leslie caron

NEW YORK -- In case you didn't pay close attention to those talented stalwarts who took home trophies during the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony Saturday, I do hope you noticed that one of the champs was the magnificent Leslie Caron, named over some ultra-stiff competition for outstanding guest actress in a drama series. (Leslie won for her superb work as woman with a torturous secret in last season's "Recall" episode of "Law and Order: SVU.") In from her Paris home for the festivities, Caron gave the photographers a field day, too; these adjunct Emmys don't often include someone with her star power and credentials, which include two Academy Award nominations (for 1953's "Lili" and 1963's "The L-Shaped Room"); the star spot in two best picture Oscar winners (1951's "An American in Paris" and 1958's "Gigi"); plus the long list of other classic films she has on her credit sheet, including "Fanny," "Is Paris Burning?" and "Father Goose," all the way to the more recent "Chocolat" and "Le Divorce." The important thing is that a) this particular award brings back to the forefront an extremely talented actress who should be working in these parts much more often, and b) it reaffirms how astute Neal Baer and his "SVU" group have been in casting both underused talents and current headliners in meaty roles. (Marcia Gay Harden was one of Leslie's competitors for that Emmy, also for her work in an "SVU" episode.) If you missed seeing Caron on Saturday -- wearing a dress she designed, by the way -- she'll be one of the presenters on the main Primetime Emmy Awards telecast Sunday. ... On Sept. 18, some prominent New York ladies will be paying tribute to the late, great songwriter, screenwriter, performer and wit Betty Comden, who died Nov. 23. Barbara Cook, Elaine Stritch, Christine Ebersole, Audra McDonald, Phyllis Newman, Mary Testa, Leslie Uggams and Lillias White along with Lypsinka and several surprise guests will be performing in a one-hour memorial to Comden called "Great Women Salute a Great Woman: Betty Comden -- In the Words of Comden and Green." It's being sponsored by Comden's family, ASCAP, the Leonard Bernstein Office, MGM and the Shubert Organization, with Craig Urquhart, Lee Mindel and David Zippel producing and the latter two also directing. It'll begin at 2 p.m. at Broadway's Majestic Theatre and will be free and open to the public. ... Two changes: "Rude Awakening," the 25th anniversary edition of Gerard Alessandrini's long-running "Forbidden Broadway" series, is delaying its opening at the 47th Street Theatre until Oct. 2 in order to add more new material, and Tony Martin has canceled his plan to do dates in the fall at Feinstein's at the Regency. It has nothing to do with his age (94) but with some health issues wife Cyd Charisse is having. ... Prevues begin Thursday at the Biltmore on the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of Theresa Rebeck's new play "Mauritius" (pronounced "more-ISH-us") with a cast headed by Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, following its world premiere last year via the Huntington Theatre Company. On Friday, the prevue process begins on the revival of Terrence McNally's 1975 comedy "The Ritz," this time at Studio 54 (the perfect setting), directed by Joe Mantello and headlining Kevin Chamberlain, Rosie Perez and Lenny Venito.
The Emmy awards for last year's TV season will be handed out three weeks from Sunday, and I am rooting for Leslie Caron � a great Hollywood star of the 1950s � to emerge at age 76 as a winner decades after she seemed to disappear from view.

If she does, it will be because Ted Kotcheff, the Toronto-born executive producer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, had a terrific idea of how to put Caron back into the showbiz spotlight.

In an episode shot a year ago and aired in October, Caron gave a memorably touching performance as a woman from France persuaded by detectives to break a long silence and testify against a man who sexually assaulted her 40 years earlier.

Kotcheff (who directed the wonderful 1974 movie version of Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz) knew that Caron, a one-time ingénue who played the title roles in Gigi and Lili, would be perfect for the part.

He recalled how the adorable waif-like dancer with high cheekbones was discovered by Gene Kelly when she was a 17-year-old dancer with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées in Paris. She was swept off her feet by Kelly in MGM's Gershwin musical An American in Paris, which won the Oscar for best movie of 1951.

Caron, who had not had any offers for a long time, was caught by surprise. She was in Sardinia, planning to build a cottage, when the script came by email. Somehow the producers managed to get her a visa in record time and the next thing she knew, she was in New Jersey shooting the episode.

