74 Facts About Stanley Donen

Stanley Donen was an American film director and choreographer whose most celebrated works are On the Town, and Singin' in the Rain, both of which he co-directed with Gene Kelly.

Stanley Donen then broke his contract with MGM to become an independent producer in 1957.

Stanley Donen continued making films throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s that were often financial successes that gained positive attention.

Stanley Donen is credited with having made the transition of Hollywood musical films from realistic backstage dramas to a more integrated art form in which the songs were a natural continuation of the story.

Stanley Donen is highly respected by film historians, but his career is often compared to Kelly's, and there is debate over who deserves more credit for their collaborations.

Stanley Donen was the last surviving notable director of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Stanley Donen was born on April 13,1924, in Columbia, South Carolina, to Mordecai Moses Donen, a dress-shop manager, and Helen, the daughter of a jewelry salesman.

Stanley Donen's younger sister Carla Donen Davis was born in August 1937.

Stanley Donen described his childhood as lonely and unhappy as one of the few Jews in Columbia, and he was occasionally bullied by antisemitic classmates at school.

Stanley Donen became the show's assistant stage manager, and Kelly asked him to be his assistant choreographer.

In 1946, Stanley Donen briefly returned to Broadway to help choreograph dance numbers for Call Me Mister.

Stanley Donen moved to Hollywood to audition for the film and signed a one-year contract with MGM.

Stanley Donen appeared as a chorus dancer and was made assistant choreographer by Charles Walters.

At MGM Stanley Donen renewed his friendship with Kelly, who was now a supporting actor in musicals.

Stanley 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.

Stanley Donen signed a one-year contract with Columbia and choreographed several films there, but returned to MGM the following year when Kelly wanted assistance on his next film.

The duo spent two months shooting Kelly dancing and Stanley Donen spent a year perfecting the scene frame by frame.

When Kelly returned to civilian life, he and Stanley Donen directed and choreographed Kelly's dance scenes in Living in a Big Way.

Kelly and Stanley Donen hoped to co-direct the film, but Freed hired Busby Berkeley instead, and they only directed Kelly's dance numbers.

Stanley Donen then re-teamed with Kelly to make Singin' in the Rain, which would become one of the most highly praised films of all time.

Comden, Green and Stanley Donen interviewed everyone at MGM who was in Hollywood during that period, poking fun at both the first movie musicals and the technical difficulties with early sound films.

Now established as a successful film director, Stanley Donen continued his solo career at MGM with Fearless Fagan.

Stanley Donen's musical Give a Girl a Break stars Debbie Reynolds, Marge Champion and Helen Wood as three aspiring dancers competing for the lead in a new Broadway musical.

Stanley Donen solidified his solo career and scored another hit with the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Stanley Donen makes it her mission to domesticate them and, upon Milly's sarcastic suggestion, the brothers kidnap six women from a neighboring town to marry them.

Deep in My Heart, is Stanley Donen's biographical film concerning Sigmund Romberg, the Hungarian-born American operetta composer.

Stanley Donen was personally asked by Cary Grant to direct and began developing it while still under contract at MGM.

Stanley Donen had reluctantly agreed to direct Kiss Them for Me on condition that 20th Century Fox buy out his remaining contract with MGM.

Stanley 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 Stanley Donen was compared to such directors as Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor.

Stanley Donen again co-directed with Abbott in the same hands-off collaboration as their first film.

Musicals' waning popularity caused Stanley Donen to focus on comedy films.

Stanley Donen quickly re-teamed with Brynner and Kurnitz for the film Surprise Package.

The studio cancelled the deal after their poor box-office returns, and Stanley 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 became successful films for other directors.

One of Stanley Donen's most praised films was Charade, starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass.

Stanley Donen made another Hitchcock-inspired film with Arabesque, starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren.

Stanley Donen is approached by a Middle Eastern prime minister to investigate an organization that is attempting to assassinate him and uses hieroglyphic codes to communicate.

Stanley Donen made Two for the Road, starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney with Eleanor Bron, William Daniels, and Jacqueline Bisset in supporting roles.

