Leslie Caron
Birth : 1931-07-01, Boulogne-Billancourt, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France
History
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron (born 1 July 1931) is a French-American actress, dancer and writer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards.
Caron started her career as a ballerina. She made her film debut in the musical An American in Paris (1951), followed by roles in The Man with a Cloak (1951), Glory Alley (1952) and The Story of Three Loves (1953), before receving critical acclaim for her role as an orphan in Lili (also 1953), which earned her the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress and garnered nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
As a leading lady, Caron went on to star in films such as The Glass Slipper, Daddy Long Legs (both 1955), Gigi (1958), Fanny (1961), both of which earned her Golden Globe nominations, Guns of Darkness (1962), The L-Shaped Room (both 1962), Father Goose (1964) and A Very Special Favor (1965). For her role of a single pregnant woman in The L-Shaped Room, Caron, in addition to receiving a second Academy Award nomination, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and a second BAFTA Award.
Caron's other roles include Is Paris Burning? (1966), That's Entertainment! (1974), The Man Who Loved Women, Valentino (both 1977), Damage (1992), Funny Bones (1995), Chocolat (2000) and Le Divorce (2003). In 2007, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her performance of a child molestation victim in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
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The Ghost of Christmas Past (voice)
The radical new take on Dickens’ classic seeks both to exhume the original story’s gritty commentary on social inequality and the corrupting influence of greed, and to breathe new life into the lyricism of the original text by setting its scenes to extraordinary tableaux of modern dance.
Pauline
A choreographer must face an unresolved romantic encounter from her past as she creates a new dance work.
Self
A documentary about Academy Award-winning costume designer Cecil Beaton. A respected photographer, artist, and set designer, Beaton was best known for designing on award-winning films such as 'Gigi' (1958) and 'My Fair Lady' (1964). The film features archive footage and interviews with a number of models, artists, and filmmakers who worked closely with Beaton during his illustrious career.
Self - Interviewee
The fascinating story of a man destined to be only a son of and who sought all his life to become "someone" by getting rid of the overwhelming image of his genius as a father, the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Marguerite
One night, a little boy is forced to spend the evening at his grandmother's, an eighty-year-old stage actress. He is bored. She doesn't want to play with him but she asks him to rehearse with her. Her premiere is the next day and she can't remember her lines.
Herself
Leslie Caron, beloved star of Gigi and An American in Paris, is one of the last witnesses to the golden age of American cinema of the mid 20th century. Discovered by Gene Kelly when she was a teenager, she became one of the great talents in the worlds of film, dance, and theatre, still performing to this day! The film reveals a story told through the prism of a living legend who reveals secrets of her work and life- a world of contradictions, ambitions and dreams, lived by one of its most luminous personalities.
Self (archive footage)
Fanny (archive footage)
In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.
Herself
The history of Hollywood musical movies, from the very beginning until the 21st century, hosted by Shirley Jones.
This recently produced behind-the-scenes documentary digs into Gershwin's original work, the genesis of the cinematic adaptation, casting, the shoot, and the eventual reception of the film.
Herself
Documentary on the making of Gigi
Suzanne de Persand
While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.
Self
American Masters Series. Documentary on Gene Kelly that gives insight into his dancing, how he formed a style (first "blue collar dancer") and developed different cinematique techniques, such as brilliantly shot dancing sequences.
Herself
From Czarist Russia's Moscow Art Theatre to Hollywood's biggest film, narrator Gregory Peck joins an A-list of Hollywood stars to take us through the odyssey of two Russian born Hollywood legends: The great acting teacher Michael Chekhov and the amazing director George Shdanoff.
