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175-608: Wrote founder Terrail: "It was important to me that my restaurant have a French name, but it was equally important that the public be able to say it. ... When I said Ma Maison, I was referring to my home. But each time my guests would say it...it became their home, too. That's what I wanted." Early backers in Ma Maison included Gene Kelly . Kelly's $ 5,000 investment came at an investment pitch dinner party in late 1973. Terrail has also credited director Mel Stuart and producer Fred Weintraub as early investors, and also as attendees at

350-566: A "live" one. There followed Summer Stock (1950)—Garland's last musical film for MGM—in which Kelly performed the "You, You Wonderful You" solo routine with a newspaper and a squeaky floorboard. In his book Easy the Hard Way , Joe Pasternak , head of another of MGM's musical units, singled out Kelly for his patience and willingness to spend as much time as necessary to enable the ailing Garland to complete her part. Then followed in quick succession two musicals that secured Kelly's reputation as

525-517: A 2013 article, Frost's real-life companion depicted in the movie, Carloine Cushing Graham, describes a contemporaneous incident: "When the last days' interview was over, there were 28 hours of interviews, Nixon invited us for drinks at the Western White House . Diane Sawyer accompanied us to a private room for cocktails. Nixon asked me if I liked good wine, as he was proud of his cellar. Driving away that evening I felt sorry for Nixon, he

700-512: A Big Way (1947). 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 (1949). Kelly and Donen hoped to co-direct the film, but Freed hired Busby Berkeley instead, and they only directed Kelly's dance numbers. The film starred Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin . After

875-530: A Girl a Break" dance between Reynolds and Fosse was choreographed backwards and then played in reverse to create the illusion that the two are surrounded by hundreds of balloons that instantly appear at the touch of their fingers. Shooting the film became a bitter experience for Donen due to a major on-set fight over the film's choreography between Fosse and Gower Champion. The film was not well reviewed upon release, but its reputation has grown over time. Donen solidified his solo career and scored another hit with

1050-562: 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 was re-evaluated by film critic Armond White in 2007. He called the film "a rare Hollywood movie to depict gay experience with wisdom, humor and warmth", and "a lost treasure". 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

1225-517: A Musical Picture while screenwriters Comden and Green won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical . Like Orson Welles , Donen made his directorial debut at 25. Donen stated that Kelly was "responsible for most of the dance movements. I was behind the camera in the dramatic and musical sequences." Kelly believed that he and Donen "were a good team. I thought we complemented each other very well" he said. After

1400-521: A brother-sister American dancing team performing in England during the royal wedding of Elizabeth and Philip in 1947. Judy Garland was originally cast in the lead role, but was fired for absenteeism due to illness and was ultimately replaced by Powell. In the film, Powell's love affair with a wealthy Englishman ( Peter Lawford ) threatens to ruin the brother-sister act, while Astaire finds his own romance with another dancer ( Sarah Churchill ). The film

1575-464: A career as a dance teacher and full-time entertainer, so he dropped out of law school after two months. He increased his focus on performing and later said: "With time I became disenchanted with teaching because the ratio of girls to boys was more than ten to one, and once the girls reached 16, the dropout rate was very high." In 1937, having successfully managed and developed the family's dance-school business, he moved to New York City in search of work as

1750-678: A choreographer. Kelly returned to Pittsburgh, to his family home at 7514 Kensington Street, in 1940, and worked as a theatrical actor. After a fruitless search for work in New York, Kelly returned to Pittsburgh to his first position as a choreographer with the Charles Gaynor musical revue Hold Your Hats at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in April 1938. Kelly appeared in six of the sketches, one of which, La cumparsita , became

1925-500: 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. 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. Donen, Avedon and cinematographer Ray June collaborated to give

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2100-462: A distribution deal through Warner Brothers. Donen would self-produce nearly all of his films for the rest of his career, sometimes under the name "Stanley Donen Productions". Donen and Grant inaugurated their company with Indiscreet (1958), based on a play by Norman Krasna and starring Grant and Ingrid Bergman . Because of Bergman's schedule, the film was shot on location in London. Bergman plays

2275-568: A dress-shop manager, and Helen (Cohen), the daughter of a jewelry salesman. His younger sister Carla Donen Davis was born in August 1937. Born to Jewish parents, Donen became an atheist in his youth. 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. To help cope with his isolation, Donen spent much of his youth in local movie theaters and

2450-459: A famous and reclusive actress who falls in love with the supposedly married playboy-diplomat Grant. When Bergman discovers that he has been lying about having a wife, she concocts a charade with another man in order to win Grant's full affection. A scene in the film involves Donen's clever circumvention of the strict Production Code . In the scene, Grant is in Paris while Bergman is still in London and

2625-407: A favorite among 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." It was remade as Bedazzled (2000) by director Harold Ramis . Staircase (1969) is Donen's 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

2800-502: A greater number of directions in which to move. Examples of this abound in Kelly's work and are well illustrated in the "Prehistoric Man" sequence from On the Town and "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day" from Take Me Out to the Ball Game . In 1951, he summed up his vision as: "If the camera is to make a contribution at all to dance, this must be the focal point of its contribution;

2975-521: A guest star with his brother Fred in the "I Love to Go Swimmin' with Wimmen" routine in Deep in My Heart (1954). MGM's refusal to lend him out for Guys and Dolls and Pal Joey put further strains on his relationship with the studio. He negotiated an exit to his contract that involved making three further pictures for MGM. The first of these, It's Always Fair Weather (1955), co-directed with Donen,

3150-439: A hard taskmaster and he loves hard work. If you want to play on his team you'd better like hard work, too. He isn't cruel, but he is tough, and if Gene believed in something, he didn't care who he was talking to, whether it was Louis B. Mayer or the gatekeeper. He wasn't awed by anybody, and he had a good record of getting what he wanted. An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture . The film also marked

3325-546: A host of critically acclaimed and popular films. His most important contribution to the art of film was helping to transition movie musicals from the realistic backstage settings of filmed theater to a more cinematic form that integrates film with dance. Eventually film scholars named this concept "cine-dance" (a dance that can only be created in the medium of film), and its origins are in the Donen/Kelly films. Film scholar Casey Charness described "cine-dance" as "a melding of

3500-481: A job. I needed someone to count for the cameraman, someone who knew the steps and could explain what I was going to do so the shot was set up correctly." Donen accepted and choreographed three dance sequences with Kelly in Cover Girl (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

3675-531: A letter from his old boss George Abbott inviting him to make a film version of Abbott's stage hit The Pajama Game at Warner Brothers. As part of the deal to secure the Warner-owned Gershwin music he wanted for Funny Face , Donen accepted the offer and he and Abbott co-directed the film version. The Pajama Game (1957) stars Doris Day and John Raitt , with music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and choreography by Bob Fosse. Raitt plays

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3850-540: A major figure in the American musical film. First, An American in Paris (1951) and—probably the most admired of all film musicals— Singin' in the Rain (1952). As co-director, lead star, and choreographer, Kelly was the driving force in both of these films. Johnny Green , the head of music at MGM at the time, said of him, Gene is easygoing as long as you know exactly what you are doing when you're working with him. He's

