Stanley Donen, 94; directed Gene Kelly in ‘Singin’ in the Rain’

Stanley Donen, a director of Hollywood musicals who secured an enduring place in cinema history as the filmmaker who captured Fred Astaire dancing on a ceiling and Gene Kelly singing in the rain, died Feb. 21 at a hospital in New York City. He was 94.

His death, from an apparent heart attack, was confirmed by his son Mark Donen.

A former Broadway dancer, Stanley Donen first drew notice as a wunderkind whose innovations in movie choreography literally animated film in new ways. At 20, he conceived and directed Kelly’s timelessly endearing dance duet with Jerry the cartoon mouse – a pioneering concept – in “Anchors Aweigh” (1945).

Donen’s alliance with Kelly resulted in some of the finest work either of them achieved onscreen. They co-directed three films: “On the Town” (1949), “It’s Always Fair Weather” (1955) and, towering above Donen’s dozens of credits, “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952).

The musical starred Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor and lampooned silent-era Hollywood studios during their bumpy transition to the “talkies.” It ranks fifth on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest American movies of all time. Scores of influential critics have lauded its witty script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, brisk pacing and imaginative dance numbers.

Under Donen’s direction, the title song sequence climaxed with the camera swooping back into the air as Kelly spins in circles, riding his umbrella like a sail. The image is considered one of the most extraordinary explosions of joy ever captured on film.

In an interview, film scholar David Thomson called Donen “one of the handful of absolutely vital contributors to the American movie musical.” He achieved much of his best work in the collaborative ambience of the studio system of the 1940s and 1950s.

He teamed with choreographers Bob Fosse and Michael Kidd as well as esteemed producers Arthur Freed and Roger Edens. But he forged his most important working relationship with Kelly, although the Kelly-Donen partnership eventually shattered over dueling egos. “If you substitute the word ‘fight’ for ‘co-direct,’ then you have it,” Donen once said.

Donen had strong ideas about what worked in film, but without Kelly’s star clout, he did not always see them realized. Film historian and critic Andrew Sarris saw “intermittent flashes of inspiration” in Donen’s non-Kelly musicals such as “Royal Wedding” (1951) and “Funny Face” (1957), both with Astaire, and his movie versions of the Broadway shows “The Pajama Game” (1957) and “Damn Yankees!” (1958).

In making “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1954), a musical about macho backwoodsmen on the American frontier, Donen and Kidd persuaded producers who wanted name actors in several leading roles to cast professionally trained ballet dancers instead.

Donen said producers feared that the dancers would seem unmanly to a mass audience. But the result was the unforgettable and richly acrobatic barn dance sequence.