Donen's last film to date was the 1999 made-for-TV movie Love Letters, which aired on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. The film starred Steven Weber
Steven Weber (actor)
Steven Robert Weber is an American actor. He is best known for his role in the television show Wings which aired throughout the 1990s on NBC.-Early life:...
and Laura Linney
Laura Linney
Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award...
and was based on the play
Love Letters (play)
Love Letters is a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nominated play by A. R. Gurney. The play centers on just two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III...
by A.R. Gurney. In the film, Webber plays a successful US Senator who finds out that his long lost love Linney has recently died. The two had only corresponded through letters over the years, and Webber remembers Linney through his collection of old love letters.
In 2002 Donen directed Elaine May
Elaine May
Elaine May is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. She achieved her greatest fame in the 1950s from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols...
's musical play Adult Entertainment starring Danny Aiello
Danny Aiello
Daniel Louis "Danny" Aiello, Jr. is an American actor who has appeared in numerous motion pictures, including Once Upon a Time in America, Ruby, The Godfather: Part II, Hudson Hawk, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Moonstruck, Léon, Two Days in the Valley, and Dinner Rush...
and Jeannie Berlin
Jeannie Berlin
Jeannie Berlin is an American film, television and stage actress.Berlin was born Jeannie Brette May in Los Angeles, California to Marvin May and actress/comedian/screenwriter/playwright Elaine May. May directed Berlin in the 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid, which garnered Berlin Golden Globe and...
in Stanford, CT.
Legacy
Donen and Gene KellyGene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
are credited with helping to further the art of movie musicals by transitioning them from realistic backstage settings to abstract surrealistic films. After the success of The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
in 1927, Hollywood quickly switched over to sound films and hired many songwriters and actors from the Broadway musical stage (as depicted in Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
). Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
and Nacio Herb Brown
Nacio Herb Brown
Nacio Herb Brown was an American writer of popular songs, movie scores, and Broadway theatre music in the 1920s through the early 1950s.-Biography:...
were one of many lyricist and composer teams that moved to Hollywood during this time period and helped create the movie musical genre. Amongst other films, the team contributed songs to the 1929 Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
winner Broadway Melody, which was promoted as the first "all singing, all talking, all dancing" Hollywood film and was satirized in Singin' in the Rain. Another major musical in the early days of sound film was 42nd Street
42nd Street (film)
-Cast:*Warner Baxter as Julian Marsh, director*Bebe Daniels as Dorothy Brock, star*George Brent as Pat Denning, Dorothy's old vaudeville partner*Ruby Keeler as Peggy Sawyer, the newcomer*Guy Kibbee as Abner Dillon, the show's backer...
, the first major success of Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
, who directed the musical numbers. This film helped establish the Backstage musical
Backstage musical
A backstage musical is a genre of musical film with a plot set in a theatrical context that revolves around the production of a play or revue. The film's narrative trajectory often comes to a halt to allow a performance...
, in which the film's plot revolves around a musical show and the people involved in putting the show on. The musical performances in the film are therefore realistic in that they are justified by the plot, but at the same time do nothing to futher the story in and of themselves. Berekeley continued to make highly successful musicals of this kind throughout the 1930s. Donen has stated that he disliked the musicals of Busby Berkeley and that his own films were "a reaction against those backstage musicals." Other successful musicals of the 1930s include the Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
/Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
musicals and the Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
-Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
operattes. Often the musical numbers in these films were either within the context of a stage performance in the plot of the film itself or they seemed tacked on and gratuitious, doing nothing to futher the story or develop the characters. Although Donen credits earlier musicals by René Clair
René Clair
René Clair born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker.-Biography:He was born in Paris and grew up in the Les Halles quarter. He attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver. After the war, he started a career as a journalist...
, Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
and Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
as having been integrated musicals, he also states that "in the early musicals of Lubitsch and Clair, they made it clear from the beginning that their characters were going to sing operatically. Gene and I didn't go that far. In 'Moses Supposes', he and Donald sort of talk themselves into a song."
Arthur Freed was eventually promoted to producer in 1939 and established the Freed Unit, which was famous for producing all of the musicals for MGM. Donen credits Freed as being the driving force behind the evolution in movie musicals, stating that "why Arthur made such a big contribution to musical movies was because he was singularly equipped to do so...[he] just had some sort of instinct to change the musical from a backstage world into something else. he didn't quite know what to change it into, just that it had to change."
Cover Girl is credited with transitioning musicals from the filmed Broadway shows that had been made since the innovation of sound films to a musical films that integrated the music into the story and characters. Donen and Kelly are usually considered to be the main contributors to this new style in movie musicals.
Martin Rubin has credited Take Me Out to the Ball Game (which was directed by Berkeley) as an "indication of changing trends in musical films" and were a step away from the Berkeley spectacles towards a "relatively small-scale affairs that place the major emphasis on comedy, transitions to the narrative, the cleverness of the lyrics and the personalities and performance skills of the stars, rather than on spectacle and group dynamics." Rubin credits Donen and Kelly with making musicals more realistic, compared to Berkeley's stlye of a "separation of narrative space from performance space"
David Thomson
David Thomson (film critic)
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...
dismisses most of Donen's later comedy films, but praises him for leading "the musical in a triumphant and personal direction: out of doors...Not even Minnelli can rival the fresh-air excitement of such sequences. And few can equal his integration of song, dance and story." Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
dismisses Donen as being without a personal style of his own and as being dependent upon his collaborators on his better films.
Among Donen's admirers are film directors Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
, Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
, Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
, Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
and Francois Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
. Donen's skill as a director has been praised by such actor's as Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s...
and Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
. Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
has downplayed his contributions to Singin' in the Rain, stating that "Stanley just operated the camera, because Stanley didn't dance."
Relationship with Gene Kelly
Donen's relationship with collaborator Gene KellyGene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
was strained and he often spoke bitterly of Kelly in interviews decades after having last worked with him. Kelly was never explicitly negative about Donen in interviews, however Donen's biographer Stephen Silverman asserts that Kelly's comments were often condescending and demonstrated "a long-standing attempt to diminish Donen's contributions to their collective work." The reasons for the conflict between the two men were both personal (due to both men having been married to dancer Jeanne Coyne
Jeanne Coyne
Jeanne Coyne was an acclaimed Broadway dancer, choreographer and actress.With Carol Haney , she formed a formidable team of choreographers for the directors Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, both of whom, coincidentally, she married.She was married to Stanley Donen , and secondly to Gene Kelly with...
