Leslie Caron

Another gorgeous shot of her in her "Gigi" dress and makeup.

Loved The Glass Slipper when I was little. They used to show it on TV about once a year back when. As I grew older I've always liked catching anything LC has been attached to.

I have no interest in this woman.

She was a pigmy of five-foot-nothing in height with a simian mouth (ie she had the mouth of a monkey).

This woman got to appear in 'Gigi' with the handsome but dreary Jourdan because Audrey Hepburn was unavailable (and Dirk Bogarde's contract owner (J. Arthur Rank) wouldn't allow it).

The only thing of interest I can think of is that she married that equally-short, aggressive, motor-mouthed, Englishman of the theatre named Peter Hall.

I’ve always found her charming and enjoyed her movies. Gigi is a favorite (except for the bad dubbing). An American in Paris however was a movie even she couldn’t save; Gene Kelly came off as such a narcissistic asshole.

My best work of 'ollywood is on ze floor!

She is a very good dramatic actress, in fact. she was great in a lesser known musical with fellow french star Jean Pierre aumont, and mel ferrer, I think, 'lily' was the title. Musicals are generally unbelievably cheesy, this one is watchable. She was also very good as Juliette Binoche's mother in fatale. She never had any kind of support from the french film industry, like many well know performers who succeeeded mostly in America and therefore are punished here. Anabella, Aumont, Jourdan, Simone Simon, Corinne Calvet etc. De speaking of Anabella, I discovered recently that her scortching hot husband, impossibly beautiful superstar Tyrone Power didn't even bother to hide his affair with sex hunk Cesar Romero, but I couldn't find the juicy details of Romero's memoirs anywhere . Links ?

Ty Power and Cary Grant... No further comment needed

And what's going on here ????

The look on Lana's face!

I mean! Lana never saw more explicit firecrotch look

I can't even bear to look at that picture honestly it's too much

She is absolutely fascinating to watch, even though she didn't fit the stereotypical look of the time. Whenever she's on screen, I can't take my eyes off her. Tons of charisma without being a great beauty. Definitely a great dancer, though. I wish she could have found more and better quality vehicles than she was given.

She gave me the creeps, in creepy musicals.

I thought she was dead.

She's not much of a singer but she's one of the very few old dears to have played this part you can imagine being a high class tart in their day ( can't imagine Stritch needing to climb those stairs ).

Loved her on that SVU episode.

I met her 37 years ago in St. Croix, USVI, when she was there to contest her father's will. Her parents had owned a store in St. Thomas. After her mother died, her father began hanging around a married couple to whom he left all his money. After he died, Leslie and her brother claimed that he had changed his will under duress and the couple had swindled him out of money. When I left two years later the judge still hadn't decided the case.

She was absolutely lovely in person. Quite charming, approachable, and very friendly.

What are you even talking about R17? Her father was a french man who was notoriously publicly dishonoured by the french government for collaboration with the nazis during WWII.

I know exactly what I'm talking about, R18. Whatever her father might have done during WWII notwithstanding, her parents moved to the Virgin Islands and owned a store in Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas. Her father was a chemist and the shop sold mostly perfumes and cosmetics, if I recall. The store was called C&M Caron (his name was Claude and her name was Margaret). Look it up. It has now been closed for years.

How did that case end up?

Ok R17. Makes sense that he fled France. But that was not leslie's mother, that madame Caron. I am pretty sure I watched an interview where she explains the ' dishonoured ' thing, and she was still very ashamed, and I think he abandonned her and her mother on top of it

She looked better in Gigi because they fixed her hideous buck teeth and grew out her spastic pixie cut.

She was a good friend of Sharon Tate, and kept urging Sharon to start locking the front door of her house because anybody could walk in.

She was very beautiful with longer hair in the 60's. There is this anecdote that someone mentioned to Nat Wood at a party how beautiful Leslie looked, and Nat sighed and said'I know, it's Warren '. Lol

Watch the L-Shaped Room. She was a good dramatic actress. I believe that she was nominated for an Oscar for L-Shaped Room.