Miss Alvaeado
Agatha Christie's classic whodunit speeds into the twenty-first century. World-famous sleuth Hercule Poirot has just finished a case in Istanbul and is returning home to London onboard the luxurious Orient Express. But, the train comes to a sudden halt when a rock slide blocks the tracks ahead. And all the thrills of riding the famous train come to a halt when a man discovered dead in his compartment, stabbed nine times. The train is stranded. No one has gotten on or gotten off. That can only mean one thing: the killer is onboard, and it is up to Hercule Poirot to find him. [from imdb.com]
Mrs. Audel
A mother and daughter move to a small French town where they open a chocolate shop. The town, religious and morally strict, is against them, as they represent free-thinking and indulgence. When a group of Boat Gypsies float down the river, the prejudice of the Mayor leads to a crisis.
Madeleine
After Elizabeth's husband dies, she begins to play her tenor saxophone again, and remembers when she was 15 and a member of the Blonde Bombshells, an all-girl (with one exception) swing band. Accompanied by the exception and urged on by her grand-daughter, Elizabeth hunts up all the old members of the band and urges them to perform, and in doing so, learns more than she knew about the band, its members, the roses on the drum set, and herself--the last of the Blonde Bombshells.
Set in early 1900s France, a widow renews a former romantic interest until it is discovered that he has had a past fling with one of her new employees, a nanny. This sets the two women into many well-mannered accusations and conversations, but no modern brawling, and puts him in the middle or possibly on the outside.
Madame de Saint Marne
During WW II, a young German woman is separated from her family and imprisoned by the Nazis. After being freed she falls in love with and marries a German officer. When Berlin falls to the Russians, and her husband killed, she flees to America, carrying his unborn child, all the while not giving up hope that she will find her family, tied together by her mother's ring.
Marguerite
Right after getting engaged, a man starts taking dance lessons.
Katie Parker
Tommy Fawkes wants to be a successful comedian. After his Las Vegas debut is a failure, he returns to Blackpool where his father—also a comedian—started, and where he spent the summers of his childhood.
(archive footage)
Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.
Mary-Louise Osmont (voice)
Documentary on the World War II invasion of Normandy by the Allies on June 6, 1944 utilizing diaries, personal letters, home movies, snapshots, period music and vintage radio broadcasts and newsreels.
Elizabeth Prideaux
The life of a respected British politician at the height of his career crumbles when he becomes obsessed with his son's lover.
Madame Yvonne
Patagonia, Argentina, 1880s. During the Conquest of the Desert, Marguerite, the French wife of Colonel Garay, in charge of protecting a new railway, discovers that a French woman is being held captive by the local natives.
Nedeshda Krupskaja
March/April 1917. The first world war is already a couple year to pace. A sealed train with Russian emigrants keeps on driving from Zürich Germany and Sweden to Sint-Petersburg. The outlaws stand under the guidance of Vladimir J. Lenin. Two senior officers support the revolutionary bomb "to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Yet there are some unpleasant clashes between Socialists and enthusiastic workers who are worried about the war. During train travel there comes an end to Lenin's affair with the gracious Inessa, and his wife Nadja is prepared take back him. The triumphant entrance in St. Petersburg will exceed all expectations....
Jane Hilary
At the beginning of World War I, a young Swiss girl is sent off to boarding school.
Coco Chanel
In this drama, an American art student is trapped amidst the political turmoil of war-torn Europe while visiting Paris and staying at the fabulous Ritz hotel. Rather than cope constructively with it all, the fellow opts to ignore it and continue living the high-life for as long as possible.
Self
Documentary - Cary Grant was the very essence of a movie star: a man every woman loved and every man wanted to be. His deft comic style merged easily with his strength as a romantic leading man. But the suave exterior concealed a complex and often sensitive individual. Cary's painful journey from his lonely working-class beginnings to the peak of Hollywood royalty is made vivid through family photos, archival footage, clips from many of his films -- including his first starring role in SHE DONE HIM WRONG, following his discovery by blonde bombshell Mae West. Among friends and colleagues interviewed on-screen are Leslie Caron, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Deborah Kerr, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Bellamy, Stanley Donen, Richard Brooks and Stanley Kramer. Narrated by Richard Kiley. - Ralph Bellamy, Richard Brooks, Michael Caine
Nicole (archive footage)
Evil spirits that emerge from cans of old movie film terrorize a neighborhood.