The film was conceived by Stanley Donen and written by novelist Frederic Raphael, who was nominated for an Academy Award.

Stanley Donen called the film "a rare Hollywood movie to depict gay experience with wisdom, humor and warmth", and "a lost treasure".

Lerner stated that Stanley Donen "took it upon himself to change every tempo, delete musical phrases at will and distort the intention of every song until the entire score was unrecognizable".

Stanley Donen made the science fiction film Saturn 3, starring Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel.

Stanley Donen first read the script when its writer John Barry showed it to him, prompting Stanley Donen to pass it along to Lew Grade.

Stanley Donen was initially hired to produce, but Grade asked him to complete the film when first-time director Barry was unable to direct.

Stanley Donen eventually dropped out of the project and David Cronenberg directed the film a few years later.

In 1986, Stanley Donen produced 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.

Also in 1986 Stanley Donen directed a musical sequence for an episode of the popular TV series Moonlighting and directed the music video for Lionel Richie's song "Dancing on the Ceiling", which employed the same rotating-room filming techniques that he used in "You're All the World to Me" from Royal Wedding.

In 1989 Stanley Donen was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of South Carolina.

At around the same time Stanley Donen taught a seminar on film musicals at the Sundance Institute at the request of Robert Redford.

In 1993, Stanley Donen was preparing to produce and direct a movie musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde starring Michael Jackson.

Later that year Stanley Donen directed the stage musical The Red Shoes at the Gershwin Theatre.

Stanley Donen replaced the original director Susan Schulman just six weeks before the show opened.

Stanley Donen had wanted to make a theatrical film version of the play, but was unable to secure financing from any major studio and instead took the project to ABC.

In 2002 Stanley Donen directed Elaine May's musical play Adult Entertainment starring Danny Aiello and Jeannie Berlin in Stamford, Connecticut.

Stanley Donen made a host of critically acclaimed and popular films.

At age 7 Coyne enrolled in the Gene Kelly Studio of Dance in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and developed a schoolgirl crush on him In her twenties she was cast in Best Foot Forward, where she reconnected with Kelly and first met Stanley Donen, later moving to Hollywood with them.

Stanley Donen and Donen eloped in 1948, but their marriage became strained.

Coyne worked as Kelly's personal assistant on several films while married to Stanley Donen and continued assisting Kelly until her death.

Stanley Donen admitted that he did not consider himself to be a great performer.

Stanley Donen almost quit the film, and his friendship with Kelly ended.

Stanley Donen married and divorced five times and had three children.

Stanley Donen had previously been the second wife of the 2nd Earl Beatty.

Stanley Donen proposed to her four days after having met her.

Stanley Donen dated Elizabeth Taylor for a year between his first and second marriages.

Stanley Donen's eldest son, Peter Stanley Donen, was a visual effects artist who worked on such films as Superman III, Spaceballs, The Bourne Identity, and The Truth About Charlie.

Stanley Donen designed the title credits for Blame It on Rio.

Stanley Donen died of a heart attack in 2003 at age 50.

Stanley Donen's second son, Joshua Stanley Donen, is a film producer who worked on such films as The Quick and the Dead and Gone Girl.

Stanley Donen was the subject of the 2010 documentary Stanley Donen: You Just Do It.

In December 2013 it was announced that Stanley Donen was in pre-production for a new film co-written with Elaine May, to be produced by Mike Nichols.

In celebration of Donen's 90th birthday in 2014, a retrospective of his work, "A Lotta Talent and a Little Luck: A Celebration of Stanley Donen", was held from July to August in Columbia, South Carolina.

On February 21,2019, Stanley Donen died at age 94 from heart failure in New York City, two months short of his 95th birthday.

Scorsese gave tribute to Stanley Donen speaking about his career and his impact on film before playing a montage of his work in the movies from Singin' in the Rain, and Funny Face, to On the Town and Charade.

Stanley Donen's work influenced later directors of film musicals Bill Condon, Rob Marshall, and Baz Luhrmann The 2011 film The Artist pays tribute to Singin' in the Rain, and Stanley Donen praised the film after attending its Los Angeles premiere.