We didn't have many internationally successful stars, and I am a bit sad that she is completely ignored in her own country. When you see the fuss they make over unbelievably cheesy french pop stars, who honestly wouldn't make it in Vegas as Prestley's impersonators ( yes Jean Philippe Smet, I am looking at you) it's sad that this lovely talented lady is forgotten

[quote] How did that case end up?

I don't know. It was March 1981 (I remember because Reagan was shot on one of the days of the trial). I was a clerk to one of the other judges on the court at the time. My judge agreed to let me sit in on this will contest. When I left the Virgin Islands 18 months later, Judge Petersen still hadn't decided the case. And, I never found out how she ruled.

I don't know how estranged they were, R21. She took her father to the 1964 Academy Awards when she was nominated for The L-Shaped Room. But, my recollection from the testimony of the couple who inherited his estate was that Leslie and her brother rarely visited or communicated with their dad in his last years of life. Of course, it was in their interests to say that.

Didn't she own a hotel in Corsica, were she was living?

[quote] sex hunk Cesar Romero

Charming, suave, and good looking, OK. But "sex hunk"? No.

My first trip to Paris in the 1990s and I was sitting my first morning at a lovely and typical outdoor cafe on the Champs-Elysees having an espresso and croissant and who strolled by?

Leslie Caron, wearing an elegant long woolen cape with a matching scarf. It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city.

Are you the one who posted the exact same story with Catherine Deneuve ?

Lol! Busted!

Caron has a uniquely engaging stage presence. I saw her in Berlin’s production of Grand Hotel, a revival of A Little Night Music in Paris and Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks at the Laguna Playhouse. Her personal charm carried the otherwise lackluster productions.

My first trip to Paris in the 1970s and I was sitting my first morning at a lovely and typical outdoor cafe on the Champs-Elysees having an espresso and croissant and who strolled by?

Brigitte Bardot, wearing an elegant sleeveless cloak with a matching cravat. It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city.

R34--so where was Caron? Was she in the bushes with a machete waiting to take out Bardot?

My first trip to Paris was in 1793. I was sitting, my first morning, at a dreary beheading in Place de la Concorde, having stale cake crumbs and tepid water, and who strolled by?

Madonna Louise Ciccone, on her twenty-seventh farewell world tour, wearing a reeking g-string, with a matching raggedy hair bow! It couldn’t have been a more appropriate welcome to any city!

I prefer her to the always annoyingly twee and mannered Audrey Hepburn.

She has a supporting role on the British drama "The Durrells". She's in Season 1 more than Season 2.

Leslie Caron's mother was an American. Although LC is French-American, she really doesn't have any American traits - she was brought up in Paris and is totally French.

My first trip to Paris in the late 1980s and I was sitting my first morning at a lovely and typical outdoor cafe, under greenery like scenery, Rue Francois Premier. I was breakfasting on croissants and cafe au lait and who strolled by?

Ines de la Fressange, topless, as she was fresh from a modeling session for the latest iteration of the Marianne sculpture. It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city.

Hey, bitches!!

My Leslie Caron story is true. And I never saw Catherine Deneuve....did someone post a similar story about her here?

Maybe, R41, but your story has now entered into Datalounge meme fame.

My mother was a seamstress in the 1950s for Broadway costume designer, Richard Whorf. Valentina's gown for Audrey Hepburn's costume in Ondine arrived late, and needed minor, last minute alteration. Since contract considerations precluded Whorf's staff from officially making any change to Valentina's design, Hepburn personally brought the gown to our apartment for my mother to discreetly take in. They didn't become extremely close, but remained friendly. I was briefly introduced to her by my mother in 1964 or '65, while Hepburn was working on Wait Until Dark. Since she was typically circumspect about her private life, she had come by to unburden herself about her failing marriage to Mel Ferrer, to someone whose discretion she'd come to trust, My mother had also known him slightly, having tailored his costumes during Ondine's run. After my mother died in 1976. Hepburn sent a beautiful letter of condolence to my father and our family.

