Leslie Caron

Leslie Caron Headshot

Actress • Dancer

Birth Date: July 1, 1931

Age: 92 years old

Birth Place: Boulogne-Billancourt, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France

Partners: Robert Wolders

An unconventional beauty who specialized in waif-like roles in her early career, Leslie Caron was an actress and dancer who rose to fame in the 1950s in such acclaimed musicals as "An American in Paris" (1951) and "Gigi" (1958). Caron also projected considerable warmth and charm in straight dramas, which led to a successful career outside of musicals, including Oscar-nominated turns in "Gaby" (1958) and "The L-Shaped Room" (1963). Her Hollywood star faded somewhat in the late 1960s and 1970s, though she was active in European productions, where she was well utilized as elegant older women. Caron was still active in the 1990s and early 2000s, enjoying substantive roles in several well-regarded films, including "Damage" (1993), "Chocolat" (2000) and one of the final Merchant-Ivory productions, "Le Divorce" (2003). Her effortless class and grace, both onscreen and off, especially in the face of a high-profile divorce case in 1965, were at the center of her enduring popularity.

Born Leslie Claire Margaret Caron in Boulogne-sur-Seine, France on July 1, 1931, she was prepared for a career in dance from an early age. Father Claude was a chemist, while mother Margaret, an American and former dancer, who introduced her daughter to ballet at the age of 10. The Nazi occupation of France forced her to flee to Cannes, but she returned after the war, and by the age of 16, was performing in the Ballets des Champs Elysee, where Gene Kelly saw her in a production of "La Recontre." The Hollywood icon was moved to meet Caron backstage after the performance, but intense antipathy from her fellow dancers had forced her to flee the theater. Three years later, Kelly would bring her to instant stardom when he cast her as his love interest and chief dance partner in what many considered his greatest film, "An American in Paris" (1951).

The film led to a contract with MGM and more roles in films. Much of Caron's early movie career was devoted to musicals, which made excellent use of her ballet training and endearingly girlish screen persona. She proved a perfect partner for Fred Astaire in "Daddy Long Legs" (1955) and an ideal Cinderella in "The Glass Slipper" (1955), but Caron found screen musicals physically taxing and began to study acting. Gradually, she became known for films that required little or no dancing at all; she earned her first Academy Award as "Lili" (1953), a naïve country girl who falls for a self-pitying puppeteer (Mel Ferrer). With 1958's "Gigi," Caron is Colette's heroine, a young girl trained to become a courtesan by her aunt (Isabel Jeans) and grandmother (Hermione Gingold), which was her final appearance in a major Hollywood musical. In it, she did no dancing at all, and her singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand. Both films remained enduring classics decades after their release, and helped to cement Caron's status as one of the select performers who came to fame as part of the Hollywood musical's heyday.

By 1956, she had already been married twice - once to meat packing heir George Hormel, and later to British theater legend Peter Hall - and sought more substantive roles. The decline of the musical in the late 1950s provided her with the exit she sought, and Caron was free to pursue straight dramatic and comedic roles. Again, she found success almost immediately; 1961's "Fanny" earned multiple Academy Award nominations for its sweeping story about a young sailor torn between his desire for adventure and his love for a young woman (Caron). Two years later, she earned her second Oscar nomination as a young unmarried mother in Bryan Forbes' drama "The L-Shaped Room" (1963). In 1964's "Father Goose" she was well-matched opposite Cary Grant as a French schoolmistress who must rely on his gruff coast-watcher to evade enemy forces during World War II.

But Caron's film appearances grew fewer and further between by the mid-1960s. Her divorce from Peter Hall in 1965 was tinged with scandal when it was revealed that she had been involved in an affair with Warren Beatty; the actor was later required by a London court to pay legal fees for his part in the dissolution. The news did little good for their 1966 film collaboration, "Promise Her Anything." But she remained active throughout the seventies, where she was called upon to play elegant older women of means. Her best efforts during this period were in Francois Truffant's "The Man Who Loved Women" (1977) and the miniseries "QB VII" (ABC, 1974), though she earned notices for her full-blooded performance as silent film star Alla Nazimova in Ken Russell's atrocious biopic "Valentino" (1978), starring Rudolf Nureyev.

Television on both sides of the Atlantic kept Caron busy throughout the 1980s, most notably in the miniseries "Master of the Game" (CBS, 1987) and a guest role on "Dynasty" (ABC, 1981-89); she also returned to the stage in productions of "On Your Toes" and "One for the Tango," and at 57, performed alongside Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov in a 1988 New York gala for the Paris Opera Ballet. The 1990s saw Caron in some of her best film roles since the 1960s; she was Juliette Binoche's mother in Louis Malle's drama "Damage" (1992), while the HBO drama "Last of the Blonde Bombshells" saw her as the former bass player for an all-female swing band who left the group in World War II to join the French resistance. Lasse Hallstrom's "Chocolat" (2000) reunited her with "Bombshells" star Judi Dench and Juliette Binoche, whose confections awaken a long-dormant romance between a widow (Caron) and her admirer. She later joined "Chocolat" castmate Alfred Molina to play a well-traveled European lady of substance in a modernized TV-movie version of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express" (2001).

