Leslie Claire Margaret Caron ( ; born 1 July 1931) is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. She was one of the most famous Hollywood musical stars in the 1950s. Caron is best known for the musical films Gigi, Lili, An American in Paris, and Daddy Long Legs, and for the non-musical films The L-Shaped Room, Father Goose, and Fanny. She received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She speaks French and English. She is one of the few dancers or actresses that can say they have danced with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev.

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, and Claude Caron, a French chemist. Caron was prepared for a performing career from childhood by her mother.

Career

Caron started her career as a ballet dancer. But eventually Gene Kelly discovered her, and cast her to appear opposite him in the classic 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 Gaby (1956).

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

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.Caron once said of herself: "I'm not a ballerina. I'm a hoofer."

Her later film assignments included Cary Grant's Father Goose (1964); Ken Russell's Valentino (1977), in the role of silent-screen legend Alla Nazimova; and Louis Malle's Damage (1992).

She continues to act, appearing in the acclaimed film Chocolat (2000). She is one of the few leading ladies (or actors of any type for that matter) from the classic era of MGM musicals who was still active in film. (Others are Mickey Rooney, Debbie Reynolds, Dean Stockwell, Rita Moreno, Margaret O'Brien, June Lockhart, etc.) 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) with Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts.

Most recently, Caron's guest appearance on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit earned her a 2007 Primetime Emmy Award. On April 27, 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. In February 2010 she will play the role of Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

Personal life

Caron married George Hormel II, a grandson of the founder of Hormel (a meat-packing company) in September 1951. They divorced in 1954. 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, an actress, in 1962. 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." In 1969, Caron married Michael Laughlin, best known as producer of the film Two-Lane Blacktop; they divorced in 1980.

Caron was also romantically linked to Dutch television actor Robert Wolders from 1994 to 1995, and was married to film crew member, Paul Magwood, with whom she has lived since 2003 in Wisconsin but divorced.

In semi-retirement from films, she owns and operates an affordable bed and breakfast, Auberge La Lucarne aux Chouettes (The Owls' Nest Inn), located in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, located about 112 km (70 miles) south of Paris.

Filmography

Film

• An American in Paris (1951)
• The Man with a Cloak (1951)
• The Million Dollar Nickel (1952) (short subject)
• Glory Alley (1952)
• The Story of Three Loves (1953)
• Lili (1953)
• The Glass Slipper (1955)
• Daddy Long Legs (1955)
• Gaby (1956)
• Gigi (1958)
• The Doctor's Dilemma (1958)
• The Man Who Understood Women (1959)
• The Subterraneans (1960)
• Austerlitz (1960)
• Fanny (1961)
• Three Fables of Love (1962)
• Guns of Darkness (1962)
• The L-Shaped Room (1962)
• Father Goose (1964)
• A Very Special Favor (1965)
• Promise Her Anything (1965)
• Is Paris Burning? (1966)
• The Head of the Family (1969)
• Madron (1970)

• Chandler (1971)
• Purple Night (1972)
• Surreal Estate (1976)
• The Man Who Loved Women (1977)
• Valentino (1977)
• Nicole (1978)
• Goldengirl (1979)
• All Stars (1980)
• Chanel Solitaire (1981)
• Imperative (1982)
• Dangerous Moves (1984)
• Courage Mountain (1990)
• Damage (1992)
• The Genius (1993)
• Warriors and Prisoners (1994)
• A Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema (1995) (scenes deleted)
• Funny Bones (1995)
• The Reef (1999)
• From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff (1999) (documentary)
• Chocolat (2000)
• Le Divorce (2003)

Television

• ITV Play of the Week (1 episode, 1959)
• Les Fables de La Fontaine (unknown episodes, 1964)
• Carola (1973)
• QB VII (unknown episodes, 1974)
• Docteur Erika Werner (1978)
• The Contract (1980)
• Mon meilleur Noël (1 episode, 1981)
• Tales of the Unexpected (1 episode, 1982)
• The Unapproachable (1982)
• Le Château faible (1983)
• Master of the Game (1984)
• Le Génie du faux (1985)
• Falcon Crest (3 episodes, 1987)
• The Man Who Lived at the Ritz (1988)
• Lenin: The Train (1990)
• The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1 episode, 1996) voice
• The Ring (1996)
• The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000)
• Murder on the Orient Express (2001)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2006) Episode: "Recall"

References

1. Famous Dance Quotes - Famous Quotes about Dancing Retrieved on 2008-11-11.
2. "Mill on the Willow: A History of Mower County, Minnesota" by various authors. Library of Congress No. 84-062356
3. Leslie Caron at Hollywood.com Retrieved on 2008-11-11.

External links

• Leslie Caron at the Notable Names Database
• Leslie Caron's hotel in Burgundy, France
• Cinema Retro covers A.M.P.A.S. tribute to Leslie Caron
• Photographs and literature