) and professional differences (due to Donen always feeling that Kelly did not respect him or treat him as an equal). It is also debatable as to which of the two deserves more credit for the films they made together. They co-directed three films and choreographed (and unofficially co-directed) the dance scenes in four other films.
Summer Stock
For the article about the theatre genre, see Summer stock theatre.Summer Stock is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical made in 1950. The film was directed by Charles Walters and stars Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken, Gloria DeHaven, Marjorie Main, and Phil Silvers...
and An American in Paris
An American in Paris (film)
An American in Paris is a 1951 MGM musical film inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, and Nina Foch, the film is set in Paris, and was directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner...
. When Donen was frustrated with Kelly during the making of On the Town, he confided his anger to Coyne only to find that she immediately took Kelly's side. There had been rumors that Kelly and Coyne were having an affair both during and after Coyne's marriage to Donen, as well as rumors that Donen was in love with Kelly's first wife Betsy Blair
Betsy Blair
Betsy Blair was an American actress of film and stage, long based in London.Blair pursued a career in entertainment from the age of eight, and as a child worked as an amateur dancer, performed on radio, and worked as a model, before joining the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940...
, and that she reciprocated his affection. Blair's autobiography makes no mention of an affair between Kelly and Coyne or of any romantic attachments to or from Donen. However she does state that Donen's marriage to Coyne was unhappy and that Donen was very close to Kelly and herself. Kelly always thought that Donen's impulsive marriage to Coyne showed an emotional immaturity and lack of good judgement in Donen and in an interview Kelly stated that "Jeanne's marriage to Stanley was doomed from the start. Because every time Stanley looked at Jeanne, he saw Betsy, whom he loved; and every time Jeanne looked at Stanley, I guess she saw me. One way or another it was all pretty incestuous." Kelly's marriage to Blair ended in 1957, after which he moved in with Coyne. They married in 1960 and had two children together. Coyne was diagnosed with leukemia and died in 1973.
Donen and Kelly first met during production on the stage show Pal Joey, and became collaborators and friends during production of Best Foot Forward. The relationship between the two has been described as similar to that of the characters Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown in Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
. Kelly described Donen as being like a son to him and Donen initially idolized Kelly, while still finding him to be "cold, egotistical and very rough." Although Donen has credited Kelly for "jump-starting his career as a filmmaker", he has also stated that MGM producer Roger Edens
Roger Edens
Roger Edens was a Hollywood composer, arranger and associate producer, and is considered one of the major creative figures in Arthur Freed's musical film production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the "golden era of Hollywood".-Early career and work with Judy Garland:Edens was born in...
was his biggest promoter. Many sources believe that Donen owes everything to Kelly and Kelly biographer Clive Hirschhorn as described Donen as having "no particular identity or evident talent...and was just a kid from the south who wanted to make it in show business." However it is also true that a sixteen-year-old Donen came to New York with no connections or friends and after only two auditions landed a role on Broadway with one of its most successful directors. Donen has stated that he moved to Hollywood of his own accord, however other sources claim that he followed Kelly, who then helped him get his first job. Kelly would sometimes embarrass and patronize Donen in public, such as berating Donen for not being able to keep up with his dance steps during the rehearsals for Cover Girl. Donen has admitted that he did not consider himself to be a very good performer. Despite Donen's growing resentment of Kelly he was able to compartmentalize his personal feelings and professional attitude during their collaborations. Tensions between the two exploded on the set of their last collaboration as co-directors on It's Always Fair Weather. Donen had recently had a major hit with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and did not want to make another film with Kelly. They fought on the set for the first time, with the now more confident Donen asserting himself. Donen almost quit the film and his friendship with Kelly ended. In later years Donen would state that he had nothing nice to say about Kelly. At a 1991 tribute to Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
and Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
, Kelly said in a public speech that Donen "needed [him] to grow up with" but added "I needed Stanley at the back of the camera." He also described Donen as being thought of as his whipping-boy at MGM. Although Donen often complained that Kelly never gave him enough credit for their work, Kelly did credit him for the Jerry the Mouse and "Alter Ego" dances. In 1992 Donen said "I'm grateful to him, but I paid back the debt, ten times over. And he got his money's worth out of me." Donen was consistently bitter about Kelly in later interviews, which Betsy Blair claimed to be "surprised and bemused" of.
The equality of contributions of Donen and Kelly's collaborations is debatable. David Thomson
David Thomson (film critic)
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...
has written about "the problem in assessing [Donen's] career: who did what in their collaboration? And what is Donen's real standing as a director?" Thomson goes on to hypothesize that "nothing in his career suggests that Gene Kelly could have filmed himself singing in the rain with the exhiliration of Donen's retreating crane shot." Donen has stated that "by the time you hash it through from beginning to end ten million times, you can't remember who did what except in a few instances where you remember getting an idea. Gene is responsible for most of the dance movements. I was behind the camera in the dramatic and musical sequences." Composer Saul Chaplin
Saul Chaplin
Saul Chaplin was an American composer and musical director.He was born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York.He had worked on stage, screen and television since the days of Tin Pan Alley...
said that "Gene was the prime mover and Stanley an eager and talented pupil." Comparing Donen and Kelly's films as directors, Donen's were usually more critically acclaimed and financially successful than Kelly's films. Kelly's 1969 film Hello Dolly!
Hello Dolly! (film)
Hello, Dolly! is a 1969 romantic comedy musical film, based on the Broadway production of the same name; the film follows the story of Dolly Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to Yonkers, New York, in an attempt to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire,"...
was the most expensive musical ever made upon its release and is credited with effectively killing the Hollywood musical. The two men were competitive about their separate careers. During the making of It's Always Fair Weather, Donen's self-confidence was high due to having just made two hit films: Deep in My Heart and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, while Vincent Minnelli's Brigadoon
Brigadoon (film)
Brigadoon is a 1954 MGM musical feature film made in CinemaScope and Ansco Color based on the Broadway musical of the same name by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse...