4025-691: A man dances effeminately, he dances badly—just as if a woman comes out on stage and starts to sing bass. Unfortunately, people confuse gracefulness with softness. John Wayne is a graceful man and so are some of the great ballplayers ... but, of course, they don't run the risk of being called sissies. In his view, "one of our problems is that so much dancing is taught by women. You can spot many male dancers who have this tuition by their arm movements—they are soft, limp, and feminine." He acknowledged that in spite of his efforts—in TV programs such as Dancing: A Man's Game (1958) for example—the situation changed little over

4200-622: A mock-love dance with a mop. Unusually, in Pilot No. 5 , Kelly played the antagonist . He achieved a significant breakthrough as a dancer on film when MGM lent him to Columbia to work with Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl (1944), a film that foreshadowed the best of his future work. He created a memorable routine dancing to his own reflection. Despite this, critic Manny Farber was moved to praise Kelly's "attitude", "clarity", and "feeling" as an actor while inauspiciously concluding, "The two things he does least well—singing and dancing—are what he

4375-539: A month later, and at his request he was assigned to the U.S. Navy. He served in the U.S. Naval Air Service and was commissioned as lieutenant, junior grade . He was stationed in the Photographic Section, Washington, D.C., where he helped write and direct a range of documentaries – this stimulated his interest in the production side of filmmaking. He was discharged in 1946. After Kelly returned from Naval service, MGM had nothing planned and used him in

4550-728: A musical television special for CBS titled Gene Kelly in New York, New York . The special focuses on Gene Kelly in a musical tour around Manhattan , dancing along such landmarks as Rockefeller Center , the Plaza Hotel , and the Museum of Modern Art , which serve as backdrops for the show's entertaining production numbers. The special was written by Woody Allen , who also stars alongside Kelly. Guest stars included choreographer Gower Champion , British musical comedy star Tommy Steele , and singer Damita Jo DeBlanc . In 1970, he made another television special: Gene Kelly and 50 Girls , and

4725-679: A new form of American dance accessible to the general public, which he called "dance for the common man". He starred in, choreographed, and, with Stanley Donen , co-directed some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s. Kelly is known for his performances in An American in Paris (1951), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture , Singin' in the Rain (1952), which he and Donen directed and choreographed, and other musical films of that era such as Cover Girl (1944) and Anchors Aweigh (1945), for which he

4900-422: A plant supervisor at a nightwear factory who is in constant disputes with the plant's union organizer (Day), until they end up falling in love. 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." It was only a modest financial success, but Jean-Luc Godard praised it and declared "Donen

5075-506: A routine black-and-white movie: Living in a Big Way (1947). The film was considered so weak that the studio asked Kelly to design and insert a series of dance routines; they noticed his ability to carry out such assignments. This led to a lead part in his next picture, with Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli —a musical film version of S.N. Behrman 's play, The Pirate (1948), with songs by Cole Porter. The Pirate gave full rein to Kelly's athleticism. It features Kelly's work with

5250-493: A script) to make a musical using old songs that he and composer Nacio Herb Brown wrote in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Comden and Green decided to write a story inspired by the time period in which the songs were written, and satirized Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s. Comden, Green and Donen interviewed everyone at MGM who was in Hollywood during that period, poking fun at both

5425-403: A sequel to On the Town , Kelly, Dailey and Kidd play three ex-GIs who reunite 10 years after World War II and discover that none of their lives have turned out how they had expected. Kelly approached Donen with the project and at first Donen was reluctant due to his own success. Their friendship deteriorated during production and Donen noted, "the atmosphere from day one was very tense and nobody

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5600-484: A steel-reinforced rotating cylindrical chamber, with the camera attached to the cylinder. Both Astaire and the film's lyricist Alan Jay Lerner claimed that they thought of the idea. The film included music by Lerner and Burton Lane and was released in March 1951. Next, Donen made Love Is Better Than Ever , which was not released until March 1952. The film stars Larry Parks as a streetwise show business agent who

5775-420: A style which is indigenous to the environment in which I was reared." He especially acknowledged the influence of George M. Cohan : "I have a lot of Cohan in me. It's an Irish quality, a jaw-jutting, up-on-the-toes cockiness—which is a good quality for a male dancer to have." He was also heavily influenced by an African-American dancer, Robert Dotson , whom he saw perform at Loew's Penn Theatre around 1929. He

5950-566: A tabloid scandal, the project was abandoned. Later that year Donen directed the stage musical The Red Shoes (based on the Powell and Pressburger film ) at the Gershwin Theatre . He replaced the original director Susan Schulman just six weeks before the show opened. It closed after four days. Donen's last film was the television movie Love Letters , which aired in April 1999. The film starred Steven Weber and Laura Linney and

6125-417: A very long time by a certain group of people who thought I took one side against another. It couldn't have been further from the truth. My attorney, Joe Shapiro, who was a friend of Sweeney's, went to the trial to show support for his friend. Because he was my counsel, by association, the media thought I was somehow involved. "Many people didn't come back to my restaurant because they associated Ma Maison with

6300-489: Is a man's game and if he does it well he does it better than a woman." Caron said that while dancing with Astaire she felt like she was floating, Kelly danced close to the ground. He railed against what he saw as the widespread effeminacy in male dancing, which, in his opinion, "tragically" stigmatized the genre, alienating boys from entering the field: Dancing does attract effeminate young men. I don't object to that as long as they don't dance effeminately. I just say that if

6475-550: Is a remake of the Claude Berri film Un moment d'égarement (1977) and was written by Gelbart and Charlie Peters. It stars Michael Caine , Joseph Bologna , Michelle Johnson , Valerie Harper and Demi Moore and was shot on location in Rio de Janeiro. Caine and Bologna play wealthy executives on vacation with their families in Rio, where Caine has an affair with Bologna's teenage daughter (Johnson). It received poor reviews, but

6650-606: Is 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 uses hieroglyphic codes to communicate. The investigation leads Peck to one mystery after another, often involving the prime minister's mysterious mistress (Loren). The film was Donen's second consecutive hit. Donen made Two for the Road (1967), starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney with Eleanor Bron , William Daniels , and Jacqueline Bisset in supporting roles. The film

6825-609: Is compelled to marry an innocent young dance teacher ( Elizabeth Taylor ). Donen and Kelly appear in cameo roles. The reason for the film's delayed release (by over a year) was Parks's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee and his eventual admission of his former membership in the Communist Party , and for naming other participants. The film was unsuccessful at the box-office. Donen teamed again with Kelly — who

7000-444: Is given most consistently to do." In Kelly's next film, Anchors Aweigh (1945), MGM gave him a free hand to devise a range of dance routines, including his duets with co-star Frank Sinatra and the celebrated animated dance with Jerry Mouse —the animation for which was supervised by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera . That performance was enough for Farber to completely reverse his previous assessment of Kelly's skills. Reviewing

7175-451: Is loosely based on Astaire's real-life career with his sister and early dancing partner, Adele Astaire , who retired after marrying an English lord in 1932 and includes one of Astaire's best remembered dance sequences, the " You're All the World to Me " number where he appears to defy gravity by dancing first on the walls and then on the ceiling. The shot was achieved by building the set inside

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7350-578: Is set in New York's " Little Italy " during the late 19th century and focuses on the Black Hand , a group that extorts money upon threat of death. In the real-life incidents upon which this film is based, it was the Mafia, not the Black Hand, who functioned as the villain. Filmmakers had to tread gingerly whenever dealing with big-time crime, it being safer to go after a "dead" criminal organization than

