LESLIE CARON: THE RELUCTANT STAR Opens July 28th @ TIFF

This Premiere Screening is part of TIFF’s showcase on Director Larry Weinstein.



A movie icon recalls a whirlwind life in and out of Hollywood in Larry Weinstein’s latest film, Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star. The film will make its world premiere June 28 at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox, screening as part of a showcase on the acclaimed director’s long career in documentary.

Leslie Caron’s life was a Gallic Cinderella tale, Hollywood style – plucked from a Paris ballet stage as a teenager by Gene Kelly himself, to co-star in the Oscar-winning An American in Paris. From there, the little French gamine – whose mother’s frustrated ambitions were embodied in her words, “I’ll be there for you when you’re a star” – became the symbol of French insouciance and glamour to a worldwide audience.

Leslie Caron & Larry Weinstein

Leslie Caron & Larry Weinstein

She even presaged the later vogue of “de-glamourizing,” shockingly cutting her hair in an unflattering style, and covering her cover-girl face in soot for The Glass Slipper, the musical version of the Cinderella story she embodied.

Larry Weinstein’s Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star is a disarmingly candid, in-her-own-words portrait of a woman who may be France’s least-appreciated national treasure. We meet her at the age of 83, as she prepares to bid adieu to her Paris home, and move to London permanently. We soon find her working on the TV series The Durrells, with producer Christopher Hall (her son with former husband, avant-garde stage director Sir Peter Hall). In the process, she visits the scenes of key moments in her life, from the imprint of the Nazi occupation on her childhood to the ambitious location shoot of yet another Oscar winner and career highlight, Gigi.

Leslie Caron

Leslie Caron

Through Caron’s mind’s-eye, we get insights into the greats, from Kelly to Fred Astaire and Cary Grant (her co-stars in Daddy Long Legs and Father Goose respectively), to the often-painful demands of the Hollywood studio system. We experience the public tornado unleashed by a two-year romance with Warren Beatty. We also experience Caron’s deep regret that she was unable to establish herself as a big star in France, despite working with leading directors such as Louis Malle and François Truffaut.

“We were privileged to have Leslie Caron take us on a journey to a glorious time in Hollywood,” says Larry Weinstein, whose most recent feature, The Devil’s Horn, received wide acclaim. “She was one of the beloved icons of film, dance and theatre in the 20th Century, and she retains the spirit and intense emotion that made her one of that era’s most luminous personalities.”

Director Larry Weinstein will introduce the film and be doing a Q&A afterward.

Please visit the TIFF Film Page for more info on the film & screening.

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