(which Kelly was closely involved in and had wanted to direct) was a flop and Kelly's own ambitious film Invitation to Dance
Invitation to the Dance (film)
Invitation to the Dance is a 1956 anthology film consisting of three distinct stories, all starring and directed by Gene Kelly.The film is unusual in that it has no spoken dialogue, with the characters performing their roles entirely through dance and mime...
had been shot in 1952 but was not released by MGM until 1956, and was then financially unsuccessful. Kelly's problems at that time also included unsuccessfully attempting to branch out into dramatic acting with The Devil Makes Three
The Devil Makes Three (film)
The Devil Makes Three is a 1952 thriller film set in post-World War II Germany, starring Pier Angeli, Gene Kelly and Richard Egan.-Plot:...
and Seagulls Over Sorrento
Seagulls Over Sorrento
Seagulls Over Sorrento is a 1954 British wartime drama film made by the Boulting Brothers based on the play of the same name by Hugh Hastings. The film stars Gene Kelly and was one of three made by Kelly in Europe over an 18 month period in order to make use of frozen MGM funds...
, both of which had flopped, as well as his marriage to Betsy Blair beginning to fall apart. During the shooting of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Donen often complained about his budgetary constraints preventing him from having better sets or the luxury of shooting on location, while Brigadoon had a much larger budget.
Personal Life
Jeanne Coyne
Jeanne Coyne was an acclaimed Broadway dancer, choreographer and actress.With Carol Haney , she formed a formidable team of choreographers for the directors Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, both of whom, coincidentally, she married.She was married to Stanley Donen , and secondly to Gene Kelly with...
. She married Donen on April 14, 1948. They separated in April 1950 and officially divorced in May 1951. Donen's second wife was actress Marion Marshall
Marion Marshall (actress)
Marion Marshall is an American actress.Marshall's first film appearances were in the 20th Century Fox films Gentleman's Agreement and Daisy Kenyon in 1947...
, who had been the girlfriend of Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
and later married actor Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...
. Donen and Marshall had two sons together: Peter Donen, born in 1953, and Joshua Donen, born in 1955. These sons comprise the name of Cary Grant's character in the 1963 film Charade. Donen and Marshall were married from 1952 until 1959. Donen's third wife was Adelle, Countess Beatty. She had previously been the second wife of the 2nd Earl Beatty. They had one son, Mark Donen and lived together in London. They were married in 1960 and separated in 1969 before divorcing in 1971. Donen's fourth wife was the French actress Yvette Mimieux
Yvette Mimieux
Yvette Carmen Mimieux is a retired American movie and television actress.-Early life and career:Yvette Mimieux was born in Los Angeles, California, to a French father and Mexican mother, Carmen Montemayor...
. They were married from 1972 until 1985, but remained close friends after their divorce. Donen's fifth wife was Pamela Braden, who was thirty-six years younger than him. Donen proposed to her four days after having met her. They were married from 1990 until 1994.
In the early 1940s Donen dated actress Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...
while still working on Broadway. He also dated Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
for a year between his first and second marriages. Donen's current long time companion is writer and director Elaine May
Elaine May
Elaine May is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. She achieved her greatest fame in the 1950s from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols...
.
Donen's eldest son Peter Donen was a successful visual effects artist who worked on such films as Superman III
Superman III
Superman III is a 1983 superhero film and the third film in the Superman film series based upon the long-running DC Comics superhero. Christopher Reeve, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure and Margot Kidder are joined by new cast members Annette O'Toole, Annie Ross, Pamela Stephenson, Robert Vaughn and...
, Spaceballs
Spaceballs
Spaceballs is a 1987 American science fiction comedy parody film co-written by, directed by, Mel Brooks and starring Bill Pullman, John Candy, Mel Brooks & Rick Moranis. It also features, Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, and the voice of Joan Rivers. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on...
, The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Identity (2002 film)
The Bourne Identity is a 2002 American spy film loosely based on Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name. It stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac attempting to discover his true identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the Central Intelligence Agency . The film also stars Franka...
and The Truth About Charlie
The Truth About Charlie
The Truth About Charlie is a 2002 remake of the 1963 film Charade. It is also an homage to François Truffaut's 1960 film Shoot the Piano Player complete with that film's star, Charles Aznavour, making two surreal appearances singing his song "Quand tu m'aimes" .The Truth About Charlie was produced,...
. He also designed the title credits for Blame It on Rio
Blame it on Rio
Blame it on Rio is a 1984 romantic comedy film, written by Charlie Peters and Larry Gelbart and directed by Stanley Donen. The script is based on the 1977 French film, Un moment d'égarement. The original music score was composed by Kenneth Wannberg...
. Peter Donen died of a heart attack in 2003 at the age of 50. Donen's second son Joshua Donen is a Film producer. He has worked on such films as The Quick and the Dead, Drag Me to Hell
Drag Me to Hell
Drag Me to Hell is a 2009 American horror film, directed by Sam Raimi, with a screenplay by Sam and Ivan Raimi. The plot focuses on loan officer Christine Brown , who tries to impress her boss by refusing to extend a loan to a gypsy woman by the name of Mrs. Ganush...
and the TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Spartacus: Blood and Sand is a Starz television series that premiered on January 22, 2010. The series is inspired by the historical figure of Spartacus , a Thracian gladiator who from 73 to 71 BC led a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Executive producers Steven S...
. Donen's third son Mark worked as a Production Assistant on Blame It on Rio.
In 1959, Donen's father Mordecai Donen died at the age of 59 in Beufort, South Carolina. His mother Helen Donen died in 1989 at the age of 84. Donen delivered the eulogy at his mother's funeral.
With the deaths in the 2000s of Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
, Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
, Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
and Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
, Stanley Donen became the last surviving notable film director of Hollywood's Golden Age
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...
. He has never officially retired and occasionally makes appearances at film festivals and retrospectives of his work. He was the subject of the 2010 documentary Stanley Donen: You Just Do It.