7525-493: Is surely the master of the movie musical. The Pajama Game exists to prove it." Donen's next film was Kiss Them for Me (also 1957). He was personally asked by Cary Grant to direct and began developing it while still under contract at MGM. With a plot that strongly resembles On the Town , the film features Grant, Ray Walston and Larry Blyden as three navy officers on leave in San Francisco in 1944. Unlike On

7700-716: The Slaughter on Tenth Avenue ballet in Words and Music (1948 again). He was due to play the male lead opposite Garland in Easter Parade (1948), but broke his ankle playing volleyball. He withdrew from the film and persuaded Fred Astaire to come out of retirement to replace him. There followed Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), his second film with Sinatra, where Kelly paid tribute to his Irish heritage in "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day" routine. This musical film persuaded Arthur Freed to have Kelly make On

7875-502: 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 Berkeley . Like Donen's previous two films, it was unsuccessful financially, although the reviews were more positive. In The New York Times , Vincent Canby called

8050-497: The Beverly Wilshire was selling the number for $ 5." Besides being a hotspot for celebrities, they attracted "businessmen and lawyers ... for what became known as Ma Maison's 'drunk lunches.' Debauchery ensued, and conspicuous consumption to the highest degree was commonplace." Ma Maison was featured as a location in the 2008 movie Frost/Nixon , directed by Ron Howard . In his credited character as "Ma Maison host" in

8225-708: The Pennsylvania State College as a journalism major, but after the 1929 crash he left school and found work in order to help his family financially. He created dance routines with his younger brother Fred to earn prize money in local talent contests. They also performed in local nightclubs. In 1931, Kelly enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh to study economics, joining the Theta Kappa Phi fraternity (later known as Phi Kappa Theta after merging with Phi Kappa). He became involved in

8400-539: The Swinging London of the 1960s divided critics, but Roger Ebert called its satire "barbed and contemporary ... dry and understated", and overall, a "magnificently photographed, intelligent, very funny film." On the other hand, Time magazine called it the feeblest of all known variations on the Faust theme. The film was a hit and was especially popular among American college students. Donen considered it

8575-631: The Venice Film Festival in 2004. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress . Donen began his career as a dancer in the chorus line on Broadway for director George Abbott . From 1943, he worked in Hollywood as a choreographer before collaborating with Gene Kelly where Donen worked as a contract director for MGM under producer Arthur Freed . Donen and Kelly directed

8750-512: The 1930s." Nostalgia for old Hollywood movies would be a theme of Donen's next film: Movie Movie (1978), produced by Lew Grade 's ITC Entertainment and scripted by Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller . The film 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 . It starred George C. Scott , Trish Van Devere , Red Buttons , Michael Kidd and Eli Wallach and premiered in competition at

8925-421: The 1973 dinner party. Wolfgang Puck became the chef at Ma Maison in 1975 and departed circa 1982 to form his own restaurant, Spago . Terrail has credited the eventual success of Ma Maison with his partnership with Puck: "The Ma Maison makeover did not happen overnight. The first step was [for me] to walk out of the kitchen and hire an incredible chef. I wanted a real chef in my kitchen. I also wanted somebody who

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9100-527: The American musical. Kelly's final on-screen appearance was to introduce That's Entertainment! III (1994). His final film project was the animated film Cats Don't Dance , not released until 1997, for which Kelly acted as an uncredited choreographic consultant. It was dedicated to his memory. When he began his collaborative film work, he was influenced by Robert Alton and John Murray Anderson , striving to create moods and character insight with his dances. He choreographed his own movement, along with that of

9275-720: The Bromide" challenge dance routine. Kelly was deferred from the draft in 1940 by the U.S. Selective Service System at the request of his employers, but was classified 1-A, eligible for induction, in October 1944 after an appeal to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by the head of the Selective Service in New York City. Roosevelt personally upheld the appeal. He was inducted into the armed forces

9450-673: The Dance and opened a second location in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1933. Kelly served as a teacher at the studio during his undergraduate and law-student years at Pitt. In 1931, he was approached by the Beth Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh to teach dance, and to stage the annual Kermesse . The venture proved a success, Kelly being retained for seven years until his departure for New York. Kelly eventually decided to pursue

9625-686: The French Government. Kelly continued to make some film appearances, such as Hornbeck in the Hollywood production of Inherit the Wind (1960) and as himself in Let's Make Love (also 1960). However, most of his efforts were now concentrated on film production and directing. In Paris, he directed Jackie Gleason in Gigot (1962), but the film was drastically recut by Seven Arts Productions and flopped. Another French effort, Jacques Demy 's homage to

9800-525: The Heart (1982). Although Coppola's ambition was for him to establish a production unit to rival the Freed Unit at MGM, the film's failure put an end to this idea. In November 1983 he made his first Royal Variety Performance before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, at London's Theatre Royal. Kelly served as executive producer and co-host of That's Dancing! (1985), a celebration of the history of dance in

9975-460: The Hill" from Brigadoon or " Our Love Is Here to Stay " from An American in Paris . According to Delamater, Kelly's work "seems to represent the fulfillment of dance–film integration in the 1940s and 1950s". While Fred Astaire had revolutionized the filming of dance in the 1930s by insisting on full-figure photography of dancers, while allowing only a modest degree of camera movement, Kelly freed up

10150-822: The King of Rhodes whom Brynner plots to dethrone. The film was not a financial success, and Donen stated that it was made because he "desperately needed money for personal reasons." These were the only two films that Donen completed for his Columbia contract. The studio cancelled the deal after their poor box-office returns, 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 became successful films for other directors. Grandon Productions produced Donen's next film: The Grass Is Greener , released through Universal Pictures in December 1960. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr play

10325-539: The MGM musical, The Young Girls of Rochefort ( Les Demoiselles de Rochefort , 1967), in which Kelly appeared, was a box-office success in France and nominated for Academy Awards for Best Music and Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation), but performed poorly elsewhere. He was asked to direct the film version of The Sound of Music , which had already been turned down by Stanley Donen. He escorted Ernest Lehman ,

10500-562: The Manor born—I put them on and look like a truck driver." From the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, his wife Betsy Blair and he organized weekly parties at their Beverly Hills home, and they often played an intensely competitive and physical version of charades , known as "The Game". His papers are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University . Late in life, Kelly

10675-555: The Married Man (1967) and Hello, Dolly! (1969), which received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture . He co-hosted and appeared in Ziegfeld Follies (1946), That's Entertainment! (1974), That's Entertainment, Part II (1976), That's Dancing! (1985), and That's Entertainment, Part III (1994). His innovations transformed the Hollywood musical, and he is credited with almost single-handedly making

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10850-616: The Nicholas Brothers —the leading black dancers of their day—in a virtuoso dance routine. Now regarded as a classic, the film was ahead of its time, but flopped at the box office. MGM wanted Kelly to return to safer and more commercial vehicles, but he ceaselessly fought for an opportunity to direct his own musical film. In the interim, he capitalized on his swashbuckling image as d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (also 1948)—and also appeared with Vera-Ellen in

11025-581: The Rain was nominated for two Academy Awards : Best Supporting Actress for Hagen and Best Original Score. Donald O'Connor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and Comden and Green once again won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical . Initially the film received only moderate reviews from critics such as Bosley Crowther and did not begin to receive widespread acclaim until