Henia Liebskind
World Chess Champion Akiva Liebskind (Michel Piccoli) faces his former pupil Pavius Fromm (Alexandre Arbatt), who defected to the West from the Soviet Union five years earlier, for the World Chess Championship in Geneva, Switzerland. The tension and strategies between the players draw parallels to the political conflicts and ideologies between East and West during the Cold War.
Mother
Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi once more explores the dilemma of intellectualism at the expense of humanity in 1982's Imperative. The story concerns math professor Robert Powell, who feels that there is something lacking in his ever-so-precise life. What is missing is truth, specifically philosophical truth. Thus he philosophizes at great length, allowing director Zanussi plenty of room for didactic but little room for warmth. Leading ladies Brigette Fossey and Leslie Caron occasionally melt through the cold logic of Imperative.
Penelopa Wilson, bratowa Adama, matka Patrycji
Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an "arranged" ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the bride balks. Only slightly nonplused, the groom's father, a status-seeking doctor, decides to go ahead with the expensive reception anyway. Polish director Krzysz Zanussi uses this scenario to stick it to capitalist corruption, and to society's destruction of the individual spirit. Leslie Caron, the one recognizable member of the cast, is outstanding as a wealthy, over-the-hill ballerina who happens to be a kleptomaniac.
Lucille Berger
Three music students decide to create a science-fiction musical.
Dr. Sammy Lee
A neo-Nazi Doctor tries to make a superwoman of his daughter who has been specially fed, exercised & Conditioned since she was a child to run in the Olympics.
Nicole
Nicole is a beautiful, rich and neurotic woman who lives in a mansion alone with her maids and chauffeur. But without someone to really account to, Nicole begins to spin out of control. Her decadent and lustful life leads to murder, despair and, ultimately, mournful regret in this cautionary tale for the idle rich who have too much money and time.
Alla Nazimova
In 1926 the tragic and untimely death of a silent screen actor caused female moviegoers to riot in the streets and in some cases to commit suicide...
Véra
At Bertrand Morane's burial there are many of the women that the 40-year-old engineer loved. In flashback Bertrand's life and love affairs are told by himself while writing an autobiographical novel.
Céleste
An English novelist is lured, with disconcerting and disorienting results, into purchasing a crumbling mansion by what he imagines are the deliberately "literary" ploys of its housekeeper and two mysterious, lurking women.
(archive footage)
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
Herself
Stacy Keach narrates this documentary that chronicles the abbreviated life and career of iconic brooding bad boy James Dean, from his obscure early days working in television to his rise to stardom in films such as Rebel Without a Cause. Clips from Dean's movies are intermingled with candid interviews with the star's friends and Hollywood colleagues, including Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dennis Hopper.
(archive footage)
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.
Carola
Norman Lloyd directed this televised production of Jean Renoir's World War II-era play. Taking place backstage at a theatrical performance in Nazi-occupied France, Carola is a tale of passion and intrigue that involves a beautiful stage actress and her emotional and psychological struggles over a Nazi officer, whom she is entangled in an affair with, and a Resistance leader whom she is hiding. Featuring Leslie Caron as Carola, the play also stars Mel Ferrer, Albert Paulsen, Michael Sacks, Carmen Zapata, and Anthony Zerbe.
Self (archive footage)
Katherine Creighton
A private eye is hired to follow a mobster's former mistress.
Sister Mary
A nun, the only survivor of an Indian massacre of a wagon train, is taken in by a cantankerous old gunfighter.
Paola
A man is delighted to hear that his wife is pregnant and he begins to prepare for the wonders of fatherhood. As time progresses along, the family grows larger with each successive child and the father feels his importance in the family has been lessened with all the children. This man's quiet desperation to hold onto his position is an interesting lesson in the family dynamic and how everyone is an important part of the whole.
Françoise Labé
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.
Michele O'Brien
A widowed mother decides to go after the child psychologist she works for because she thinks he'll be able to provide for her toddler, the catch is her employer doesn't know about her son and he doesn't particularly care for children despite his profession.