Although my personal acquaintance with her was very slight, R37, I'm pretty sure "annoyingly twee and mannered" were not how my mother would have described Ms. Hepburn.

[quote] she had come by to unburden herself about her failing marriage to Mel Ferrer, to someone whose discretion she'd come to trust

And now you post it all over a public forum.

r43, get a grip.

This is quickly becoming the cuntiest,bitchiest and queeniest thread in the history of the DL. And all thanks goes to Gigi of all people.......

When Hepburn and Ferrer divorce in 1968, the circumstances leading up to it had become public knowledge. It wasn't mentioned to me until years later, and even then my mother gave very few details about their conversation, other than it happened and its topic. So, yes, R44, fifty years later, I don't see the harm in "post{ing} it all over a public forum".

What "grip" are you suggesting, R45? Would you prefer I be silent about an assault on the character of a kind and lovely, deceased lady?

I used to clean a house that Audrey Hepburn once used. Although I will always remain a big fan, I am afraid that I have to admit, she was annoyingly twee and mannered.

[quote] Would you prefer I be silent about an assault on the character of a kind and lovely, deceased lady?

[italic]Mary![/italic]

Spoken like a true housemaid, R48.

She performed quite a turn as Alla Nazimove in the movie "Valentino"

That pixie-do was not flattering.

Precisely what is your agenda, R49?

The fact that Audrey Hepburn wrote a very nice condolence letter to your father doesn't mean that somehow other posters are forbidden from disliking her onscreen persona, r48. The two things have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

But I suspect you knew that, and are just enjoying venting your prissy Julia Sugarbaker rants too much to care.

Sorry, I meant r47, not r48.

Felicity Jones reminds me a lot of her.

I recommend strongly if you love musicals to watch the little known SlueFoot from Daddy Long Legs on youtube.

She, Astaire and the whole number are absolutely sensational. Even the chorus dancers could dance back then. I don't know what the hell they're doing today.

She had that haircut because she didn't want to look like a poodle, as did the stars of the day. The 50's 'do' made even the most beautiful actresses look like... well poodles. But that was also unflattering on her. Very few women can actually do the pixie successfully.

My first trip to Paris in the 1980s and I was sitting my first afternoon at Le Fouquet's on the Champs-Elysees having an espresso and croissant and who strolled in? Empress Farah Pahlavi, Princess Lee Radziwill, and Jacqueline, comtesse de Ribes, the latter wearing an elegant long woolen cape with a matching scarf. Their chaperone was a young Thierry Mugler. It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city.

Who all did she sleep with?

Many.

These "who strolled in...." scenarios are hilarious.

Most notoriously, Warren Beatty in the early 1960’s, R60. Oh la la.

Leslie in Valentino.....

Who wore it first?

I believe before Leslie co-opted that pixie cut, it originated with legendary Broadway hoyden Carol Haney, appearing in The Pajama Game. Of course, I rode that hairdo and her career to Hollywood in Artists and Models and The Trouble with Harry and was copied by young tomboys and future dikes all over America

Everything Leslie did I had done before... Better

I think Audrey may have had the pixie before any of them.

Oh really daahling ?

No, Viv, dear! You have to show full-on ears for it to be called a Pixie.

Same for you, Nat, and you didn't wear that version until 1957.

Sidney! I thought you were my friend !

Fuck off, R45. What a lovely anecdote, R43. It's just the kind of thing for which DL used to be known.

My best friend was classmate with Luca Dotti in the 80's in Rome, at the lycee Chateaubriand. His parents were stationed at the french embassy

I used to love her in The Glass Slipper. She had that angry looking pixie cut and, as a kid, I thought that was such an interesting take on Cinderella. You can understand why everyone turned their heads to look at her in the ball scene - she really did stand out.