Filmography
| As Director | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Title | Cast | Notes |
| 1949 | On the Town On the Town (film) On the Town is a 1949 musical film with music by Leonard Bernstein and Roger Edens and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It is an adaptation of the Broadway stage musical of the same name produced in 1944, although many changes in script and score were made from the original stage... |
Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... , Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the... , Jules Munshin, Ann Miller Ann Miller Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:... , Betty Garrett Betty Garrett Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer... , Vera-Ellen Vera-Ellen Vera-Ellen was an American actress and dancer, principally celebrated for her filmed dance partnerships with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye and Donald O'Connor.-Early life:... |
co-directed with Gene Kelly |
| 1951 | Royal Wedding Royal Wedding Royal Wedding is a 1951 Hollywood musical comedy film known for Fred Astaire's dance performance on a ceiling and another with a coat rack. The story is set in London in 1947 at the time of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and stars Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah... |
Fred Astaire Fred Astaire Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute... , Jane Powell Jane Powell Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens... , Peter Lawford Peter Lawford Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting... , Sarah Churchill Sarah Churchill (actress) Sarah Millicent Hermione Tuchet-Jesson, Baroness Audley, usually known as Sarah Churchill , was a British actress and dancer.- Early life :... |
|
| 1952 | Love Is Better Than Ever Love Is Better Than Ever Love Is Better Than Ever is a 1952 American romantic comedy film directed by Stanley Donen from a screenplay by Ruth Brooks Flippen, starring Larry Parks and Elizabeth Taylor. The plot concerns a small-town girl who falls in love with a big-city talent agent.-Cast:*Larry Parks as Jud... |
Larry Parks Larry Parks Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,... , Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age... |
|
| Singin' in the Rain Singin' in the Rain Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography... |
Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... , Donald O'Connor Donald O'Connor Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule... , Debbie Reynolds Debbie Reynolds Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to... , Jean Hagen Jean Hagen -Early life:Hagen was born as Jean Shirley Verhagen in Chicago, Illinois, to Christian Verhagen , a Dutch immigrant, and his Chicago-born wife, Marie. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana when she was 12 and she subsequently graduated from Elkhart High School... |
co-directed with Gene Kelly, also Choreographer | |
| Fearless Fagan Fearless Fagan Fearless Fagan is a 1952 film directed by Stanley Donen and stars Janet Leigh and Carleton Carpenter. It is about a clown who is drafted into the military and tries to sneak his pet lion into the service.... |
Janet Leigh Janet Leigh Janet Leigh , born Jeanette Helen Morrison, was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis.... , Carleton Carpenter Carleton Carpenter Carleton Carpenter is an American movie/television/stage actor, a magician, author and songwriter.... |
||
| 1953 | Give a Girl a Break Give a Girl a Break Give a Girl a Break is a 1953 musical comedy film directed by Stanley Donen, starring Debbie Reynolds and the dance team of Marge and Gower Champion. A young Bob Fosse has a featured role.-Plot:... |
Debbie Reynolds Debbie Reynolds Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to... , Marge Champion Marge Champion Marge Champion is an American dancer, choreographer, and pedagogue. In addition, she also worked in film and appeared in a number of television variety shows.-Early years:... , Helen Wood, Gower Champion Gower Champion Gower Carlyle Champion was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer.-Early years:Champion was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School... , Bob Fosse Bob Fosse Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction... , Kurt Kasznar Kurt Kasznar -Early life:Kasznar was born in Vienna, Austria as Kurt Servischer. His father left when Kurt was very young, his mother married a Hungarian restaurateur named Ferdinand Kasznar, and Kurt assumed his surname. He emigrated to the United States in the mid-1930s for The Eternal Road in which he... |
also Choreographer |
| 1954 | Seven Brides for Seven Brothers | Howard Keel Howard Keel Harold Clifford Keel , known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s... , Jane Powell Jane Powell Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens... |
|
| Deep in My Heart | José Ferrer José Ferrer José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director... , Helen Traubel Helen Traubel Helen Francesca Traubel was an American opera and concert singer. A dramatic soprano, she was best known for her Wagnerian roles, especially those of Brünnhilde and Isolde. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, she began her career as a concert singer and went on to sing at the Metropolitan... , Merle Oberon Merle Oberon Merle Oberon was an Indian-born British actress best known for her screen performances in The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Cowboy and the Lady . She began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII . She travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel... |
||
| 1955 | It's Always Fair Weather It's Always Fair Weather Fortunately, the original multitrack pre-recordings of the score survive to this day, having enabled Rhino Records to reissue the soundtrack in true stereo . The Original MGM soundtrack was released in 1991 by Sony Music.... |
Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... , Dan Dailey Dan Dailey Daniel James Dailey Jr. was an American dancer and actor.-Early life and career:Born in New York City on December 14, 1915, to James J. and Helen Dailey, both born in New York City. He appeared in a minstrel show when very young, and appeared in vaudeville before his Broadway debut in 1937 in... , Michael Kidd Michael Kidd Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there... , Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s... , Dolores Gray |
co-directed with Gene Kelly, also choreographer |
| 1957 | Funny Face Funny Face Funny Face is an American musical film released in 1957 in VistaVision Technicolor, with assorted songs by George and Ira Gershwin. The film was written by Leonard Gershe and directed by Stanley Donen. It stars Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, and Kay Thompson... |
Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century... , Fred Astaire Fred Astaire Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute... , Kay Thompson Kay Thompson Kay Thompson was an American author, composer, musician, actress and singer. She is best known as the creator of the Eloise children's books.-Background:Catherine Louise Fink was born in St... |
|
| The Pajama Game The Pajama Game (film) The article is about the 1957 film. For other uses see The Pajama Game .The Pajama Game is a 1957 musical film based on the stage musical of the same name... |
Doris Day Doris Day Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,... , John Raitt John Raitt John Emmett Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theater.-Early years:... , Carol Haney Carol Haney Carol Haney was an American dancer and actress. After assisting Gene Kelly in choreographing films, Haney won a Tony Award for her role in The Pajama Game... |
co-directed with George Abbott George Abbott George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:... , also Producer |
|
| Kiss Them for Me Kiss Them for Me (film) Kiss Them for Me is a 1957 comedy film starring Cary Grant and Jayne Mansfield, directed by Stanley Donen. Co-stars included Suzy Parker, Leif Erickson, Ray Walston, and Werner Klemperer.... |