In 2003, Caron co-starred in "Le Divorce," director James Ivory's final co-production with longtime partner Ismail Merchant, as Naomi Watts' mother, who remains steely and imperious in the face of her daughter's mounting tragedies. The actress settled comfortably into semi-retirement by beginning work on her memoirs while operating a bed and breakfast in the countryside south of Paris. But Caron proved that her acting abilities were not yet put to rest with a 2006 turn on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" (NBC, 1999- ). Her performance as a long-silenced rape victim earned her an Emmy Award in 2007.

Credits

A Christmas Carol

Voice
The Ghost of Christmas Past
Movie
2020

Written on water

Actor
Pauline
Movie
2020

Love, Cecil

Self
Movie
2017

Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star

Actor
Show
2016

The Durrells in CorfuStream

Actor
Countess Mavrodaki
Series
2016
94%

Le DivorceStream

Actor
Suzanne de Persand
Movie
2003
36%

Murder on the Orient Express

Actor
Senora Alvarado
Movie
2001

The Last of the Blonde Bombshells

Actor
Madeleine
Movie
2000

ChocolatStream

Actor
Madame Audel
Movie
2000
63%

Law & Order: Special Victims UnitStream

Guest Star
Lorraine Delmas
Series
1999
78%

The Reef

Actor
Regine De Chantelle
Movie
1997

The Ring

Actor
Madame de Saint Marne
Movie
1996

Funny Bones

Actor
Katie Parker
Movie
1995

Let It Be Me

Actor
Marguerite
Movie
1995

Guerreros y cautivas

Actor
Movie
1994

DamageStream

Actor
Elizabeth Prideaux
Movie
1992
81%

The Man Who Lived at the Ritz

Actor
Show
1991

Lenin: The Train

Actor
Nadeschda Krupskaja
Show
1990

Courage Mountain

Actor
Jane Hillary
Movie
1989

L'Homme qui vivait au Ritz

Actor
Movie
1988

The Sealed Train

Actor
Nadia
Movie
1987

Dangerous Moves

Actor
Henia Liebskind
Movie
1985

Reel Horror

Actor
Nicole (archive footage)
Movie
1985

Gefährliche Züge

Actor
Movie
1985

Master of the Game

Actor
Solange Dunas
Show
1984

La Diagonale du fou

Actor
Movie
1984

Pavlova: A Tribute to the Legendary Ballerina

Narrator
Movie
1982

Die Unerreichbare

Actor
Klaudia
Movie
1982

Imperativ

Actor
Mother
Movie
1982

Contract

Actor
Movie
1980

Tales of the Unexpected

Actor
Nathalie Vareille
Show
1979

CBS News Sunday Morning

Guest
News
1979

Goldengirl

Actor
Dr. Sammy Lee
Movie
1979

Tous vedettes

Actor
Lucille Berger
Movie
1979

Beverly Hills Widow

Actor
Nicole
Movie
1978

Nicole

Actor
Nicole
Movie
1978

The Love BoatStream

Guest Star
Series
1977

The Man Who Loved Women

Actor
Véra
Movie
1977

Valentino

Actor
Alla Nazimova
Movie
1977

Sérail

Actor
Céleste
Movie
1976

James Dean, the First American Teen-ager

Actor
Movie
1975

QB VIIStream

Actor
Angela Kelno
Miniseries
1974

Carola

Actor
Carola Janssen
Show
1973

El Candelero

Actor
Movie
1971

Madron

Actor
Sister Mary
Movie
1971

Chandler

Actor
Katherine Creighton
Movie
1971

The Dick Cavett ShowStream

Guest
Talk
1968

Head of the Family

Actor
Paola
Movie
1967

Promise Her Anything

Actor
Michele O'Brien
Movie
1966

Is Paris Burning?

Actor
Françoise Labé
Movie
1966

A Very Special Favor

Actor
Dr. Lauren Boullard
Movie
1965

Father GooseStream

Actor
Catherine Freneau
Movie
1964
80%

Four Fables of Love

Actor
Annie
Movie
1964

The L-Shaped Room

Actor
Jane Fosset
Movie
1963

Las Cuatro Verdades

Actor
Annie
Movie
1963

Guns of Darkness

Actor
Claire Jordan
Movie
1962

Fanny

Actor
Fanny
Movie
1961

La Batalla de Austerlitz

Actor
Movie
1960

The Subterraneans

Actor
Mardou Fox
Movie
1960

Battle of Austerlitz

Actor
Mlle de Vaudey
Movie
1960

The Man Who Understood Women

Actor
Ann Garantier
Movie
1959

GigiStream

Actor
Gigi
Movie
1958
88%

The Doctor's Dilemma

Actor
Mrs. Debudat
Movie
1958

Gaby

Actor
Gaby
Movie
1956

Daddy Long Legs

Actor
Julie Andre
Movie
1955

The Glass SlipperStream

Actor
Ella
Movie
1955

The Story of Three Loves

Actor
Mademoiselle
Movie
1953

LiliStream

Actor
Lili Daurier
Movie
1953
100%

Glory Alley

Actor
Angela Evans
Movie
1952

An American in ParisStream

Actor
Lise Bouvier
Movie
1951
95%

The Man With a Cloak

Actor
Madeline Minot
Movie
1951