Honestly, I remember finding the film a little creepy thanks to bug-eyed Estelle Winwood as the "fairy godmother" and the daydream ballet sequences which are staged atop a huge throne, a bizarre kitchen/wedding cake, and a dark and spooky abyss surrounded by people in ghoul makeup. If those had been cut, it'd be a fun little romp, but those 3 sequences throw the film into bizarro world, which I love.

I agree, r71

I was sitting in a café with a friend on the Champs Elysees when the Nazi soldiers were marching into Paris and the Nazi tanks were rolling in front of the Arc De Triumphe.

I immediate left my espresso and brioche and hurried to the south of France where I joined the resistance while my friend became the mistress of a Vichy official.

It was all so very French.

Not unlike Caron, Audrey Hepburn could carry off a pixie haircut for similar reasons to why she wore dramatically short or up style hair, rarely, if ever, a collar, lower cut than usual dresses and flat soled shoes. In an era when stars were petite, curvaceous and blandly pretty, Audrey had a big nose and ears, too long and thin a neck, no tits and gigantic feet. She was a savvy dresser. By calling attention to her flaws, she directed the attention away from them.

Is that when you started baking your infamous pot cookies, Alice R75 Toklas?

As Billy Wilder famously said of Audrey Hepburn when she first came on the scene:

"She's gonna make bazooms a thing of the past!"

This thread is about ME. Not about Audrey Fucking Hepburn!!!

Leslie R79! You took all those jobs that Audrey rejected.

Wasn't/isn't she very right wing?

Aw c'mon Les, at r79. Ya both had that gamine thingy goin' on.

R81 That may be because she's sensible and doesn't follow fads.

Or it could be because she's an uptight cunt R83

I can't work out the chronology.

It seems both Hepburn AND Caron played 'Gigi' on stage. But Hepburn getting the Oscar in '54 made her the second-most-desirable female property in Hollywood after Monroe.

So Hepburn turned down the role.

'Gigi' was a beautiful looking movie, but the songs and actors were weak and the story was just grubby. It's all about training a girl to be a whore. Very grubby!

Yes see my comment at R13. There was always something disturbing about Leslie Caron.

Leslie always creeped me out. I am not sure why. Maybe because she seemed to be type cast in demi-monde roles. Where, with the exception of "Gigi", she is a plucky survivor either rising above her fish wife living on a barge future or learning to accept her fish wife living on a barge future.

A whore and a mistress are two very different things you dumb cluck.

Not if you're trained to be one and it's the "family profession," R88. You can call her a courtesan, but she's a young girl being tutored in how to live to please men and is due to be assigned to one in particular. That's not a mistress, and her grandma is a romanticized pimp.

And Leslie Caron always gave me the creeps a little, too. Both she and Juliet Prowse had those gigantic ape mouths.

I was sitting in a café with a friend on the Champs Elysees when Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin and Judy Garland strolled by. It seems they never died, but left the US because they were tired of fame. Apparently, they formed a trio and sing in a basement French cafe.

Literature is filled with whores/courtesans/demimondes.

the title character in Defoe's Moll Flanders

Nancy in Dickens's Oliver Twist

Fantine in Hugo's Les Miserables

Marguerite Gautier in Dumas's La Dame aux camellias (Camille/La Traviata)

Sonya in Dostoevski's "Crime and Punishment"

the title character in Zola's Nana

the title character in Maupassant's "Boule de Suif"

the title character in Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

the title character in Dresier's Sister Carrie

Léa in Colette's Cheri

Odette de Crécy and Charles Morel in Proust's In Search of Lost Time

Lorelei Lee in Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Sally Bowles in Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin (Cabaret)

Practically every major female character in every Jean Rhys novel

Tralala in Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn

The list is endless.

r86, if you are so delicate you cannot bear to read of or watch "grubby" prostitutes and demimondaines, I suggest you try reading only novels by Doctor Seuss and watching only films by Kirk Cameron.

