|
Leslie Caron defined the olden Age of Hollywood. Appearing in classic MGM musicals like An American in
Paris and Gigi, she was the epitome of chic, glamour, talent, and sophistication. Women wanted to be
her and men wanted to be with her. Her leading men included Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Cary Grant.
Off-screen she was dating America’s most eligible bachelor, heartthrob, Warren Beatty, making Leslie the envy
of women everywhere. From the outside looking in Leslie Caron has had a charmed life. This is only half true.
In her long-awaited memoir, THANK HEAVEN (Viking), Caron delivers a no-holds-barred, unsentimental, and
honest recollection of her life in Paris, Hollywood and, now, Burgundy.
In THANK HEAVEN Caron candidly shares her remarkable life story; her love affairs and motherhood; her
divorces; her alcoholism and crippling depression; and, finally, her recovery and her becoming a successful
innkeeper in Burgundy, even as she continues to do outstanding work in film and on television. The list of
Leslie Caron’s friends and acquaintances reads like a Hollywood Who’s Who: Judy Garland, Mae West, Howard
Hughes, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Natalie Wood, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, and Henry Fonda,
just to name a few.
Ironically, Leslie Caron, a celebrated performer of such high acclaim, style, and talent is painfully insecure.
Her life-long insecurities developed as a child growing up in war-torn Paris with a French father and American
mother to whom nothing she did was ever good enough. Due to her multicultural background, she always felt
alienated from the French and Americans alike. In THANK HEAVEN Caron sets the record straight regarding
falsely rumored tabloid accounts of her escapades, among them that she “stole” the role of Gigi from Audrey
Hepburn and discusses in detail the triumphs and heartbreaks of her life: the elation of getting the part of
Lise in An American in Paris, the anger and disappointment in hearing on the street that her songs in Gigi
would be dubbed; the joy of her two Academy Award nominations for Lili and The L-Shaped Room, and
the most devastating blow of all, the suicide of her mother.
THANK HEAVEN will be available from most major book stores and on-line book retailers in late November.
|
TCM UK
| 
TCM Spain
| 
TCM France
| TCM Latin America
| TCM Asia
| TCM Germany
TCM.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network.