11200-538: The Town (also 1949), in which he partnered with Frank Sinatra for the third and final time. A breakthrough in the musical film genre, it has been described as "the most inventive and effervescent musical thus far produced in Hollywood." Stanley Donen , brought to Hollywood by Kelly to be his assistant choreographer, received co-director credit for On the Town . According to Kelly: "when you are involved in doing choreography for film, you must have expert assistants. I needed one to watch my performance, and one to work with

11375-500: The Town , Kiss Them for Me is a dark comedy that contrasts the officers' selfless heroism with their self-absorbed hedonism while on leave. The film received mostly poor reviews. After three films released 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 buy out his remaining contract with MGM. Now free from contractual obligations, he formed Grandon Productions with Grant and signed

11550-593: The U.S. Naval Air Service as a photographer from 1944 to 1946, Donen did uncredited work as a choreographer on 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 stated that he was excused from military service as 4-F due to his high blood pressure. When Kelly returned to civilian life, he and Donen directed and choreographed Kelly's dance scenes in Living in

11725-668: The US. He also appeared in three major TV specials: The Julie Andrews Show (1965), New York, New York (1966), and Jack and the Beanstalk (1967)—a show he produced and directed that again combined cartoon animation and live dance, winning him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program. In 1963, Kelly joined Universal Pictures for a two-year stint. He joined 20th Century Fox in 1965, but had little to do—partly due to his decision to decline assignments away from Los Angeles for family reasons. His perseverance finally paid off, with

11900-522: 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." While in the UK in the early 1960s, Donen was praised as an early influence on the then-emerging British New Wave film movement. In

12075-452: The art of choreography. The following year, Singin' in the Rain featured Kelly's celebrated and much imitated solo dance routine to the title song, along with the "Moses Supposes" routine with Donald O'Connor and the "Broadway Melody" finale with Cyd Charisse . Though the film did not initially generate the same enthusiasm An American in Paris created, it has subsequently overtaken the earlier film to occupy its current pre-eminent place in

12250-504: The ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences. According to dance and art historian Beth Genné, working with his co-director Donen in Singin' in the Rain and in films with director Vincente Minnelli , "Kelly ... fundamentally affected the way movies are made and the way we look at them. And he did it with a dancer's eye and from a dancer's perspective." Kelly received an Academy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements;

12425-593: The basis of an extended Spanish number in the film Anchors Aweigh eight years later. His first Broadway assignment, in November 1938, was as a dancer in Cole Porter 's Leave It to Me! —as the American ambassador's secretary who supports Mary Martin while she sings " My Heart Belongs to Daddy ". He had been hired by Robert Alton , who had staged a show at the Pittsburgh Playhouse where he

12600-544: The beloved children's book The Little Prince first published in 1943. Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe wrote the music and screenplay and filming was done on location in Tunisia . The Little Prince (1974) 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

12775-408: The brothers kidnap six women from a neighboring town to marry them. The film was shot in the new CinemaScope format and is remembered for its dance sequences, particularly the " barn raising scene" in which architecture and construction become acrobatic ballet steps. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was one of the highest-grossing films of 1954 and appeared on many critics' 10 Best Films lists. It

12950-409: The camera, making greater use of space, camera movement, camera angles, and editing, creating a partnership between dance movement and camera movement without sacrificing full-figure framing. Kelly's reasoning behind this was that he felt the kinetic force of live dance often evaporated when brought to film, and he sought to partially overcome this by involving the camera in movement and giving the dancer

13125-430: The cameraman on the timing ... without such people as Stanley, Carol Haney , and Jeanne Coyne I could never have done these things. When we came to do On the Town , I knew it was time for Stanley to get screen credit because we weren't boss–assistant anymore but co-creators." Together, they opened up the musical form, taking the film musical out of the studio and into real locations, with Donen taking responsibility for

13300-452: The cement to create puddles in the street. 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 a surprise Best Picture winner at the Oscars in March, and MGM decided to re-release it. Singin' in the Rain got pulled from many theaters to showcase the earlier film, preventing it from making further profits. Singin' in

13475-413: The creation and final effectiveness of dance." When "talkies" began to gain momentum in the film industry, the Hollywood studios recruited the best talent from Broadway to make musical films, such as Broadway Melody and Berkley's 42nd Street . These films established the backstage musical , a subgenre in which the plot revolves around a stage show and the people involved in putting it on. They set

13650-433: The debut of 19-year-old ballerina Leslie Caron , whom Kelly had spotted in Paris and brought to Hollywood. Its dream ballet sequence, lasting an unprecedented 17 minutes, was the most expensive production number ever filmed at that time. Bosley Crowther described it as, "whoop-de-doo ... one of the finest ever put on the screen." Also in 1951, Kelly received an honorary Academy Award for his contribution to film musicals and

13825-465: The distinctive strengths of dancing and filmmaking that had never been done before" and adds that Donen and Kelly "seem to have elevated Hollywood dance from simplistic display of either dancing or photographic ability into a perception that incorporates both what the dancer can do and what the camera can see ... [They] developed a balance between camera and dancer that ... encouraged both photographer and choreographer to contribute significantly to

14000-507: The drama and the music demand. While I am a hundred percent for ballet technique, I use only what I can adapt to my own use. I never let technique get in the way of mood or continuity." His colleagues at this time noticed his great commitment to rehearsal and hard work. Van Johnson —who also appeared in Pal Joey —recalled: "I watched him rehearsing, and it seemed to me that there was no possible room for improvement. Yet he wasn't satisfied. It

14175-472: 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 falls in love with Kerr and Jean Simmons plays an eccentric American heiress who is Grant's former girlfriend. The film was a financial disappointment in the United States, but was successful in England where

14350-518: The effeminate stereotype of the art of dance, while articulating the philosophy behind his dance style. It gained an Emmy nomination for choreography and now stands as the key document explaining Kelly's approach to modern dance. Kelly appeared frequently on television shows during the 1960s, including Going My Way (1962–63), which was based on the 1944 film of the same name . It enjoyed great popularity in Roman Catholic countries outside

14525-419: The end of his commitment to Pal Joey , in October 1941. Prior to his contract, he also managed to fit in choreographing the stage production of Best Foot Forward . Selznick sold half of Kelly's contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for his first motion picture: For Me and My Gal (1942) starring Judy Garland . Kelly said he was "appalled at the sight of myself blown up 20 times. I had an awful feeling that I

14700-433: The ensemble, with the assistance of Jeanne Coyne , Stanley Donen, Carol Haney , and Alex Romero. He experimented with lighting, camera techniques, and special effects to achieve true integration of dance with film, and was one of the first to use split screens, double images, and live action with animation, and is credited as the person who made the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences. A clear progression

14875-476: The esteem of critics. At the peak of his creative powers, Kelly made what in retrospect some see as a career mistake. In December 1951, he signed a contract with MGM that sent him to Europe for 19 months to use MGM funds frozen in Europe to make three pictures while personally benefiting from tax exemptions. Invitation to the Dance , a pet project of Kelly's to bring modern ballet to mainstream film audiences. It

15050-490: The fall of 1940. After 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 titular Pal Joey was played by the young up-and-comer Gene Kelly , who became a Broadway star in the role. Abbott cast Donen in the chorus of his next Broadway show Best Foot Forward . He became the show's assistant stage manager, and Kelly asked him to be his assistant choreographer. Eventually Donen

