--- title: Mitzi Gaynor Remembers 'Funny Face' Director Stanley Donen description: Mitzi Gaynor remembers Stanley Donen, director and choreographer of musicals like 'Singin' in the Rain' and 'Funny Face,' who died at age 94. canonical: https://time.com/5540869/mitzi-gaynor-stanley-donen-obituary/ author: Mitzi Gaynor article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-02-28T10:37:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:53:48.719Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Mitzi Gaynor Remembers Cinema’s Dance Master Stanley Donen og:description: Donen choreographed “Singing’ in the Rain,” “Funny Face” and more og:url: https://time.com/5540869/mitzi-gaynor-stanley-donen-obituary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceef1cbd39d29c87/698945fc97cdff577a6b76ac/stanley-donen-milestones.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Stanley Donen Milestones og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Mitzi Gaynor Remembers Cinema’s Dance Master Stanley Donen twitter:description: Donen choreographed “Singing’ in the Rain,” “Funny Face” and more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceef1cbd39d29c87/698945fc97cdff577a6b76ac/stanley-donen-milestones.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Mitzi Gaynor's Golden Memories of Stanley Donen by [Mitzi Gaynor](https://time.com/author/mitzi-gaynor/) ## Mitzi Gaynor Feb 28, 2019 10:37 AM UTC  Donen, who would receive an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement 40 years later, at work in 1958 Donen, who would receive an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement 40 years later, at work in 1958Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy by [Mitzi Gaynor](https://time.com/author/mitzi-gaynor/) ## Mitzi Gaynor Feb 28, 2019 10:37 AM UTC Imagine having to corral Yul Brynner, Noël Coward and me during an outdoor shoot on the Greek isle of Rhodes circa 1959–along with Noël’s delightfully in-character request, “Let’s stop for tea, dear,” just as we’re losing the light. The unenviable task fell to our director, the great Stanley Donen, whom we were privileged to work with on an opus titled _Surprise Package_. Stanley, who died on Feb. 21 at 94, handled the whole thing with his typical grand style, an incredible eye and tremendous grace. All three of those characteristics should be familiar to anyone who has even a casual appreciation of his work, if you can be casual about _Singin’ in the Rain_ and _On the Town_ (on which he shared directing credit with Gene Kelly). Or _Funny Face_, _Seven Brides for Seven Brothers_, _Charade_ and so many others. If he’d given us only one of those, we’d still be talking about him. People often speak of a Golden Age of Hollywood when referring to his films. That’s almost too abstract. Stanley helped make the movies sing and dance and be funny, and in doing so made a big, fabulous, golden, make-believe world very real in our lives. What a joy that we’ll always get to delight in those precious gifts of his. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5540869/mitzi-gaynor-stanley-donen-obituary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5540869/mitzi-gaynor-stanley-donen-obituary/"},"headline":"Mitzi Gaynor's Golden Memories of Stanley Donen","datePublished":"2019-02-28T10:37:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T22:53:48.719Z","description":"Mitzi Gaynor remembers Stanley Donen, director and choreographer of musicals like 'Singin' in the Rain' and 'Funny Face,' who died at age 94.","url":"https://time.com/5540869/mitzi-gaynor-stanley-donen-obituary/","keywords":["remembrance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceef1cbd39d29c87/698945fc97cdff577a6b76ac/stanley-donen-milestones.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mitzi Gaynor","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/mitzi-gaynor/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltceef1cbd39d29c87/698945fc97cdff577a6b76ac/stanley-donen-milestones.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Stanley Donen Milestones","caption":"Donen, who would receive an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement 40 years later, at work in 1958","creditText":"Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/remembrance/","name":"remembrance"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5540869/mitzi-gaynor-stanley-donen-obituary/","name":"Mitzi Gaynor's Golden Memories of Stanley Donen"}}]}] ```