Oscar Profile #271: Leslie Caron

Born July 1, 1931 in Boulogne-sur-Seine, France, the daughter of a Franco-American dancer and a French chemist, Leslie Caron was groomed by her mother to be a ballet dancer from childhood. She was discovered by Gene Kelly in the Roland Petit Company “Ballet des Champs Elysées” who cast her as his co-star in An American in Paris which won the Oscar as Best Picture and 1951 and led to an MGM contract.

Caron was married to American composer Geordie Hormel, grandson of George Hormel, the founder of the Hormel meat packing plant, from 1951 to 1956 during which she starred in the films, Man With a Cloak, The Story of Three Loves, Lili for which she received her first Oscar nomination, The Glass Slipper and Daddy Long Legs in which she became one of a handful of actresses to have danced on screen with both Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

Caron was married to British stage and film director Peter Hall, with whom she had two children, from 1956 to 1965. It was during this period that she achieved her greatest success as an actress in such films as Gigi (which won the Oscar as Best Picture of 1958), The Doctor’s Dilemma, Fanny (which was a 1961 Oscar nominee for Best Picture), Guns of Darkness, The L-Shaped Room (her second Oscar nomination), Father Goose, A Very Special Favor and Promise Her Anything. Warren Beatty, her co-star in the latter, was named as co-respondent in her divorce from Hall and ordered to pay court costs by the London court.

After the resounding flop of 1966’s all-star cast Is Paris Burning? in which she had a prominent role, Caron’s roles diminished in importance. Married to producer Michael Loughlin from 1969 to 1980, the actress played mostly cameos during this period, albeit in such major works as the 1974 TV mini-series QB VII and the films The Man Who Loved Women and Valentino.

Although she continued to act in films and on TV, she did nothing of further consequence until 1992’s Damage, after which she became the owner and operator of a French hotel and restaurant in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne called Auberge La Lucacarne aux Choulettes (The Owl’s Nest) from 1993 to 2009. During this period her career had a resurgence in which she appeared to good effect in such films as Funny Bones, Chocolat (earning a Screen Actors Guild nomination as part of the film’s ensemble) and Le Divorce. In 2007 she was awarded an Emmy for a guest appearance on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

Still very active as she approaches her 85th birthday later this year, Leslie Caron can be seen in the British TV series, The Durrells which is co-produced by her son Christopher Hall who has had a prolific career on British TV since the 1980s, first as an assistant director and then as a producer.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

Lili (1953), directed by Charles Walters

Nominated for six Academy Awards and winner of one (for Bronislau Kaper’s score), this Gallic charmer for which Caron was herself nominated as the naïve French waif who believes carnival puppets are real, was a worldwide hit. It later spawned the 1961 Broadway musical with Anna Marie Albergehetti, Jerry Orbach, James Mitchell and Kaye Ballard in the roles originated here by Caron, Mel Ferrer, Jean-Pierre Aumont and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Oddly not nominated was the film’s hit song, “Hi Lili-Hi Lo” sung by Caron and Ferrer. Caron lost the Oscar to Ferrer’s wife, Audrey Hepburn.

Gigi (1958), directed by Vincente Minnelli

One of the rare films to be nominated for a large number of Oscars and win them all – nine of them – Gigi was Lerner & Lowe’s gift to the movie musical while Hollywood awaited the release of the rights to their stage phenomenon, My Fair Lady. None of the nominations were, however, for any of the film’s actors, although Maurice Chevalier was awarded a special career Oscar at the awards presentation. Caron, Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and Hermione Gingold were all nominated for Golden Globes and Gingold won, which made their lack of Oscar recognition all the more puzzling.

Fanny (1961), directed by Joshua Logan

Another impressive list of Oscar nominations – five including Best Picture – another lack of nominations for Caron and Chevalier. This was despite both having received Golden Globe nominations for their sterling performances. Co-star Charles Boyer, who was not given a Golden Globe nomination, was the only performer to be nominated by the Academy. The film was based on Harold Rome’s Broadway musical condensation of Marvel Pagnol’s 1930s French film trilogy, Marius, Fanny and Cesar for which Rome oddly received a Golden Globe nod for “original score”.

The L-Shaped Room (1963), directed by Bryan Forbes

Caron was a revelation playing an unmarried pregnant French woman in London, having an affair with a struggling writer (Tom Bell) while staying at a seedy boarding house in which the tenants include a black musician (Brock Peters) and a retired music hall performer (Cicely Courtneidge). All the performances are extraordinary with Caron coming in second in the New York Film Critics Circle voting behind Patricia Neal in Hud and winning both a Golden Globe for Best Actress – Drama and a BAFTA for Best British Actress as well as her second Oscar nod for Best Actress.

Chocolat (2000), directed by Lasse Hallstrom

Hallstrom’s film is a lighter than air confection about a chocolate shop in a small French village that shakes up the local community. The best thing about it are the performances of Juliette Binchoche, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench and Lena Olin, Alfred Molina, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugh O’Conor, Peter Stormare, John Wood and Caron, all of whom shared in the Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Ensemble. Binoche, Dench and Olin received BAFTA nominations Binoche and Dench receiving Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Oscar nominations. Dench won the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Supporting Actress.