15225-528: The fan 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 seven hidden cameras. The low-budget film was a moderate financial success and received good reviews. It was also Donen's last musical film until The Little Prince (1974). After Indiscreet Donen made England his home until the early 1970s. Musicals' waning popularity caused Donen to focus on comedy films. He observed that his "London base afforded me

15400-473: The feeling that he was a regular guy, and perhaps they, too, could express love and joy by dancing in the street or stomping through puddles ... he democratized the dance in movies. In particular, he wanted to create a completely different image from that associated with Fred Astaire, not least because he believed his physique did not suit such refined elegance: "I used to envy his cool, aristocratic style, so intimate and contained. Fred wears top hat and tails to

15575-412: The film "Hollywood flimflamming at its elegant best." Donen made the science fiction film Saturn 3 (1980), starring Kirk Douglas , Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel . Donen first read the script when its writer (and Movie Movie ' s set designer) John Barry showed it to him, prompting Donen to pass it along to Lew Grade. Donen was initially hired to produce, but Grade asked him to complete

15750-461: The film an abstract, smokey look that resembled the fashion photography of the period despite protests by Paramount, which had recently invested in the sharp VistaVision film format. Funny Face was screened in competition at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival and received good reviews from critics like Bosley Crowther. Sight & Sound , in contrast, accused it of being anti-intellectual. While in pre-production on Funny Face , Donen received

15925-419: The film and signed a one-year contract with MGM . Donen appeared as a chorus dancer and was made assistant choreographer by Charles Walters . At MGM Donen renewed his friendship with Kelly, who was now a supporting actor in musicals. When Kelly was loaned to Columbia Pictures for a film, he was offered the chance to choreograph his own dance numbers and asked Donen to assist. Kelly stated: "Stanley needed

16100-517: The film included cameos by many MGM contract actors, including the only screen pairing of Gene Kelly and his brother Fred. Although it received mediocre reviews, Romberg's status helped make the film a hit. Donen's third and final directorial collaboration with Kelly was It's Always Fair Weather (1955), another musical. It was produced by Freed, written by Comden and Green and the score was by André Previn . It starred Kelly, Dan Dailey , Cyd Charisse , Michael Kidd, and Dolores Gray . Envisioned as

16275-399: The film stars Carleton Carpenter as a GI who brings his tame lion with him when he joins the army. Donen's musical Give a Girl a Break (1953) stars Debbie Reynolds, Marge Champion and Helen Wood as three aspiring dancers competing for the lead in a new Broadway musical. Bob Fosse , Gower Champion and Kurt Kasznar also appear, with music by Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin . The "Give

16450-399: The film when first-time director Barry was unable to direct. According to Donen "only a tiny bit of what Barry shot ended up in the finished film." It was a critical and financial disaster and initially Donen did not want to be credited as director. In the early 1980s, Donen was attached to direct an adaptation of Stephen King 's The Dead Zone and worked with writer Jeffrey Boam on

16625-406: The film, Farber enthused, "Kelly is the most exciting dancer to appear in Hollywood movies." Anchors Aweigh became one of the most successful films of 1945 and Kelly was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor . In Ziegfeld Follies (1946)—which was produced in 1944 but delayed for release—Kelly collaborated with Fred Astaire , for whom he had the greatest admiration, in "The Babbitt and

16800-459: The films On the Town (1949), Singin' in the Rain , and It's Always Fair Weather (1955). Donen's relationship with Kelly deteriorated during their final collaboration. His other films during this period include Royal Wedding (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Funny Face (1957). He then broke his contract with MGM to become an independent film producer in 1957. Donen received acclaim for his later films including

16975-452: The films of any other country" and was "probably the best American film of [1963]". It was remade as The Truth About Charlie (2002), directed by Jonathan Demme . Donen made another Hitchcock-inspired film with Arabesque (1966), starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren . The film was written by Julian Mitchell and Stanley Price , with an uncredited rewrite by Peter Stone. Peck plays an American professor at Oxford University who

17150-460: The first movie musicals and the technical difficulties with early sound films. This included characters loosely based on Freed and Berkeley and a scene that references silent film star John Gilbert . Donen and Kelly also made use of MGM's large collection of sets, props, costumes and outdated equipment from the 1920s. In the film, Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Hagen) are two silent film stars in Hollywood whose careers are threatened by

17325-573: The first time on Broadway, he danced to his own choreography. In the same year, he received his first assignment as a Broadway choreographer, for Billy Rose 's Diamond Horseshoe . He began dating a cast member, Betsy Blair , and they got married on October 16, 1941. In 1940, he got the lead role in Rodgers and Hart 's Pal Joey , again choreographed by Robert Alton. This role propelled him to stardom. During its run, he told reporters: "I don't believe in conformity to any school of dancing. I create what

17500-409: The first to make the city an important character; and the first to abandon the chorus." On the Town starred Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin as three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York whose romantic pursuits lead them to Ann Miller , Betty Garrett and Vera-Ellen . The film was a success both financially and critically and won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of

17675-519: The fluid background, giving each spectator an undistorted and altogether similar view of dancer and background. To accomplish this, the camera is made fluid, moving with the dancer, so that the lens becomes the eye of the spectator, your eye ". Kelly's athleticism gave his moves a distinctive broad, muscular quality, and this was a deliberate choice on his part, as he explained: "There's a strong link between sports and dancing, and my own dancing springs from my early days as an athlete ... I think dancing

17850-544: The general administrator of the Paris Opéra and Opéra-Comique , to select his own material and create a modern ballet for the company, the first time an American had received such an assignment. The result was Pas de Dieux , based on Greek mythology , combined with the music of George Gershwin 's Concerto in F . It was a major success, and it led to his being honored with the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by

18025-410: The glory days of the American musical film. Kelly was a guest on the 1975 television special starring Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, "Our Love Is Here to Stay," appearing with his son, Tim, and daughter, Bridget. He starred in the poorly received action film Viva Knievel! (1977), with the then high-profile stuntman, Evel Knievel . Kelly continued to make frequent TV appearances. His final film role

18200-436: The help of Hackman and Reynolds, who both compete for her affection. Donen stated that he "really cared about [the film] and gave three years of my life to it ... I think it's a very good movie." It went over budget and was 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

18375-457: The idea would never work, so Donen and Kelly directed the scene themselves and Donen spent over a year editing it. The film made Kelly a movie star and is considered by many film critics to be an important and innovative musical. 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. In 1944, Donen and Kelly choreographed

18550-428: The invention of sound films. With help from his best friend Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) and love interest Kathy Selden (Reynolds), Lockwood saves his career by turning his latest film into a musical. Filming was harmonious, but Donen thought Kelly's "Broadway Melody" ballet sequence was too long. The "Singin' in the Rain" musical number took several months to choreograph, and Donen and Kelly found it necessary to dig holes in

18725-441: The late 1950s, Donen signed a non-exclusive, three-film deal with Columbia Pictures. His first film under this contract was Once More, with Feeling! (1960). Adapted by Harry Kurnitz from his own stage play, the film was shot in Paris and starred Yul Brynner as a tyrannical orchestra conductor whose mistress ( Kay Kendall ) grows tired of his tantrums and plots to marry him in order to quickly divorce him for his money. Kendall

18900-404: The late 1960s. One of its early supporters was 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 critical and popular success. Now established as a successful film director, Donen continued his solo career at MGM with Fearless Fagan (1952). Based on a true story,

