Stanley Donen

Stanley Donen, born April 13, 1924, in Columbia, South Carolina, was an American dancer, choreographer, and film director who died on February 21, 2019. His father, Mordecai Moses Donen, managed a dress shop, and his mother, Helen, was the daughter of a jewelry salesman. Donen had a younger sister, Carla Donen Davis, born in August 1937. Raised in a Jewish household, Donen became an atheist during his youth and described his childhood as lonely, marked by antisemitic bullying from classmates. He found refuge in local movie theaters, developing a particular fondness for Westerns, comedies, and thrillers. The 1933 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Flying Down to Rio made a lasting impression on him, and he later recalled seeing it thirty or forty times. Inspired by Astaire, he took dance lessons in Columbia and performed at the local Town Theater. During family trips to New York City, he continued his dance training, studying at one point with Ned Wayburn, who had also taught a young Astaire decades earlier.

After graduating from high school at sixteen, Donen spent one summer semester at the University of South Carolina studying psychology before relocating to New York City in the fall of 1940 to pursue a stage career. Following two auditions, he was cast as a chorus dancer in the original Broadway production of Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, directed by George Abbott. The title role was played by Gene Kelly, then an emerging talent who became a Broadway star through the production. Abbott subsequently cast Donen in the chorus of his next production, Best Foot Forward, where Donen also served as assistant stage manager. Kelly invited him to work as assistant choreographer on that show as well, though Donen was eventually let go from the production. His Broadway work during this period — spanning 1940 to 1941 — thus encompassed both Pal Joey and Best Foot Forward. In 1942, Donen served as stage manager and assistant choreographer on Abbott's Beat the Band, and in 1946 he briefly returned to Broadway to help choreograph dance numbers for Call Me Mister.

Donen's transition to Hollywood came in 1943, when producer Arthur Freed acquired the film rights to Best Foot Forward for MGM. Donen moved to Los Angeles to audition for the film version, earning a one-year contract with the studio and appearing as a chorus dancer while being appointed assistant choreographer by Charles Walters. He renewed his working relationship with Kelly, who was then a supporting actor in MGM musicals. When Kelly was loaned to Columbia Pictures and given the opportunity to choreograph his own dance numbers, he brought Donen along to assist. Their collaboration on Cover Girl (1944) included the innovative "Alter Ego" sequence, in which Kelly's reflection emerges from a shop window and dances alongside him — an idea that originated with Donen. Director Charles Vidor initially dismissed the concept, prompting Donen and Kelly to direct the scene themselves, with Donen spending over a year editing it. The film elevated Kelly to movie stardom and is widely regarded as a significant work in the musical genre.

Donen and Kelly continued their partnership on Anchors Aweigh (1944, released 1945), starring Kelly and Frank Sinatra, which featured a groundbreaking sequence in which Kelly dances with Jerry the Mouse from the Tom and Jerry cartoons. The idea for the animated sequence was Donen's; he and Kelly had originally sought to use a Disney character and met with Walt Disney to discuss the project, but Disney declined. The animation was supervised by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and credited to MGM animation producer Fred Quimby. Donen spent a year perfecting the scene frame by frame. While Kelly served in the U.S. Naval Air Service from 1944 to 1946, Donen continued doing uncredited choreography work on musical films at MGM. Donen was classified 4-F and excused from military service due to high blood pressure. After Kelly's return to civilian life, the two collaborated on Living in a Big Way (1947) and contributed dance direction to Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), though producer Freed hired Busby Berkeley to direct that film rather than granting Donen and Kelly co-directing credit.

The success of Take Me Out to the Ball Game led Freed to give Donen and Kelly their first full co-directing opportunity on On the Town (1949), an adaptation of the Betty Comden and Adolph Green Broadway musical about sailors on leave in New York City. The film was the first musical to incorporate location filming, and Donen and cinematographer Harold Rosson shot the opening number on the streets of New York, employing techniques that anticipated methods later associated with the French New Wave. Donen and Kelly went on to co-direct Singin' in the Rain (1952) and It's Always Fair Weather (1955), though their personal and professional relationship deteriorated during that final collaboration. Among Donen's solo directorial credits during his MGM years were Royal Wedding (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Funny Face (1957).

In 1957, Donen broke his contract with MGM to work as an independent filmmaker. His subsequent output included the romance films Indiscreet (1958) and Charade (1963), the road film Two for the Road (1967), the spy thriller Arabesque (1966), the British comedy Bedazzled (1967), the musicals Damn Yankees (1958) and The Little Prince (1974), the dramedy Lucky Lady (1975), and the sex comedy Blame It on Rio (1984). In 1986, he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Choreography. His career was recognized with an Honorary Academy Award in 1998 and the Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2004. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.