Profile
Leslie Caron est une actrice et danseuse franco-américaine, née le 1er juillet 1931 à Boulogne-Billancourt.
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). She received critical acclaim for her role of 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. 
Leslie Caron with Gene Kelly in An American in Paris, 1951
As a leading lady, Caron went on to star in films such as The Glass Slipper (1955), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Gigi (1958), Fanny (1961), both of which earned her Golden Globe nominations
For her role as a single pregnant woman in The L-Shaped Room, Caron won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and a second BAFTA Award, in addition to receiving a second Academy Award nomination. Biography
Leslie Caron as a child
Leslie Caron was born in Boulogne-sur-Seine, Seine (now Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine), the daughter of Margaret, a Franco-American dancer on Broadway, and Claude Caron, a French chemist, pharmacist, perfumer, and boutique owner. While her older brother Aimery Caron became a chemist like their father, Leslie was prepared for a performing career from childhood by her mother.
Caron started her career as a ballerina. Gene Kelly discovered her in the Roland Petit company Ballet des Champs Elysées and cast her to appear opposite him in the musical, An American in Paris (1951). This role led to a long-term MGM contract and a sequence of films which included the musical, The Glass Slipper (1955), and the drama, The Man with a Cloak (1951), with Joseph Cotten and Barbara Stanwyck.
Leslie Caron with her first husband George Hormel II
In September 1951, Caron married American George Hormel II, a grandson of the founder of the Hormel meat-packing company. During that period, while under contract to MGM, she lived in Laurel Canyon in a Normandie style 1927 mansion near the country store on Laurel Canyon Blvd. One bedroom was all mirrored for her dancing rehearsals.
She starred in the successful musicals Lili (1953), with Mel Ferrer for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Caron then starred in more musicals like Daddy Long Legs (1955), with Fred Astaire; and Gigi (1958) with Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier. 
Leslie Caron in Gigi (1958) with Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier.
Leslie Caron with her second husband Peter Hall
Caron and her first husband George Hormel II divorced in 1954. She married British theatre director Peter Hall in 1956 and had two children with him: Christopher John Hall (TV producer) in 1957 and Jennifer Caron Hall, a writer, painter, and actress, in 1958.
When she and Hall divorced in 1965, Warren Beatty(with whom Leslie Caron had been having an affair) was named as a co-respondent and was ordered by the London court to pay the costs of the case. 
For her performance in the British drama, The L-Shaped Room (1962), she won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress and the Golden Globe, and was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar.
In the 1960s and thereafter, Caron worked in European films as well. Her later film assignments included Father Goose (1964), with Cary Grant; Ken Russell's Valentino (1977), in the role of silent-screen legend Alla Nazimova; and Louis Malle's Damage (1992). In 1967, she was a member of the jury of the 5th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1969, Caron married Michael Laughlin, the producer of the film Two-Lane Blacktop; they divorced in 1980. 
Leslie Caron in 1964
In 1989, Caron was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival, after which she decided to move back to France after almost 40 years living as foreigner to make films in her own country.
From 1994 to 1995 she was romantically linked to Dutch television actor Robert Wolders(last life partner of Audrey Hepburn).
From June 1993 until September 2009, Caron owned and operated the hotel and restaurant, Auberge la Lucarne aux Chouettes (The Owls' Nest), in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, about 130 km (80 mi) south of Paris.
Leslie Caron is one of the few actresses from the classic era of MGM musicals who are still active in film: Her other later credits include Funny Bones (1995) with Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt; The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000); Chocolat (2000) and Le Divorce (2003), directed by James Ivory. On 30 June 2003, Caron traveled to San Francisco to appear as the special guest star in The Songs of Alan Jay Lerner: I Remember It Well, a retrospective concert staged by San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon Company. In 2007, her guest appearance on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit earned her a Primetime Emmy Award. 
On 27 April 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.
The same year, her long awaited memoir Thank Heaven was published. 
For her contributions to the film industry, Caron was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 8 December 2009 with a motion pictures star located at 6153 Hollywood Boulevard.
