Joan Leslie
Joan Leslie
A stage actress from the age of 3, Joan Leslie toured vaudeville in a singing act with her two sisters. At ten, Leslie was an established advertising model. She came to Hollywood in 1936, making her screen debut in Camille under her given name of Brodel. In 1940 she was signed by Warner Bros., who changed her professional name to Leslie. Though not yet 18, Leslie was cast in such meaty and demanding roles as the selfish clubfooted ingenue in High Sierra (1941) and Mrs. George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Loaned out to RKO in 1942, Leslie was given an opportunity to display her considerable terpsichorean skills in the Fred Astaire vehicle The Sky's the Limit. In Warners' Hollywood Canteen (1944) Lesie played herself, as did her real-life sister Betty Brodel. When her Warners contract ended in 1947, Leslie free-lanced for several years, turning in admirable performances in such second-echelon productions as Repeat Performance (1947) and The Woman They Almost Lynched (1956). She more or less retired from acting in the late 1950s, devoting herself to humanitarian work and to her new career as a dress designer. Fans of Joan Leslie all felt just a little older when Leslie was teamed with fellow 1940s ingenue Teresa Wright as a pair of doddering Arsenic and Old Lace-type sisters on a late-1980s episode of TV's Murder She Wrote. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Filmography of Joan Leslie:
- Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney , Walter Huston , Richard Whorf , Jeanne Cagney , George Tobias , Rosemary DeCamp , Frances Langford , George Barbier , S.Z. Sakall , Walter Catlett , Eddie Jr. Foy , Minor Watson , Ann Doran , Frank Faylen , James Flavin , William Forrest , Creighton Hale , John Hamilton , William Hopper , Ruth Robinson , Michael Curtiz , Tom Dugan
- This Is the Army with George Murphy , Ronald W. Reagan , Alan Sr. Hale , George Tobias , Charles Butterworth , Dolores Costello , Una Merkel , Stanley Ridges , Rosemary DeCamp , Ruth Donnelly , Frances Langford , Warner Anderson , Irving Berlin , Frank Jr. Coghlan , Richard Crane , John James , Henry Jones , Victor Moore , Arthur Space , Ernest Truex , Doodles Weaver , Gene Nelson
- Sergeant York with Gary Cooper , Walter Brennan , Ward Bond , Margaret Wycherly , Stanley Ridges , George Tobias , Noah Jr. Beery , June Lockhart , Dickie Moore , Joseph Sawyer , Elisha Jr. Cook , Howard DaSilva , Frank Faylen , Kit Guard , Creighton Hale , George S. Irving , Si Jenks , Frank Marlowe , Tully Marshall , Charles B. Middleton , Gaylord "Steve" Pendleton , Ray Teal , Gig Young
- High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart , Ida Lupino , Arthur Kennedy , Alan Curtis , Henry Travers , Jerome Cowan , Barton MacLane , Elizabeth Risdon , Cornel Wilde , Paul Harvey , Isabel Jewell , Willie Best , Robert Strange , Davison Clark , James Flavin , William Hopper , Ralph Sanford , Cliff Saum , Charlotte Wynters
- Foreign Correspondent with Joel D. McCrea , Laraine Day , Herbert Marshall , George Sanders , Albert Basserman , Robert Benchley , Edmund Gwenn , Harry Davenport , Eduardo Ciannelli , E.E. Clive , James Finlayson , Colin Kenny , Terence Kilburn , Eily Malyon , Ted Mapes , Harry Semels , Dorothy Vaughan , Charles Wagenheim , Ian Wolfe
Joan Leslie Trivia