Here's some chronology, r85:

:Audrey Hepburn debuted in the stage (non-musical) play of Gigi in 1951 in London and brought it to Broadway the following year. In 1954 she won an Oscar for her first starring role in Roman Holiday.

By the time Gigi was made into a musical film by MGM in 1958, Hepburn had already starred in too many hit films, playing roles older and more sophisticated than the naive teenaged Gigi. Did MGM really offer her the role? Maybe way back in 1954 if the film was in development that early but, otherwise, I find it hard to believe.

And Leslie was hardly a nobody. She had already starred in 3 of MGM's biggest musical hits of the 1950s: Lili, Daddy Long Legs and An American in Paris. And she was French, as were the film's other leads Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Isabel Jeans and Jacques Bergerac.

Melania Trump ^^

Isobel Jeans was was veddy English R93

Sorry, R94 was for R88.

R92, I think the reason there are so many whores in literature is because they are often portrayed as the only women who have agency over themselves. That is, the rules of society of their time don’t apply to them. They are like men, able to go where they want and do what they want.

So many male writers aren’t good at writing the inner thoughts of women, but prostitutes seem to be easier for a man to write, because in a way, prostitutes are the only women that the male writer can relate to.

My first day on Earth was in the year 0. I was sitting in the garden of Eden having an espresso and prune prune hamantaschen... and who strolled in? A snake bearing an apple!

"That would be simply marvelous in a strudel" I thought. So I killed the snake, made its skin into a cunning shoulder wrap, baked the apple into a fresh strudel, and went searching for the penised-person, hoping to enjoy it together after fucking!

It couldn't have been a more successful welcome to the planet!

[R83] Right wing is sensible? That's funny! I suppose that's why so many in Europe sighed with relief when the sensible Nazis Goose Stepped in their direction!

R90, you're right, she does look a lot like Juliet Prowse.

I was sitting in a cafe on the left bank with Leslie Caron, chatting about mutual friends. I didn't know her previously, but through our friends, she agreed to meet me for lunch. (He apartment was on the left bank, near the Musée D'Orsay, although she doesn't live there anymore).

(This is true, actually)

To the person who asked if she was right-wing, hardly. Perhaps you're thinking of Brigitte Bardot, who has become rabidly rightwing and homophobic in her old age. Leslie, by contrast, is and always has been a liberal. At the time, California had just elected Schwarzegger governor, and we were in the throes of the Dubya presidency. She found it incredible that we could have voted for either one.

I agree with R100, Leslie Caron is definitely a progressive. I knew several people who knew her well. She was also very supportive of the gay community.

R97 would you marry me ?

''But Hepburn getting the Oscar in '54 made her the second-most-desirable female property in Hollywood after Monroe ' Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha Hahahahahaha HahahahahahaHahahahahaha

R89 That's called a wife.

Holla, R104!

Actually, I would believe the claim that Audrey was the 2nd most sought after actress (after MM) in Hollywood over Elizabeth Taylor in 1954. Even Grace Kelly was a more sensational star than Liz that year.

In 1954 Liz was married to Michael Wilding and mostly just having babies. She was still tied to her MGM contract and her last films with them were over-bloated bores. It wasn't until she made Giant in 1956 that her star really began to soar, culminating with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Mike Todd's death in 1958 and Suddenly Last Summer and the Eddie/Debbie mess the following year that she became a superstar, worthy of competition with MM and Hepburn.

I did not read the entire thread so I don't know if anyone mentioned the movie "Fanny" . I thought is was very good. Caron co-starred with Maurice Chevalier as her much older husband.

I was sitting outside a small café in Dupont Circle, enjoying my coffee and prune Danish, but whom should stroll by....Melania Trump...NUDE . She was followed by a horde of fat women carrying Nazi Flags and WalMart shopping bags. It was followed by a teenage kid, with an AK-15 hailing bullets and slaughtering innocent bystanders. The next morning a group of Republican Fraus cradling coffee mugs,blaming Gays for the moral decline of the USA, gathered and offered to pray for everyone.