In February 2010, she played Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, which also featured Greta Scacchi and Lambert Wilson. Unhappy with the lack of work in France, Caron left for England in 2013. In 2016, Caron appeared in the ITV television series The Durrells as the Countess Mavrodaki.
Leslie Caron has been awarded the following honors by French and American government:
Biographie
Née de l'union d'un père français, Jean-Claude Caron, pharmacien, et d'une mère américaine, Margaret Petit, elle-même danseuse à Broadway et native de Seattle, Leslie Caron commence des études de danse classique à Paris à l’âge de 9 ans.
Entrée à 16 ans dans la troupe des ballets des Champs-Élysées de Roland Petit, elle tient, en 1948, le rôle du Sphinx dans le ballet de David Lichine La Rencontre, où elle est découverte par Gene Kelly qui est dans la salle et la choisit comme partenaire pour le film qu'il prépare avec Vincente Minnelli, Un Américain à Paris (1951). 
Ne parlant pas anglais et n'ayant jamais joué devant une caméra, elle trouve le tournage difficile. Il fallait entre autres danser sur un sol en ciment qui faisait mal aux jambes et aux hanches. Elle trouve en revanche Gene Kelly d'une précision mathématique avec l'imaginaire d'un enfant.
L’énorme succès public et critique d'Un Américain à Paris lui ouvre les portes de Hollywood. Elle décroche un contrat avec la Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), pour laquelle elle tourne notamment:
Leslie Caron in Gigi, 1958
Après une dernière grande production américaine, Fanny (1961), adaptation de la célèbre Trilogie marseillaise de Marcel Pagnol et de sa version musicale créée à Broadway en 1954, la comédienne apparaît dans quelques superproductions, comme Paris brûle-t-il ? (1966) de René Clément, mais surtout dans des films plus intimistes ou d'auteurs comme Jeux d'adultes (1967) de Nanni Loy, Sérail (1976) d'Eduardo de Gregorio, L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977) de François Truffaut ou bien encore La Diagonale du fou (1984) de Richard Dembo.
Coprésidente du jury de la Berlinale 1989, elle choisit de revenir s'installer en France après 40 ans passés à l'étranger afin de refaire du cinéma dans son pays d'origine mais reçoit peu de propositions. À l’affiche en 2001 dans Le Chocolat de Lasse Hallström aux côtés de Juliette Binoche, elle s'installe à Londres en janvier 2013. La même année, elle joue Suzanne de Persand dans Le Divorce de James Ivory, puis participe à Justice en accusation, un épisode écrit pour elle de la série télévisée américaine New York, unité spéciale, et qui lui permet de remporter l'Emmy de la meilleure actrice invitée dans une série dramatique en 2007.
Son étoile sur le Hollywood Walk of Fame est dévoilée le 8 décembre 2009 sur Hollywood Boulevard, entre celles de Gene Kelly et Louis Jourdan. En février 2010, elle joue sur la scène du théâtre du Châtelet à Paris le rôle de Madame Armfeldt dans la comédie musicale A Little Night Music de Stephen Sondheim, inspirée du film Sourires d'une nuit d'été d'Ingmar Bergman. Elle retrouve en 2016 un rôle important à l'écran : celui d'une aristocrate excentrique dans la série télévisée britannique The Durrells sous la direction de son fils, Christopher Hall.
Leslie Caron a été mariée trois fois :
Alors qu'elle est mariée avec Peter Hall, elle rencontre à un dîner organisé pour fêter sa nomination aux Oscars pour La Chambre indiscrète en 1963 l'acteur Warren Beatty qui est un de ses grands admirateurs. Ils entament alors une liaison qui durera au moins deux ans. Elle a ouvert et tenu durant quinze ans le restaurant de cuisine traditionnelle « La Lucarne aux chouettes » à Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, celui-ci a été revendu en 2010. Elle louait près de là le Moulin-Neuf de Chaumot, qui avait appartenu au prince François-Xavier de Saxe (1730-1806). 
La Lucarne aux chouettes
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