“Singin’ in the Rain,” “Funny Face” Director Stanley Donen Dies at 94

Stanley Donen, a Hollywood musical legend who directed classics like Singin’ in the Rain and Funny Face, has died from heart failure. He was 94.

“You can’t get through a movie if you don’t think it’s good,” he said in an interview when asked about the reverence of Singin’ in the Rain decades after its initial, underrated release in 1952. “Certainly we thought it was good. More than that? I don’t know. You don’t think about that. You just think about how you can do it.”

Donen was a big contributor to the 1940s and 50s era of Hollywood musicals. He often partnered with Gene Kelly, and notably worked with Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, and Fred Astaire.

“Nothing is more fun than finding someone who stimulates you, and who can be stimulated by you,” Donen also said in John Kobal’s book “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance: A Pictorial History of Film Musicals.” ”The result, rather than just adding up to two and two, multiplies itself, and you find yourself doing much better things — you are both carried away on the crest of excitement.”

Despite creating and co-creating a handful of classics, Donen was never nominated for a competitive Oscar nomination for his filmmaking. He was, however, presented an honorary award by Martin Scorsese in 1998.

Donen, while singing “Heaven, I’m in heaven,” from Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek,” danced before the cheering audience with his Oscar statuette, which he called “this cute little fella.”

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