Dr. Lauren Boullard
The long-lost father of a frigid, uptight Freudian psychologist contracts a wealthy American playboy who owes him a favor to woo his daughter.
Catherine Freneau
During World War II, South Sea beachcomber Walter Eckland is persuaded to spy on planes passing over his island. He gets more than he bargained for as schoolteacher Catherine Frenau arrives on the run from the Japanese with her pupils in tow!
Annie (segment "Les deux pigeons")
"Les quatre vérités" aka "The Four Truths" is a movie anthology that consists of four segments, all loosely parodying fables from the 17th-century French poet Jean de la Fontaine. The US cut usually features only 3 segments.
Jane Fosset
Jane is young, French, pregnant and unmarried. Bucking convention, she is uninterested in settling with her baby's father or getting an abortion. After renting a room in a dingy London boarding house, Jane befriends the odd group of inhabitants and starts an affair with one boarder, Toby. As Jane's pregnancy threatens her new relationship, and the reality of single motherhood approaches, she is forced to decide what to do about both her baby and her budding romance.
Claire Jordan
Committed pacifist Tom Jordan's decision to help former President Rivera escape a military coup is a simple act of mercy that takes him and his wife to the edge of despair. It turns them into outlaws and fugitives, hunted by a vicious regime; yet it could also bring them together in a way they have never been before.
Fanny
Almost 19-year-old Marius feels himself in a rut in Marseille, his life planned for him by his cafe'-owning father, and he longs for the sea. The night before he is to leave on a 5-year voyage, Fanny, a girl he grew up with, reveals that she is in love with him, and he discovers that he is in love with her. He must choose between an exciting life at sea, and a boring life with the woman he loves. And Fanny must choose between keeping the man she loves, and letting him live the life he seems to want.
Mardou Fox
A disillusioned writer explores the subterranean depths of San Francisco's North Beach district.
Mlle de Vaudey
Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.
Ann Garantier
A film director turns his actress wife into a star, leading to marital problems.
Mrs. Dubedat
Four doctors face a serious dilemma when the beautiful wife of a TB-stricken artist begs one of them to cure her brilliant, but amoral, husband.
Gilberte "Gigi"
A home, a motorcar, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor in Paris offers them all to Gigi. But she, who's gone from girlish gawkishness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can't buy.
Gaby
A ballerina resorts to prostitution when her fiance is reported killed in World War II.
Julie Andre
Wealthy American, Jervis Pendleton has a chance encounter at a French orphanage with a cheerful 18-year-old residen, and anonymously pays for her education at a New England college. She writes letters to her mysterious benefactor regularly, but he never writes back. Several years later, he visits her at school, while still concealing his identity, and—despite their large age difference—they soon fall in love.
Ella
Musical adaptation of the story of Cinderella and her magical trip to the prince's ball.
Mademoiselle
Passengers on an ocean liner recall their greatest loves.
Lili Daurier
Members of a circus troupe "adopt" Lili Daurier when she finds herself stranded in a strange town. The magician who first comes to her rescue already has romantic entanglements and thinks of her as a little girl. Who can she turn to but the puppets, singing to them her troubles, forgetting that there are puppeteers? A crowd gathers around Lili as she sings. The circus has a new act. She now has a job. Will she get her heart's desire?
Angela
A New Orleans boxer backs out of a bout and leaves his girlfriend for Korea.
Herself
Short subject anti-communist 'documentary' in which foreign-born movie stars such as Leslie Caron and Ricardo Montalban urge the audience (in their native tongues, subtitled) to write letters home speaking of how wonderful life in the United States is.
Madeline Minot
Set in 19th-century New York, this mystery begins when a Frenchwoman shows up at the home of one of Napoleon's former marshals. The alcoholic man is badly crippled and slowly dying, but this doesn't stop the forthright lady from pushing him to change his will to include his estranged grandson so that he can help out the struggling French Republic. Unfortunately, the dying man's conniving housekeeper and butler, already planning murder to get the money themselves, overhear her and begin plotting her demise.
Lise Bouvier
Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