19075-548: The local Town Theater. His family often traveled to New York City during summer vacations where he saw Broadway musicals and took dance lessons. One of his early instructors in New York was Ned Wayburn , who taught eleven-year-old Astaire in 1910. After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen, Donen attended the University of South Carolina for one summer semester, studying psychology. Encouraged by his mother, he moved to New York City to pursue dancing on stage in

19250-403: The major box-office hit A Guide for the Married Man (1967), in which he directed Walter Matthau . Then, a major opportunity arose when Fox—buoyed by the returns from The Sound of Music (1965)—commissioned Kelly to direct Hello, Dolly! (1969), again directing Matthau along with Barbra Streisand . The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning three . In 1966, Kelly starred in

19425-408: The murder. I never showed it because I had a business to run, but it really affected both me and Ma Maison. Dominique Dunne's death was tragic for those who knew and loved her." Gene Kelly Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, singer, director and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create

19600-579: The musical Anchors Aweigh , released in 1945 and starring Kelly and Frank Sinatra . The film is best known for its groundbreaking scene in which Kelly dances with Jerry the Mouse from the Tom and Jerry cartoons. The animation was supervised by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and is credited to the MGM animation producer Fred Quimby , but the idea for the scene was Donen's. Donen and Kelly originally wanted to use either Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck for

19775-627: The musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). Based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét , the film's music is by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul , with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and choreography by Michael Kidd . Jane Powell plays Milly, an 1850s 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 mission to domesticate them and, upon Milly's sarcastic suggestion,

19950-500: The neighborhood boys who called us sissies   ... I didn't dance again until I was 15." At one time, his childhood dream was to play shortstop for the hometown Pittsburgh Pirates . By the time he decided to dance, he was an accomplished sportsman and able to defend himself. He attended St. Raphael Elementary School in the Morningside neighborhood of Pittsburgh and graduated from Peabody High School at age 16. He entered

20125-440: The original stage version had been a West End hit. One of Donen's most praised films was Charade (1963), starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau , James Coburn , George Kennedy and Ned Glass . Donen said that he had "always wanted to make a movie like one of my favorites, Hitchcock 's North by Northwest " and the film has been referred to as "the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made." Charade

20300-521: 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 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

20475-538: The project to ABC. In 2002 Donen directed Elaine May 's musical play Adult Entertainment starring Danny Aiello and Jeannie Berlin in Stamford, Connecticut. In 2004 he was awarded the Career Golden Lion at the 61st Venice International Film Festival . Donen is credited with having made the transition of Hollywood musical films from realistic backstage dramas to a more integrated art form in which

20650-496: The romance films Indiscreet (1958), Charade (1963), and Two for the Road (1967). He also directed 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). Stanley Donen was born on April 13, 1924, in Columbia, South Carolina to Mordecai Moses Donen,

20825-558: The same feeling of exhilaration, and in 1933, he was convinced it was the most satisfying form of self-expression." He also studied Spanish dancing under Angel Cansino, Rita Hayworth 's uncle. Generally speaking, he tended to use tap and other popular dance idioms to express joy and exuberance—as in the title song for Singin' in the Rain or "I Got Rhythm" in An American in Paris , whereas pensive or romantic feelings were more often expressed via ballet or modern dance, as in "Heather on

21000-609: The same hands-off collaboration as their first film. Like The Pajama Game the film includes music by Adler and Ross and choreography by Fosse. It starred Tab Hunter , Gwen Verdon , and Ray Walston. Damn Yankees! is an adaptation of the Faust legend about a fan of the Washington Senators who would sell his soul to give the losing team a good hitter. Walston plays the Brooks Brothers -attired Devil who grants

21175-711: The same year, An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He later received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors (1982) and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute . In 1999, the American Film Institute also ranked him as the 15th greatest male screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema . Kelly was born in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh . He

21350-423: The scene avoids being gratuitous or amateurish, while still "developing plot, describing the setting while conveying its galvanizing atmosphere and manic mood, introducing and delineating character." Casper also said: "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;

21525-424: The screenwriter, out of his house, saying, "Go find someone else to direct this piece of shit." His first foray into television was a documentary for NBC 's Omnibus , Dancing is a Man's Game (1958), in which he assembled a group of America's greatest sportsmen—including Mickey Mantle , Sugar Ray Robinson , and Bob Cousy —and reinterpreted their moves choreographically, as part of his lifelong quest to remove

21700-432: The script. Donen eventually dropped out of the project and David Cronenberg directed the film a few years later. Boam stated that Donen was initially attracted to making the film because he wanted to "connect with contemporary youthful audiences" and that the script that they worked on together was "very close to the script that David wound up making." Donen's last theatrical film was Blame It on Rio (1984). The film

21875-526: The sequence and met with Walt Disney to discuss the project; Disney was working on a similar idea in The Three Caballeros (1944) and was unwilling to license one of his characters to MGM. The duo spent two months shooting Kelly dancing and Donen spent a year perfecting the scene frame by frame. According to Barbera "the net result at the preview of Anchors Away that I went to, blew the audience away". While Kelly completed his service in

22050-475: The show's participants, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore . The resulting film was Bedazzled (1967), an updated version of the Faust legend . It was written by Cook with music by Moore, and also starred Eleanor Bron and Raquel Welch . Moore plays a lonely young man whose unrequited love of his co-worker (Bron) drives him to attempt suicide. Just then the devil (Cook) appears and offers him seven wishes in exchange for his soul. The film's fun-loving association with

22225-460: The snake. Lerner stated that 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". It was released in 1974 and was a financial disaster. Donen's next film was Lucky Lady (1975), starring Liza Minnelli , Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds . Minnelli plays a Prohibition era bootlegger who smuggles alcohol from Mexico to California with

22400-427: The songs were a natural continuation of the story. Before Donen and Kelly made their films, musicals – such as the extravagant and stylized work of Busby Berkeley – were often set in a Broadway stage environment where the musical numbers were part of a stage show. Donen and Kelly's films created a more cinematic form and included dances that could only be achieved in the film medium. Donen stated that what he

22575-442: The staging and Kelly handling the choreography. Kelly went much further than before in introducing modern ballet into his dance sequences, going so far in the "Day in New York" routine as to substitute four leading ballet specialists for Sinatra, Munshin, Garrett, and Miller. Kelly asked the studio for a straight acting role, and he took the lead role in the early Mafia melodrama Black Hand (1950). This exposé of organized crime

22750-445: The standard for the musical genre, placing their musical numbers either within the context of a stage performance or tacked on and gratuitous, without furthering the story or developing the characters. Donen stated that he disliked them and that his own films were "a reaction against those backstage musicals." Donen credited producer Freed as the driving force behind the transition, adding that Freed "had some sort of instinct to change

22925-597: The studio. That week produced the film's opening number " New York, New York ". Away from both studio interference and sound stage constrictions, Donen and cinematographer Harold Rosson shot a scene on the streets of New York City that pioneered many cinematic techniques that would be adopted by the French New Wave a decade later. These techniques included spatial jump cuts , 360-degree pans, hidden cameras, abrupt changes of screen direction and non-professional actors. Donen's biographer Joseph A. Casper stated that