The New Yorker magazine's Talk of the Town section dispatched a reporter, which resulted in a delightful item entitled "Gigi in Jersey."

If she wins an Emmy for Best Guest Performance in a series, Caron will surely qualify as comeback kid of the year (senior division).

A bigger surprise was the nomination of Mary-Louise Parker (as Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie) for her work as the villainous Zenia in the TV movie version of Margaret Atwood's comic novel The Robber Bride. Co-produced by Toronto's Shaftesbury Films and shot in and around this city, it was shown on CBC in January � and was not well-received by critics.

There's a structural problem. The book is about the tangled relationships of a group of women. The plot concerns the disappearance of Zenia, who seems to have been murdered but is actually on the lam with loot.

The movie adds a character � a male ex-cop-turned-insurance-investigator who narrates the tale � and the device doesn't quite work. Yet as a beautiful schemer, Parker is deliciously nasty.

Being on CBC doesn't make anyone eligible for an Emmy, but The Robber Bride was picked up by an obscure U.S. cable channel, the Oxygen network.

Parker is a long shot to win for her Zenia performance, since she faces fierce competition from Helen Mirren, Queen Latifah and Gena Rowlands.

But Parker has another nomination, as Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, for her work in the show Weeds (carried in Canada on Showcase and in the U.S. on Showtime).

In my account yesterday of Richard Bradshaw's funeral at the Cathedral Church of St. James, I mentioned a recent piece of music by Andrew Ager, interim music director of the church. But I neglected to mention that the service also featured another contemporary piece: a motet by Toronto composer Derek Holman.

Update: the Canadian Opera Company, faced with the task of trying to replace Bradshaw, is not the only Toronto opera company moving into search mode. David Baile, general manager of Opera Atelier, has just accepted a post as CEO of the International Society for the Performing Arts, for which he will soon move to New York.
When you're nominated for an Emmy, life is one big party. Among the soirees around town this weekend was the Television Academy's tribute to acting nominees Friday at Wolfgang Puck at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

It drew nominees Leslie Caron, Robert Duvall, Lorraine Bracco, T.R. Knight, Mariska Hargitay, Masi Oka, Neil Patrick Harris, Anna Panquin, August Schellenberg, Denis Leary, Sandra Oh, Chandra Wilson, Judith Light, Conchata Ferrell, Holland Taylor, Kate Burton and Tim Daly, among others.

Oka drove up in an old Honda, sputtering with 140,000 miles on it. The "Heroes" star, nominated for outstanding supporting actor in a drama, wonders if it's finally time for some new wheels now that the NBC hit is heading into season two.

The young actor says landing a key role on a hit show still feels a bit surreal.

"To be a working actor is already a dream, and to be on a great show is like winning the lottery. But to be on a phenomenon and to be here (as an Emmy nominee), it's like, `How lucky are we?' It's absolutely surreal."

Nominated for her role in "Law & Order: SVU," Hargitay says the pressure is off after winning last year.

"It is much easier," she


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admits. "This is a stress-free year. I came in, had fun playing with (son) August. It's just a cakewalk now (laughs)."
Bracco received her fourth nod for her role as Dr. Jennifer Melfi on "The Sopranos," but it was her first since 2001.

"It's a very nice way to end it, really," she says. "I'm very honored and touched."

"Two and a Half Men" nominee Ferrell says if she wins, she's going to "put it on a chain and wear it around my neck."

"I'm gonna take a picture of me holding it, and I'm gonna send it to all those people who wouldn't marry me all those years ago (laughs). Look at me now!"

Big-screen icon Caron made a rare TV appearance last season in an episode of "Law & Order: SVU," and it won her an Emmy for outstanding guest actress in a drama series.

"It was a good part, a very good part - a meaty part," she says. "I've had good comedy parts and great partners, great directors. But a really meaty dramatic part, that's quite rare."

She didn't know that she would win, but Caron decided to make the trip from Paris anyway to attend last weekend's Creative Arts Emmys, where the guest-acting Emmys are presented. She will present on tonight's Emmy telecast.

"I've learned to say yes to all good things," Caron says. "I think it's good to be adventurous and just to say yes to life in general."