LAS VEGAS — George Sidney, who directed dozens of musicals when the genre was at its peak and presided over Hollywood's directors guild for 16 years, died Sunday. He was 85.

        Mr. Sidney died at home of complications of lymphoma, said his wife, Corinne Sidney.

        A one-time child actor whose career took him from the vaudeville stage to decades of success in the studio system, Mr. Sidney directed a string of hits for MGM in the 1940s and 1950s, including Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951) and Kiss Me Kate (1953).

        He worked with such greats as Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Tony Curtis, Lana Turner, Dick Van Dyke and Ann-Margret, and once defined a star as “someone who attracts your attention even when he or she isn't doing anything.”

        Mr. Sidney was president of the Screen Directors Guild in 1960, when it merged with the Radio and Television Directors Guild to form the Directors Guild of America. He spent 16 years as the head of the organization and was the first recipient of its presidents award, in 1998.

        “The Directors Guild is extremely saddened by the passing of our former president, George Sidney,” DGA president Martha Coolidge said in a statement. “His distinguished career as a director, along with his years of service and dedication to the DGA, were in an inspiration to us all. He will be greatly missed.”

        In a 1998 interview with AP, Sidney discussed the decline of the genre he loved.

        “Musicals became too expensive,” he said. “When we were working at MGM, there was a whole company of talent: stars, directors, choreographers, song writers, conductors, arrangers. All worked under contract at regular salaries. To gather people like that today would be enormously costly.”

        A private memorial was being planned.

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George Sidney dies, directed hit musicals