Biography
Born on 13 April 1924 in Columbia, South Carolina, Donen developed an early passion for both cinema and the stage. He went on to direct and choreograph a succession of landmark MGM musicals during the 1950s. Upon finishing high school he joined the Broadway ensemble of the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart show Pal Joey in 1940, a production that starred Gene Kelly; he later aided Kelly with the dances for Best Foot Forward in 1941 while again appearing in the chorus. Once under contract at MGM he supplied choreography, co-choreography or uncredited co-direction for selected numbers in such 1940s musicals as Cover Girl, Hey Rookie, Jam Session, Kansas City Kitty, Anchors Aweigh, Holiday In Mexico, No Leave, No Love, Living In A Big Way, This Time For Keeps, A Date With Judy, The Kissing Bandit and Take Me Out To The Ball Game. His first official directorial credit came in 1949 when he partnered with Gene Kelly on the innovative and widely praised On The Town; the pair subsequently teamed on Singin’ In The Rain, It’s Always Fair Weather and The Pajama Game. Donen’s flair for staging vibrant, inventive sequences also shaped Wedding Bells, Give A Girl A Break (where he shared choreography duties with Gower Champion), Deep In My Heart, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Funny Face and Damn Yankees (1958). With the close of Hollywood’s classic musical era he turned, apart from the 1974 project The Little Prince, to directing and producing straight drama and comedy features that included Indiscreet, The Grass Is Greener, Arabesque, Two For The Road, Bedazzled, Staircase, Lucky Lady, Movie, Movie, Saturn 3 and Blame It On Rio (1984). Plans to film biographies of Judy Garland and Marlene Dietrich were discussed but never realized. He served as producer of the Academy Awards ceremony in 1988 and, five years afterward, made his Broadway directing debut with the Jule Styne musical The Red Shoes after original director Susan Schulman withdrew early in rehearsals; the production folded after only three performances. In 1998 he was presented with an Honorary Academy Award “in appreciation of a body of work marked by grace, elegance, wit and visual innovation.” Donen died in February 2019 at the age of 94.