23100-413: The success of On the Town , Donen signed a seven-year contract with MGM as a director. His next two films were for Freed, but were made without Kelly's participation. After being replaced as director on Pagan Love Song over personal differences with star Esther Williams , Donen was given the chance to direct his boyhood idol Fred Astaire. Royal Wedding (1951) starred Astaire and Jane Powell as

23275-502: The success of Take Me Out to the Ball Game , Freed gave Donen and Kelly the chance to direct On the Town , which was released in 1949. The film was an adaptation of the Betty Comden and Adolph Green Broadway musical about sailors on leave in New York City and was the first musical to feature location-filming. Donen and Kelly wanted to shoot the entire film in New York, but Freed would only allow them to spend one week away from

23450-421: The surprise hit That's Entertainment! (1974). He directed and co-starred with his friend Fred Astaire in the sequel That's Entertainment, Part II (1976). It was a measure of his powers of persuasion that he managed to coax the 77-year-old Astaire—who had insisted that his contract rule out any dancing, having long since retired—into performing a series of song-and-dance duets, evoking a powerful nostalgia for

23625-507: The theatrical release, Terrail appears as himself circa 1977, shot from behind, his voice audible as he welcomes David Frost , Richard Nixon , and guests to the restaurant. Relating to the entertainment at that point in the scene, the AFI Catalog notes: "According to the production notes, the parody of the song, ' Love and Marriage ' heard during the Ma Maison sequence was actually written on the occasion of Frost's 1977 birthday party." In

23800-481: The trial in Vanity Fair magazine, referring in some passages specifically to Ma Maison. Many believed Terrail supported Sweeney, leading "the glamorous clientele" to stop frequenting the restaurant. Terrail himself, in his book about the history of Ma Maison, both confirms the narrative of how Dominique Dunne's murder affected the restaurant and defends his own role: "The last time I ever saw or talked to Sweeney

23975-471: 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 directors as Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor . Donen briefly returned to the musical genre with Damn Yankees! (also 1958), based on George Abbott's Broadway hit . He again co-directed with Abbott in

24150-585: The university's Cap and Gown Club , which staged original musical productions. After graduating in 1933, he continued to be active with the Cap and Gown Club, serving as the director from 1934 to 1938. Kelly was admitted to the University of Pittsburgh Law School . His family opened a dance studio in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. In 1932, they renamed it the Gene Kelly Studio of

24325-494: The years in the south of France. It 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." It is also the film that Donen said he was most frequently asked about by film students. While living in England, Donen became an admirer of the British stage revue Beyond the Fringe and wished to work with two of

24500-476: The years. He also sought to break from the class-conscious conventions of the 1930s and early 40s, when top hat and tails or tuxedos were the norm, by dancing in casual or everyday work clothes, so as to make his dancing more relevant to the cinema-going public. His first wife, actress and dancer Betsy Blair said: A sailor suit or his white socks and loafers, or the T-shirts on his muscular torso, gave everyone

24675-405: Was a co-production between MGM and himself, a B-film, The Happy Road (1957), set in his beloved France, his first foray in a new role as producer-director-actor. After leaving MGM, Kelly returned to stage work. In 1958, Kelly directed Rodgers and Hammerstein 's musical play Flower Drum Song . Early in 1960, Kelly, an ardent Francophile and fluent French speaker, was invited by A. M. Julien,

24850-507: Was a commercial failure. Kelly made his film debut in For Me and My Gal (1942) with Judy Garland , with whom he also appeared in The Pirate (1948) and Summer Stock (1950). He also appeared in the dramas Black Hand (1950) and Inherit the Wind (1960), for which he received critical praise. He continued as a director in the 1960s, with his credits including A Guide for

25025-494: Was a major turning point for Donen's career. The film was later criticized by novelist Francine Prose , who described it as anti-woman, calling it "one of the most repulsive movies about men and women that has ever been made" and a musical about rape. Deep in My Heart (1954), is Donen's biographical film concerning Sigmund Romberg , the Hungarian-born American operetta composer. Starring José Ferrer ,

25200-420: Was a modest success financially. In 1986, 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 Donen directed a musical sequence for an episode of

25375-640: Was a musical satire on television and advertising, and includes his roller-skate dance routine to I Like Myself , and a dance trio with Michael Kidd and Dan Dailey that Kelly used to experiment with the widescreen possibilities of Cinemascope . MGM had lost faith in Kelly's box-office appeal, and as a result It's Always Fair Weather premiered at 17 drive-in theaters around the Los Angeles metroplex. Next followed Kelly's last musical film for MGM, Les Girls (1957), in which he joined Mitzi Gaynor , Kay Kendall , and Taina Elg . The third picture he completed

25550-674: Was a tremendous flop." For Me and My Gal performed very well, and in the face of much internal resistance, Arthur Freed of MGM picked up the other half of Kelly's contract. After appearing in a B movie drama, Pilot No. 5 (1943) and in Christmas Holiday (1944), he took the male lead in Cole Porter's Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) with Lucille Ball (in a part originally intended for Ann Sothern ). His first opportunity to dance to his own choreography came in his next picture, Thousands Cheer (1943), in which he performed

25725-530: Was also the visual consultant and designed the opening title sequence for the film, it was written by Leonard Gershe and included additional music by Gershe and Edens. Donen and Edens began pre-production at MGM, but had difficulty juggling Astaire and Audrey Hepburn 's Paramount contracts, the Warner Brothers -owned rights to the Gershwin music that they wanted and their own MGM contracts. Eventually

25900-490: Was at the height of his fame after the release of An American in Paris (1951) — to make Singin' in the Rain (1952), which would become one of the most highly praised films of all time. The film was produced by Freed, written by Comden and Green, photographed by Harold Rosson and starred Kelly, Debbie Reynolds , Donald O'Connor , Jean Hagen , Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charisse . Donen, along with Kelly, were brought in by Freed (who also hired Comden and Green to write

26075-492: Was awarded Irish citizenship under Ireland's Citizenship by Foreign Birth program. The application was initiated on his behalf by his wife Patricia Ward Kelly. Stanley Donen Stanley Donen ( / ˈ d ɒ n ə n / DON -ən ; April 13, 1924 – February 21, 2019) was an American film director and choreographer. He received the Honorary Academy Award in 1998 , and the Career Golden Lion at

26250-414: Was based on the play by A. R. Gurney . Weber plays a successful U.S. Senator who finds out that his long lost love (Linney) has recently died. The two had only corresponded through mail over the years, and Weber remembers Linney through his collection of old love letters. 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

26425-460: Was beset with delays and technical problems, and flopped when finally released in 1956. When Kelly returned to Hollywood in 1953, the film musical was beginning to feel the pressures from television, and MGM cut the budget for his next picture Brigadoon (1954), with Cyd Charisse, forcing him to make the film on studio backlots instead of on location in Scotland. This year also had him appear as

26600-404: Was briefly taught by Frank Harrington, an African-American tap specialist from New York. However, his main interest was in ballet, which he studied under Kotchetovsky in the early 1930s. Biographer Clive Hirschhorn writes: "As a child, he used to run for miles through parks and streets and woods—anywhere, just as long as he could feel the wind against his body and through his hair. Ballet gave him

26775-494: Was completing the final four days of shooting on Kismet in July 1955 for director Vincente Minnelli . Donen's next film was at Paramount Pictures for producer Roger Edens . Funny Face (1957) contains four of the original George and Ira Gershwin songs from the otherwise unrelated 1927 Broadway musical of the same name that had starred Fred Astaire. Loosely based on the life of fashion photographer Richard Avedon , who

