Leslie Caron

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Leslie Caron

Leslie Caron, Deauville, 2007
Born Leslie Claire Margaret Caron
1 July 1931 (1931-07-01) (age 80)
Boulogne-sur-Seine, France
Occupation Actress
Years active 1951–2011
Spouse Geordie Hormel (m. 1951-54) (divorced)
Peter Hall (m. 1956-65) (divorced)
Michael Laughlin (m. 1969-80) (divorced)

Leslie Claire Margaret Caron (French pronunciation: [lɛzli kaʁɔ̃]; born 1 July 1931) is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series. Her autobiography Thank Heaven, was published in 2010 in the UK and US, and in 2011 in a French version.

Caron is best known for the musical films An American in Paris (1951), Lili (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Gigi (1958), and for the non-musical films Fanny (1961), The L-Shaped Room (1962), and Father Goose (1964). She received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She speaks French, English, and Italian. She is one of the few dancers or actresses who has danced with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Rudolf Nureyev.

Contents

[edit] Early years

Caron was born in Boulogne-sur-Seine, Seine (now Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine), France, the daughter of Margaret (née Petit), an American dancer on Broadway, and Claude Caron, a French chemist.[1] Caron was prepared for a performing career from childhood by her mother.

[edit] Career

Caron started her career as a ballet dancer. Gene Kelly discovered her in Roland Petit Company "Ballet des Champs Elysées", and cast her to appear opposite him in the musical An American in Paris (1951), a role in which a pregnant Cyd Charisse was originally cast. This led to a long-term MGM contract and a sequence of films, which included the musical The Glass Slipper (1955) and the drama Man with a Cloak (1956), with Joseph Cotten and Barbara Stanwyck. Still, she has said of herself: "Unfortunately, Hollywood considers musical dancers as hoofers. Regrettable expression."[2]

She also starred in the successful musicals Lili (1953), with Mel Ferrer; Daddy Long Legs (1955), with Fred Astaire, and Gigi (1958) with Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier.

In 1953, Caron was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Lili. In 1963, she was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the British drama The L-Shaped Room.

In the 1960s and thereafter, Caron worked in European films as well. Her later film assignments included Father Goose (1964), with Cary Grant; Ken Russell's Valentino (1977), in the role of silent-screen legend Alla Nazimova; and Louis Malle's Damage (1992).

In 1989, she was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival.[3]

She has continued to act, appearing in the film Chocolat (2000). She is one of the few actors from the classic era of MGM musicals who is still active in film—a group that includes Mickey Rooney, Debbie Reynolds, Dean Stockwell, Rita Moreno, Margaret O'Brien, June Lockhart. Her other recent credits include Funny Bones (1995) with Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) with Judi Dench and Cleo Laine, and Le Divorce (2003) by Merchant/Ivory with Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts.

On June 30, 2003, Caron traveled to San Francisco to appear as the special guest star in The Sons of Alan Jay Lerner: I Remember It Well, a retrospective concert staged by San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon Company. In 2007, Caron's guest appearance on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit earned her a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award. On 27 April 2009, Caron traveled to New York as an honored guest at a tribute to Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe at the Paley Center for Media.[4]

On 8 December 2009, Caron received the 2,394th Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In February 2010, she played Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, which also featured Greta Scacchi and Lambert Wilson.[5]

[edit] Personal life

Caron married George Hormel III, a grandson of the founder of Hormel (a meat-packing company) in September 1951. They divorced in 1954.[6] Her second husband was British theatre director Peter Hall. They married in 1956 and had two children, Christopher John Hall (TV producer) in 1957 and Jennifer Caron Hall, a writer, painter and actress, in 1958. Caron had an affair with Warren Beatty (1961). When she and Hall divorced in 1965, Beatty was named as a co-respondent and was ordered by the London court to pay "the costs of the case".[7] In 1969, Caron married Michael Laughlin, best known as producer of the film Two-Lane Blacktop; they divorced in 1980. Her son-in-law is Glenn Wilhide the producer and screen writer.

Caron was also romantically linked to Dutch television actor Robert Wolders from 1994 to 1995.[8]

From June 1993-September 2009 Caron owned and operated a hotel and restaurant, Auberge La Lucarne aux Chouettes (The Owls' Nest), located in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, located about 130 km (81 mi) south of Paris.[9]

In her autobiography Thank Heaven she states that she became an American citizen—evidently based on her mother having been born in the United States—in time to vote for Barack Obama for President.[10]

[edit] Awards

in Fanny (1961)

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Film

[edit] Television
Leslie Caron, A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim, théâtre du Châtelet, 2010.

[edit] Theatre

[edit] Lectures - Enregistrements

  • The Lover (l'Amant) by Marguerite Duras on cassettes
  • First World War for the radio
  • Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien by Claude Debussy and Gabriele d'Annunzio, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas
  • Gigi by Colette in English on cassettes recorded in public at Merkin Concert Hall at Abraham Goodman House in New York City, 1996
  • Narrated "Carnival of the Animals" music by Camille St Saëns with the Nash Ensemble - Wigmore Hall, 1999
  • The Plutocrats play for the BBC dir. Bill Bryden, written by Michael Hastings, from the novel by Booth Tarkington, January 1999

[edit] Notes et références

Articles de Leslie Caron

  • Interview with J. Fieschi and B. Villien, in Cinématographe (Paris), October 1980
  • "Polonaises", in Cinématographe (Paris), April 1982
  • "Enfin Star!", in Cinématographe (Paris), November 1983
  • "Un ami : Truffaut", in Cinématographe (Paris), December 1984

Books

  • Springer, John, All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing, New York, 1966
  • Kobal, John, 'Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance', New York, 1970
  • Knox, Donald, The Magic Factory, New York, 1973

Articles sur Leslie Caron

  • Current Biography 1954, New York, 1954
  • Film Dope (London), March 1982
  • Stars (Mariembourg), Spring 1994

[edit] See also

Portal icon Dance portal

[edit] Literature

[edit] References

  1. ^ Kisselgoff, Anna (12 March 1995). "DANCE; The Ballerina In Leslie Caron The Actress". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE0DA1531F931A25750C0A963958260. 
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ "Berlinale: 1989 Juries". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1989/04_jury_1989/04_Jury_1989.html. Retrieved 9 March 2011. 
  4. ^ "The Musicals of Lerner & Loewe: An Evening of Song and Television". The Paley Center for Media. 27 April 2009. http://www.paleycenter.org/the-musicals-of-lerner-and-loewe-an-evening-of-song-and-television/. 
  5. ^ "Leslie Caron Receives Walk of Fame Star". CBS 2 / KCAL 9 (LOS ANGELES). 8 December 2009. http://cbs2.com/local/Leslie.Caron.Receives.2.1357706.html. 
  6. ^ "Mill on the Willow: A History of Mower County, Minnesota" by various authors. Library of Congress No. 84-062356
  7. ^ Rich, Frank (3 July 1978). "Warren Beatty Strikes Again". TIME. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946022,00.html. 
  8. ^ "Leslie Caron". TCM Movie Database. http://www.tcmdb.com/participant.jsp?participantId=29278. Retrieved 11 November 2008. 
  9. ^ "French inn: Her latest stage". Los Angeles Times. 15 October 2006. http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-tr-spano15oct15,0,3801422,full.column?coll=la-news-columns. 
  10. ^ Caron, Leslie (25 November 2009). Thank Heaven: A Memoir. New York: Viking Adult. 
  11. ^ Tele7.fr

[edit] External links

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