Thank heaven for Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron turns 90 on 1st July. On a spring afternoon, I talked to her from the very room in Wiltshire, where, in the 1950s, the songs of Gigi (in particular The Night They Invented Champagne) were regularly played on my parents’ gramophone, long before I ever had a sip.
Cecil Beaton dressed Leslie in Gigi (1958).
‘I was so fond of him and have such admiration for his behaviour, his huge talent and his discernment – he liked everything new, he was like a young person,’ she says. ‘He was the only designer I ever met who was there in the make-up room, saying “No, no. Take off that rouge.”
‘He just would not forgive any bad taste or vulgarity – would sit with the girls to stop them putting on too many eyelashes. He knew the girls never knew how to wear a hat! The hat was way back [to get seen] when it should be forward. Whenever people talk to me about Gigi, I always say that one of the most important actors in it is Cecil Beaton.’
When filming Gigi, she was a 26-year-old mother with an infant son, yet she carried off the part as a gamine 14-year-old. The costumes were made by Madame Karinska:
‘All the good theatre