Cary Grant Cary Grant Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship... , Suzy Parker Suzy Parker Suzy Parker was an American model and actress active from 1947 into the early 1960s. Her modeling career reached its zenith during the 1950s when she appeared on the cover of dozens of magazines, advertisements, and in movie and television roles.She appeared in several Revlon advertisements, but... , Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre... , Ray Walston Ray Walston Ray Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J... , Larry Blyden Larry Blyden Larry Blyden was an American actor and game show host, best known for his appearances on Broadway and as the host of the game show What's My Line?-Personal life:... |
||
| 1958 | Indiscreet | Cary Grant Cary Grant Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship... , Ingrid Bergman Ingrid Bergman Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute... |
also Producer |
| Damn Yankees! Damn Yankees (film) Damn Yankees is a 1958 musical film made by Warner Bros., a modern version of the Faust story involving the New York Yankees and Washington Senators baseball teams. The film is based on the 1955 Broadway musical of the same name.... |
Tab Hunter Tab Hunter Tab Hunter is an American actor, singer, former teen idol and author who has starred in over forty major films.-Background:... , Gwen Verdon Gwen Verdon Gwenyth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon was an actress and dancer who won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances. With flaming red hair and an endearing quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s... , Ray Walston Ray Walston Ray Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J... |
co-directed with George Abbott George Abbott George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:... , also Producer |
|
| 1960 | Once More, with Feeling! Once More, with Feeling! Once More, with Feeling! is a British comedy film directed and produced by Stanley Donen from a screenplay by Harry Kurnitz, based on his play. The film was released by Columbia Pictures and has music by Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Richard Wagner, arranged by Muir Mathieson... |
Yul Brynner Yul Brynner Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on... , Kay Kendall Kay Kendall Kay Kendall was an English actress.Kendall began her film career in the 1946 musical London Town. Though the film was a financial failure, Kendall continued to work regularly until her appearance in the comedy Genevieve brought her widespread recognition... |
also Producer |
| Surprise Package Surprise Package (film) Surprise Package is a 1960 American comedy film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Yul Bryner, Mitzi Gaynor, Noel Coward, Eric Pohlmann and Barry Foster. An American gangster living on a Greek island and a deposed King hatch a plan to steal some crown jewels.... |
Yul Bryner, Mitzi Gaynor Mitzi Gaynor -Life and career:Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago, Illinois to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director. The family first moved to Detroit and when she was eleven to Hollywood, California.She trained as a ballerina... , Noel Coward Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy... |
also Producer | |
| The Grass Is Greener The Grass Is Greener The Grass Is Greener is a 1960 comedy film featuring an ensemble cast consisting of screen veterans Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Jean Simmons,directed by Stanley Donen... |
Cary Grant Cary Grant Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship... , Deborah Kerr Deborah Kerr Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time... , Robert Mitchum Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time... , Jean Simmons Jean Simmons Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J... |
also Producer | |
| 1963 | Charade | Cary Grant Cary Grant Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship... , Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century... , Walter Matthau Walter Matthau Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears... , James Coburn James Coburn James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,... , George Kennedy George Kennedy George Harris Kennedy, Jr. is an American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. He is perhaps most familiar as the convict Dragline in Cool Hand Luke , airline troubleshooter Joe Patroni in the Airport series of disaster movies from the 1970s and... |
also Producer |
| 1966 | Arabesque Arabesque (film) Arabesque is a 1966 thriller starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. The movie is based on Gordon Cotler's novel The Cypher and directed by Stanley Donen.-Plot:Professor David Pollock is an expert in ancient hieroglyphics at Oxford University... |
Gregory Peck Gregory Peck Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an... , Sophia Loren Sophia Loren Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance... |
also Producer |
| 1967 | Two for the Road | Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century... , Albert Finney Albert Finney Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television.... |
also Producer |
| Bedazzled Bedazzled (1967 film) Bedazzled is a 1967 British comedy film directed and produced by Stanley Donen. It was written by and stars Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It is a comic retelling of the Faust legend, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s... |
Peter Cook Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's... , Dudley Moore Dudley Moore Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television... , Eleanor Bron Eleanor Bron Eleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin... , Raquel Welch Raquel Welch Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be... |
also Producer | |
| 1969 | Staircase Staircase (film) Staircase is a 1969 film adaptation of a two-character play, also called Staircase, by Charles Dyer. The film, like the play, is about an aging gay couple who own a barber shop in the East End of London. One of them is a part-time actor about to go on trial for propositioning a police officer... |
Rex Harrison Rex Harrison Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:... , Richard Burton Richard Burton Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid... |
also Producer |
| 1974 | The Little Prince The Little Prince (film) The Little Prince is a 1974 American/British science fiction musical film with screenplay and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe... |
Steven Warner, Richard Kiley, Bob Fosse Bob Fosse Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction... , Gene Wilder Gene Wilder Gene Wilder is an American stage and screen actor, director, screenwriter, and author.Wilder began his career on stage, making his screen debut in the film Bonnie and Clyde in 1967. His first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The Producers... |
also Producer |
| 1975 | Lucky Lady Lucky Lady Lucky Lady is a 1975 American film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli and Burt Reynolds, with Robby Benson. Its story takes place during Prohibition in the United States in the year 1930.... |
Liza Minnelli Liza Minnelli Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli.... , Gene Hackman Gene Hackman Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde... , Burt Reynolds Burt Reynolds Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its... |
|
| 1978 | Movie Movie Movie Movie Movie Movie is a 1978 musical comedy film directed by Stanley Donen. Movie Movie consists of two short films, both starring the husband-and-wife team of George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere, with a fake movie trailer sandwiched in between them... |
George C. Scott George C. Scott George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr... , Trish Van Devere Trish Van Devere Trish Van Devere is an American actress.-Early life:Van Devere was born as Patricia Louise Dressel in Tenafly, New Jersey. She was married to the actor George C... , Red Buttons, Eli Wallach Eli Wallach Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly... , Barry Bostwick Barry Bostwick Barry Knapp Bostwick is an American actor and singer. He is known for playing Brad Majors in the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, replacing Peter Scolari as Mr. Tyler in the sitcom What I Like About You, and playing mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom Spin City... , George Burns George Burns George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became... , Michael Kidd Michael Kidd Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there... , Art Carney Art Carney Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners.... |
