Obituary: Stanley Donen

Director and choreographer Stanley Donen, long a partner with Gene Kelly, with Donen perhaps best remembered for co-directing with Kelly the 1952 classic, Singin' in the Rain, died today, one of his sons announced.

He was involved in the making of other musicals of the era, but the 1952 film remains his best-known work.

Donen was never as well known as Kelly, of course, because he stayed behind the camera.

Fun fact about Donen in case you don't want to read the obits:  One of Donen's wives was an assistant choreographer by the name of Jeanne Coyne.  They split after a couple of years of marriage, and eventually she wound up marrying Gene Kelly.  She had been and would remain best friends with Kelly's first wife, Betsy Blair, who thought the world of Coyne and the two children she had with Kelly.  Tragically she died young of cancer in 1973, while years later her husband ended up with a woman way younger and perhaps far more ambitious by the name of Patricia Ward Kelly.  While PWK is intelligent and articulate, more than a few people don't have a lot of good to say about her.  She travels around the country talking about the career of her late husband, as if he needed any help being remembered, while his three kids on the other hand got little or nothing from his estate thanks to her.  They didn't even get a chance to say their goodbyes to him on his deathbed.  They were cut out.

Back to the subject at hand, Donen, who isn't as well-remembered.  He also collaborated with Audrey Hepburn:

The two would go on to made the 1963 film thriller Charade, which was full of color, witty repartee and clever scenes. Cary Grant was her co-star.

And then they collaborated on the 1967 film Two For The Road, using innovative editing techniques. The drama went back and forth in time to skillfully show how a marriage fell apart.

Albert Finney also starred as the lost and confused husband.

Donen was 94, with five wives and three children under his belt.  During the last twenty years of his life, he was shacked up or had a long term relationship with Elaine May.