It was SOOOOO tres chic, and absolutely American !!!!!!

I'm so tired of scarves with my cape.

Oh. I just had a (hopefully NOT acid) flashback. Wasn't she supposed to do the On Your Toes tour but injured herself and wasn't able to?

My first trip to Paris in the 1950s and I was sitting my first morning at a lovely and typical outdoor cafe on the Champs-Elysees having an espresso and croissant and who strolled by?

Dear friends Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz wearing the most charming of avant-garde chic! It was their first trip City of Lights as well! As surprised as I, they joined me for conversation and to catch up on old times. It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city despite their constant scratching.

True story. I was a teenager in Paris in the 80' s. One late afternoon, as I was walking by the grand café at the corner of boulevard saint Michel and the Seine, who do I spot, alone in the desert venue ? None other than Anthony Perkins himself. He was sitted alone. The place was absolutely empty. He wore a black turtleneck. He was staring in the emptiness. There was something so SAD about him. He was grim. I was a big fan, joanna Pettet used to say that I looked like him. But I walked by.

My first trip to Paris was 1952 and I was sitting at a lovely and typical outdoor cafe my first morning on the Champs-Elysees having an espresso and croissant and who strolled by? Jean Cocteau and Michele Morgan.

He said extravagantly 'My dear, your cheekbones are two millimètre too wide and your nose is one millimètre too long'. 'But Jean, your nose is five centimètres too long'.

It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city.

My first trip to Paris was 1979. I was getting fucked in a back alley in the Marais when Simone Signoret and Jeanne Moreau walked by. They stopped to watch for a few minutes, then Jeanne said "Quel ennui" and they continued on their way to a bar down the street.

It couldn't have been a more appropriate welcome to the city.

R43 I enjoyed your anecdote about Richard Whorf.

I hope you will tell us more.

The story about Audrey Hepburn writing the condolence letter is very sweet and charming, and she comes across as a lovely person.

But I would agree that cannot invalidate someone saying that they dislike her usual film persona. Those are two completely different things. She may have been a lovely person, that can't mean that no one is ever to allowed to find her film persona mannered and artificial.

R90’s preference for a mouth:

If Audrey Hepburn were a twee, what type of twee would she be?

Another LC AH connection: after Audrey"s death and he was obliged to leave her homr, Audrey'gigilo Robert W did his best to attach himself to Miss Caron. It was all the talk in France. LC dated him a bit then gave him the boot and he allegedly went back to live with his mother.

R90, R117 Madam Caron's gigantic ape mouth got her the job in 'Valentino' R64 to match Nureyev's gigantic ape mouth.

Was Robert Wolders ever a successful actor? Before he attached himself to Merle Oberon and then Audrey?

He was very hot when younger, that's for sure.

" it was all the talk in France '. Honey, go out in the streets and ask 'who is Leslie Caron'.. Good luck

R122 Don't run out into this Paris street.

They hate woman who display their body in public.

Don't be silly, r122. He didn't say it was all the talk in France yesterday. Audrey Hepburn died 25 years ago. Caron's era of super-stardom was not so distant then as it is now.

That said, Caron was always a bigger star in the US and the UK. She didn't work in the French language till 1966, and most of her French-language films and TV shows have been done in the last twenty years, but there have been a lot of them.

Caron was NEVER a star in France. She is known, if at all, for 'an american in Paris ', by a few boomers.

She was a star in France - she was considered an American movie star. During her heyday of the 50s and 60s she had the same cachet there as any American star, and got good coverage for her Oscar nominations. But when her career waned over here, she didn't have the "movie legend" thing going on that she has here and the UK.

However, she's worked consistently in France for two decades, both in TV and film and onstage.