26950-405: Was complicated, both professionally and personally, but Donen's films as a solo director are generally better regarded by critics than Kelly's. French film critic Jean-Pierre Coursodon has said that Donen's contribution to the evolution of the Hollywood musical "outshines anybody else's, including Vincente Minnelli 's". David Quinlan called him "the King of the Hollywood musicals". Donen made

27125-457: Was conceived by Donen and written by novelist Frederic Raphael , who was nominated for an Academy Award. It has been called one of Donen's most personal films, "with glints of passion never disclosed before", and "a veritable textbook on film editing." The film's complicated and non-linear story is about the 12-year relationship between Hepburn and Finney over the course of four separate (but interwoven) road trips that they take together throughout

27300-464: 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." 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. Their relationship

27475-588: Was especially fond of Westerns, comedies and thrillers. The film that had the strongest impact on him was the 1933 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical Flying Down to Rio . 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 shot and screened home movies with an 8 mm camera and projector that his father bought for him. Inspired by Astaire, Donen took dance lessons in Columbia and performed at

27650-432: Was evident in his development, from an early concentration on tap and musical comedy style to greater complexity using ballet and modern dance forms. Kelly himself refused to categorize his style: "I don't have a name for my style of dancing ... It's certainly hybrid ... I've borrowed from the modern dance, from the classical, and certainly from the American folk dance—tap-dancing, jitterbugging ... But I have tried to develop

27825-537: Was fired from Best Foot Forward , but in 1942 was the stage manager and assistant choreographer for Abbott's next show Beat the Band . In 1946, Donen briefly returned to Broadway to help choreograph dance numbers for Call Me Mister . In 1943 Arthur Freed, the producer of musical films at Metro Goldwyn Mayer , bought the film rights to Best Foot Forward and made a film version starring Lucille Ball and William Gaxton . Donen moved to Hollywood to audition for

28000-597: Was impressed by Kelly's teaching skills. When Alton moved on to choreograph the musical One for the Money , he hired Kelly to act, sing, and dance in eight routines. In 1939, he was selected for a musical revue, One for the Money , produced by the actress Katharine Cornell , who was known for finding and hiring talented young actors. Kelly's first big breakthrough was in the Pulitzer Prize –winning The Time of Your Life , which opened on October 25, 1939—in which, for

28175-527: Was in Xanadu (1980), a surprise flop despite a popular soundtrack that spawned five Top 20 hits by the Electric Light Orchestra , Cliff Richard , and Kelly's co-star Olivia Newton-John . In Kelly's opinion, "The concept was marvelous, but it just didn't come off." In the same year, he was invited by Francis Ford Coppola to recruit a production staff for American Zoetrope's One from

28350-499: Was invited to bring the show to Las Vegas , which he did for an eight-week stint on the condition he be paid more than any artist had ever been paid there. He directed veteran actors James Stewart and Henry Fonda in the comedy Western The Cheyenne Social Club (1970), which performed poorly at the box office. In 1973, he worked again with Frank Sinatra as part of Sinatra's Emmy -nominated TV special, Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra . He appeared as one of many special narrators in

28525-610: Was middle of 5 children of James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman, and his wife, Harriet Catherine Curran. His father was born in Peterborough , Ontario, Canada, to an Irish Canadian family. His maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Derry , Ireland, and his maternal grandmother was of German ancestry. When he was eight, Kelly's mother enrolled him and his brother James in dance classes, along with their sisters. As Kelly recalled, they both rebelled: "We didn't like it much and were continually involved in fistfights with

28700-425: Was midnight and we had been rehearsing since 8 in the morning. I was making my way sleepily down the long flight of stairs when I heard staccato steps coming from the stage ... I could see just a single lamp burning. Under it, a figure was dancing ... Gene." Offers from Hollywood began to arrive, but Kelly was in no hurry to leave New York. Eventually, he signed with David O. Selznick , agreeing to go to Hollywood at

28875-461: Was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor . On the Town (1949), which he co-directed with Donen, was his directorial debut. Later in the 1950s, as musicals waned in popularity, he starred in Brigadoon (1954) and It's Always Fair Weather (1955), the last film he directed with Donen. His solo directorial debut was Invitation to the Dance (1956), one of the last MGM musicals, which

29050-416: Was nominated for five Academy Awards , including Best Picture and Best Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture), which it won. Its success was a surprise to MGM, which invested more money in two other musicals: Rose Marie and Brigadoon , starring Kelly. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was more profitable than either of the other films, as well as On the Town and Singin' in the Rain , and its success

29225-421: Was produced by Stanley Donen Productions, released through Universal and adapted by Peter Stone from his own novel. Reggie Lampert (Hepburn) 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. The film

29400-447: Was released in December 1963, only two weeks after the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy , 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 following 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

29575-506: Was so lonely and we were going to a party at Ma Maison, where Sammy Kahn (sic) was performing." Sammy Cahn is depicted in the Ma Maison scene, along with Neil Diamond . Ma Maison closed on November 1, 1985. One source stated the "fall from greatness" began when sous chef John Sweeney strangled his actress girlfriend ( Dominique Dunne ) on October 30, 1982, leading to her death on November 4, 1982. Sweeney's trial began in August 1983. Dunne's father, Dominick Dunne , wrote in detail about

29750-475: Was speaking to anybody." He called it a "one hundred percent nightmare" which was a "struggle from beginning to end". This time, MGM refused to allow the co-directors to shoot on location in New York. It's Always Fair Weather was moderately profitable, but not as successful as their previous two films. It was Donen's last film with Kelly or Freed. After its completion he fulfilled his MGM contract agreement by working with other studios. His last project for MGM

29925-495: Was terminally ill with leukemia during the shoot 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 1960). In this film Brynner plays an American gangster who is deported to the Greek island of Rhodes. Mitzi Gaynor plays the "surprise package" who is sent to the island to appease Brynner, and Noël Coward plays

30100-549: Was trained in France. ... Wolfgang is a wonderful creator and he is dedicated to working with the best ingredients." Terrail arranged for many famous artists to paint the menu covers designed by David Hockney . (One menu was featured in an art exhibition at the Los Angeles Central Library). Puck refers to an early offer from Andy Warhol : "Eventually Andy Warhol wanted to paint me. I was like, 'No, no, no. Make me my menu cover.'" The Ma Maison phone number

30275-561: Was unique in being the first tap dancer to be a doctor and then tap danced 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 Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde starring Michael Jackson . After allegations that Jackson had molested young boys at his Neverland Ranch became

30450-429: Was unlisted to avoid outsider patronage. In a 2015 interview, Terrail said: "There were practical reasons for everything we did, but it was taken as snob appeal. People magazine was going to come out with a story on Ma Maison, and I was worried that we would be overwhelmed. So I said, 'The best way to stop that is to unlist our phone number,' and we kept it unlisted. People published the number anyway. The concierge at

30625-461: Was when he completed his shift on the evening of the attack. Yet some would have you believe that I played a much more prominent role in Sweeney's defense... Some people have angrily accused me of supporting John Sweeney by providing his bail and legal services...but none of it is true. "Somebody very important [at a Hollywood party I catered] called me a murderer...I got blackballed in Hollywood for

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