also Producer |
| 1980 | Saturn 3 Saturn 3 Saturn 3 is a 1980 science fiction film starring Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel. Direction is credited to Stanley Donen. The project was conceived by John Barry. Barry was due to direct until a dispute with Douglas led to his replacement... |
Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett Farrah Fawcett Farrah Fawcett was an American actress and artist. A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series Charlie's Angels, in 1976... , Harvey Keitel Harvey Keitel Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The... |
also Producer |
| 1984 | Blame It on Rio Blame it on Rio Blame it on Rio is a 1984 romantic comedy film, written by Charlie Peters and Larry Gelbart and directed by Stanley Donen. The script is based on the 1977 French film, Un moment d'égarement. The original music score was composed by Kenneth Wannberg... |
Michael Caine Michael Caine Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules .... , Joseph Bologna Joseph Bologna Joseph Bologna is an American actor.-Life and career:Bologna was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Brown University, where he majored in art history. After a hitch with the marines, Bologna was hired to produce and direct Manhattan-based TV commercials.The actor has a long history in film... , Michelle Johnson Michelle Johnson (actress) Michelle Johnson is an American actress, probably best known for her role in Blame It on Rio.-Career:Director Stanley Donen signed her, as a 17-year-old, to appear as Michael Caine's love interest in the romantic comedy film Blame It on Rio... , Demi Moore Demi Moore Demi Guynes Kutcher , known professionally as Demi Moore, is an American actress. After minor roles in film and a role in the soap opera General Hospital, Moore established her career in films such as St... , Valerie Harper Valerie Harper Valerie Harper is an American actress, known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for her starring roles on the sitcoms Rhoda and Valerie.-Early life and career:Harper was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, Rockland County,... |
also Producer |
| 1999 | Love Letters | Steven Weber Steven Weber (actor) Steven Robert Weber is an American actor. He is best known for his role in the television show Wings which aired throughout the 1990s on NBC.-Early life:... , Laura Linney Laura Linney Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award... |
TV Movie |
| As Choreographer | |||
| Year | Title | Cast | Director |
| 1943 | Best Foot Forward | Lucille Ball Lucille Ball Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy... , William Gaxton William Gaxton William Gaxton was a star of vaudeville, film, and theatre.Born as Arturo Antonio Gaxiola in San Francisco, he appeared on film and onstage. He debuted on Broadway in the Music Box Revue on October 23, 1922... |
Edward Buzzell Edward Buzzell Edward Buzzell was an American film director whose credits for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer included Honolulu , the Marx Brothers films At the Circus and Go West , the musicals Best Foot Forward with Lucille Ball and Neptune's Daughter with Esther Williams, and Easy to Wed, starring Van Johnson,... |
| 1944 | Cover Girl Cover Girl (1944 film) Cover Girl is a 1944 American musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. The film tells the story of a chorus girl given a chance at stardom when she is offered an opportunity to be a highly-paid cover girl... |
Rita Hayworth Rita Hayworth Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars... , Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... |
Charles Vidor Charles Vidor Charles Vidor was a film director.-Biography:Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I... |
| Hey, Rookie | Ann Miller Ann Miller Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:... , Joe Besser Joe Besser Joe Besser was an American comedian, known for his impish humor and wimpy characters, and is now best remembered for his brief stint as a member of the Three Stooges in movie short subjects of 1957-59... , Larry Parks Larry Parks Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,... |
Charles Barton Charles Barton Charles Barton was a film and vaudeville actor and film director. He won an Oscar for best assistant director in 1933. His first film as a director was the Zane Grey feature Wagon Wheels.-Career:... |
|
| Jam Session | Ann Miller Ann Miller Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:... , Jess Barker Jess Barker Jess Barker was an American film actor of the 1930s and 1940s. He began his film career credited as Philip Barker until changing his stage name to Jess Barker in the early 1940s. He is probably most famous for being the first husband of actress Susan Hayward... , Louis Armstrong Louis Armstrong Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.... |
Charles Barton Charles Barton Charles Barton was a film and vaudeville actor and film director. He won an Oscar for best assistant director in 1933. His first film as a director was the Zane Grey feature Wagon Wheels.-Career:... |
|
| Kansas City Kitty Kansas City Kitty Kansas City Kitty is a 1944 American romantic musical film directed by Del Lord and starring Jane Frazee.- Cast :* Joan Davis - Polly Jasper* Bob Crosby - Jimmy* Jane Frazee - Eileen Hasbrook* Erik Rolf - Dr. Henry Talbot* Tim Ryan - Dave Clark... |
Joan Davis Joan Davis Joan Davis was an American comedic actress whose career spanned vaudeville, film, radio and television. Remembered best for the 1950s television comedy, I Married Joan, Davis had a successful earlier career as a B-movie actress and a leading star of 1940s radio comedy.Born as Madonna Josephine... , Bob Crosby Bob Crosby George Robert "Bob" Crosby was an American dixieland bandleader and vocalist, best known for his group the Bob-Cats.-Family:... , Jane Frazee Jane Frazee Mary Jane Frehse , known as Jane Frazee, was an American actress, singer, and dancer.-Professional life:... |
Del Lord Del Lord Del Lord was a Canadian film director and actor best known as a director of Three Stooges films.-Career:Delmer Lord was born in the small town of Grimsby, Ontario, Canada... |
|
| 1945 | Anchors Aweigh Anchors Aweigh (film) Anchors Aweigh is a 1945 American musical comedy film directed by George Sidney in which two sailors go on a four-day shore leave in Hollywood, accompanied by music and song, meet an aspiring young singer and try to help her get an audition at MGM... |
Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... , Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the... , Kathryn Grayson Kathryn Grayson Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals... |
George Sidney George Sidney George Sidney was an American film director and film producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-Career:... |
| Holiday in Mexico | Walter Pidgeon Walter Pidgeon Walter Davis Pidgeon was a Canadian actor, who starred in many motion pictures, including Mrs... , Ilona Massey Ilona Massey Ilona Massey was a film, stage and radio performer.-Early life and career:... , Roddy McDowall Roddy McDowall Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series... |
George Sidney George Sidney George Sidney was an American film director and film producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-Career:... |
|
| 1946 | No Leave, No Love No Leave, No Love No Leave, No Love is a 1946 American musical film directed by Charles Martin and starring Van Johnson, Keenan Wynn and Patricia Kirkwood. A soldier returns with his pal from fighting in the Pacific during World War II only to discover his fiancee has married someone else... |
Van Johnson Van Johnson Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II.... , Keenan Wynn Keenan Wynn Keenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts.... , Patricia Kirkwood Patricia Kirkwood Patricia Kirkwood was a British stage actress who appeared in numerous performances of dramas, cabaret, revues, music hall, variety, and pantomimes. She also performed on radio, television, and movies... |
Charles Martin |
| 1947 | Living in a Big Way Living in a Big Way Living in a Big Way is an American musical comedy film starring Gene Kelly and Marie McDonald as a couple who marry during World War II after only knowing each other a short time.- Synopsis :... |
Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... , Marie McDonald Marie McDonald Marie McDonald was an American singer and actress known as "The Body Beautiful" and later nicknamed "The Body".- Early life :... , Charles Winninger Charles Winninger Charles Winninger was an American stage and film actor, most often cast in comedies or musicals, but equally at home in drama.-Biography:He began as a vaudeville actor... |
Gregory La Cava Gregory La Cava Gregory La Cava was an American film director best known for his films of the 1930s, including My Man Godfrey and Stage Door.... |
| This Time for Keeps This Time for Keeps This Time for Keeps is an American romantic musical film released in 1947 and produced by MGM. It is about a soldier, returning home from war who does not wish to work for his father's opera company or to continue his relationship with his pre-war lover. It stars Esther Williams, Jimmy Durante,... |
Esther Williams Esther Williams Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team... , Jimmy Durante Jimmy Durante James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s... |
Richard Thorpe Richard Thorpe Richard Thorpe was an American film director.Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred... |
|
| Killer McCoy | Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award... , Brian Donlevy Brian Donlevy Brian Donlevy was an Irish-born American film actor, noted for playing tough guys from the 1930s to the 1960s. He usually appeared in supporting roles. Among his best known films are Beau Geste and The Great McGinty... Ann Blyth Ann Blyth Ann Marie Blyth is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Life and career:Blyth was born in Mount Kisco,... |
Roy Rowland Roy Rowland (film director) Roy Rowland was a film director. The New York-born director helmed a number of films in the 1950s and 60s including Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, Meet Me in Las Vegas, Rogue Cop, The 5000 Fingers of Doctor T and The Girl Hunters. Rowland married Ruth Cummings, the niece of Louis B... |
|
| 1948 | Big City | Margaret O'Brien Margaret O'Brien Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history... , Robert Preston Robert Preston (actor) -Early life:Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth L. and Frank Wesley Meservey, a garment worker and billing clerk for American Express. After attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, California, he studied acting at the Pasadena Community... , Danny Thomas Danny Thomas Danny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy . He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital... |
Norman Taurog Norman Taurog Norman Rae Taurog was an American film director, and screenwriter.Between 1920 and 1968, Taurog directed over 140 films, and directed Elvis Presley in more movies than any other director... |
| A Date with Judy A Date with Judy (film) A Date with Judy is a 1948 MGM musical film starring Wallace Beery, Jane Powell, and Elizabeth Taylor. Directed by Richard Thorpe, the movie was based on the radio series of the same name.... |
Wallace Beery Wallace Beery Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor... , Jane Powell Jane Powell Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens... , Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age... , Carmen Miranda Carmen Miranda Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's... , Robert Stack Robert Stack Robert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:... |
Richard Thorpe Richard Thorpe Richard Thorpe was an American film director.Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred... |
|
| The Kissing Bandit The Kissing Bandit (film) The Kissing Bandit is a 1948 film starring Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson. The supporting cast includes Ricardo Montalban, Ann Miller, and Cyd Charisse. The movie was directed by Laslo Benedek.-Cast:Frank Sinatra ... RicardoKathryn Grayson ...... |
Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the... , Kathryn Grayson Kathryn Grayson Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals... , J. Carrol Naish J. Carrol Naish Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish was an American character actor born in New York City. Naish was twice nominated for an Academy Award for film roles, and he later found fame in the title role of CBS Radio's Life With Luigi , which was also on CBS Television .Naish appeared on stage for several years... , Ricardo Montalban Ricardo Montalbán Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles... , Ann Miller Ann Miller Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:... , Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s... |
Laslo Benedek | |
| 1949 | Take Me Out to the Ball Game Take Me Out to the Ball Game (film) Take Me Out to the Ball Game is a 1949 Technicolor musical film starring Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, and Gene Kelly. The movie was directed by Busby Berkeley. The title and nominal theme is taken from the unofficial anthem of American baseball, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"... |
Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... , Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the... , Esther Williams Esther Williams Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team... , Betty Garrett Betty Garrett Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer... , Jules Munshin, Edward Arnold Edward Arnold (actor) Edward Arnold was an American actor. He was born on the Lower East Side of New York City as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider, the son of German immigrants Carl Schneider and Elizabeth Ohse.-Acting career:... |
Busby Berkeley Busby Berkeley Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns... |
| Other Work | |||
| Year | Title | Notes | Director |
| 1943 | Best Foot Forward | extra | Edward Buzzell Edward Buzzell Edward Buzzell was an American film director whose credits for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer included Honolulu , the Marx Brothers films At the Circus and Go West , the musicals Best Foot Forward with Lucille Ball and Neptune's Daughter with Esther Williams, and Easy to Wed, starring Van Johnson,... |
| 1949 | Take Me Out to the Ball Game Take Me Out to the Ball Game (film) Take Me Out to the Ball Game is a 1949 Technicolor musical film starring Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, and Gene Kelly. The movie was directed by Busby Berkeley. The title and nominal theme is taken from the unofficial anthem of American baseball, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"... |
co-wrote the original story with Gene Kelly | Busby Berkeley Busby Berkeley Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns... |
| 1955 | Kismet Kismet (1955 film) Kismet is an American musical film in Cinemascope and Eastman Color released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is the fourth movie version of Kismet—the first was released in 1920 and the second in 1930 by Warner Brothers—and the second released by MGM... |
uncredited director of the last three days of shooting and one day of re-shoots when director Vincent Minnelli left the production | Vincent Minnelli |
| 1986 | Moonlighting Moonlighting (TV series) Moonlighting is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989. The network aired a total of 66 episodes... |
TV episode: "Big Man on Mulberry Street Big Man on Mulberry Street "Big Man on Mulberry Street" is a jazz influenced song by Billy Joel from the 1986 album The Bridge .An extended version of the song was used on a season three episode of Moonlighting. The episode was titled "Big Man On Mulberry Street". In a dream sequence, Maddie Hayes envisions David Addison... ", directed dance sequences |
Christian I. Nyby II Christian I. Nyby II Christian I. Nyby II is an American television director.Nyby graduated from Van Nuys High School in Van Nuys, California in 1959. He attended the University of Idaho for two years before transferring to the University of Southern California... , Stanley Donen |
| Dancing on the Ceiling Dancing on the Ceiling Dancing on the Ceiling is Lionel Richie's third album, which was released on July 15, 1986. The title cut was the second biggest single from the album, reaching #1 in the U.S. and #7 in the UK... |
Directed the music video for the Lionel Richie Lionel Richie Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. , is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Since 1968, he has been a member of the musical group Commodores signed to Motown Records... song |
Stanley Donen | |
| 58th Academy Awards 58th Academy Awards The 58th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1985, were held on March 24, 1986 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Alan Alda, Jane Fonda and Robin Williams. The ceremony was watched by 38.93 million viewers, tying the 78th Academy Awards as... |
Producer of the Academy Awards ceremony | Marty Pasetta Marty Pasetta Marty Pasetta is a producer of many televised award, entertainment and game shows. He produced many Academy Awards ceremonies between the 1970s to the 1990s.-References:... |
|
| 2000 | Love's Labour's Lost Love's Labour's Lost (2000 film) Love's Labour's Lost is a 2000 adaptation of the comic play of the same name by William Shakespeare, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh. It was the first feature film to be made of this lesser-known comedy... |
Presenter (U.S. release) | Kenneth Branagh Kenneth Branagh Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from... |
| 2010 | Stanley Donen: You Just Do It | Interviewee, Documentary feature on Donen's life and career | Clara Kuperberg, Julia Kuperberg |
Stage Work
| Stage | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Dates | Title | Role/Position | Notes |
| December 25, 1940 - November 29, 1941 | Pal Joey | Albert Doane, Dancer | |
| October 1, 1941 - July 4, 1942 | Best Foot Forward Best Foot Forward (musical) Best Foot Forward is a 1941 Broadway musical by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, with book by John Cecil Holm. Produced by George Abbott, the production opened on 1 October 1941 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre where it was staged for 326 performances.... |
Ensemble, Dancing Boy, Assistant Choreography | |
| Oct 14, 1942 - Dec 12, 1942 | Beat the Band | Stage Manager, Assistant Choreographer | |
| Apr 18, 1946 - Jan 10, 1948 | Call Me Mister Call Me Mister Call Me Mister is a revue with sketches by Arnold Auerbach and words and music by Harold Rome. The title refers to returning soldiers who expected to be addressed as civilians instead of by their military rank.... |
Additional Choreography | uncredited |
| Jul 2, 1985 - May 18, 1986 | Singin' in the Rain Singin' in the Rain (musical) Singin' in the Rain is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Arthur Freed, and music by Nacio Herb Brown.Adapted from the 1952 movie of the same name, the plot closely adheres to the original... |
Original film choreography | |
| Dec 16, 1993 - Dec 19, 1993 | The Red Shoes The Red Shoes (musical) The Red Shoes is a musical with a book by Marsha Norman, lyrics by Norman and Bob Merrill and music by Jule Styne... |
Director | |
| December 11, 2002 - April 13, 2003 | Adult Entertainment | Director, Choreographer | Written by Elaine May |
Awards and Honors
| Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Organization | Award | Notes |
| 1952 | Directors Guild of America Awards Directors Guild of America Awards The Directors Guild of America Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America. The first DGA Award was an "Honorary Life Member" award issued in 1938 to D.W. Griffith.... |
Best Director, Singin' in the Rain (with Gene Kelly Gene Kelly Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer... ) |
nomination |
| 1954 | Directors Guild of America Awards Directors Guild of America Awards The Directors Guild of America Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America. The first DGA Award was an "Honorary Life Member" award issued in 1938 to D.W. Griffith.... |
Best Director, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers | nomination |
| 1957 | Directors Guild of America Awards Directors Guild of America Awards The Directors Guild of America Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America. The first DGA Award was an "Honorary Life Member" award issued in 1938 to D.W. Griffith.... |
Best Director, Funny Face | nomination |
| 1958 | Directors Guild of America Awards Directors Guild of America Awards The Directors Guild of America Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America. The first DGA Award was an "Honorary Life Member" award issued in 1938 to D.W. Griffith.... |
Best Director, Damn Yankees! (with George Abbott George Abbott George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:... ) |
nomination |
| 1967 | Directors Guild of America Awards Directors Guild of America Awards The Directors Guild of America Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America. The first DGA Award was an "Honorary Life Member" award issued in 1938 to D.W. Griffith.... |
Best Director, Two for the Road | nomination |
| 1967 | San Sebastián International Film Festival San Sebastián International Film Festival The San Sebastián International Film Festival is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of San Sebastián .-History:The festival was founded in 1953... |
Golden Seashell Award, Two for the Road | won |
| 1986 | Drama Desk Award Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category... |
Best Choreography (original version), Singin' in the Rain | nomination |
| 1989 | Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Career Achievement Award | won |
| 1989 | University of South Carolina University of South Carolina The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House... |
Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts | won |
| 1995 | National Board of Review | Billy Wilder Award | won |
| 1995 | San Francisco International Film Festival San Francisco International Film Festival San Francisco International Film Festival is the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. Organized by the San Francisco Film Society, the International is held each spring for two weeks, presenting an average of 150 films from over 50 countries... |
Akira Kurosawa Award | won |
| 1996 | Palm Springs International Film Festival Palm Springs International Film Festival Palm Springs International Film Festival is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. It was started in 1989 and is held annually in January... |
Director's Achievement Award | won |
| 1998 | Academy Awards Academy Awards An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers... |
Academy Honorary Award Academy Honorary Award The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of... |
won |
| 1999 | Palm Beach International Film Festival Palm Beach International Film Festival The Palm Beach International Film Festival is a film festival in the United States held in Palm Beach, Florida which showcases over 120 films annually in April for over 20,000 attendees... |
Lifetime Achievement Award | won |
| 1999 | Joseph Plateau Awards | Life Achievement Award | won |
| 1999 | American Cinema Editors Awards | Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award | won |
| 2000 | ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards | Opus Award | won |
| 2001 | Savannah Film Festival | Johnny Mercer Award | won |
| 2002 | American Society of Cinematographers Awards | Board of the Governors Award | won |
| 2004 | Venice Film Festival Venice Film Festival The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the... |
Career Golden Lion | won |
| 2007 | Boston Pops Orchestra Boston Pops Orchestra The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music.... |
Tribute Performance | event |
| 2010 | Film Society of Lincoln Center Film Society of Lincoln Center The Film Society of Lincoln Center based in New York City, United States, is one of the world's most prominent film presentation organizations. Founded in 1969 by three Lincoln Center executives - William F. May, Martin E. Segal and Schuyler G... |
Week-long tribute and retrospective | event |
| 2011 | Israel Film Festival Israel Film Festival The Israel Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in the United States in three cities: Los Angeles, New York and Miami. It is the largest showcase of Israeli cinema in the United States. Founded in 1982 by Meir Fenigstein, a former drummer for the Israeli rock band, Kaveret,... |
Lifetime Achievement Award | won |
Further reading
- Joseph A. Casper. Stanley Donen, Scarecrow Press, 1983.
- Stephen M. Silverman. Dancing on the Ceiling: Stanley Donen and His Movies, Knopf, New York, 1996
- John Wakeman. World Film Directors, Volume 2. The H. W. Wilson Company. 1988. pp. 273-282.