Leslie Caron comes to Cinema Arts Centre

If Leslie Caron had her way, she would have been a ballerina, not a movie star.

"I wanted to be Pavlova," the actress said by phone from her home in Paris. "I even decided to call myself Caronova."

But after Gene Kelly saw her dance with the Ballet des Champs-Elysées in Paris in 1950, she was off to Hollywood to make "An American in Paris."

Tuesday night, Caron, 79, will be off to Huntington for a screening of the movie at the Cinema Arts Centre. Afterward, she'll sign copies of her 2009 memoir, "Thank Heaven," but not before talking with film historian Foster Hirsch about her career, starting with her MGM days.

THE LION'S ROAR

"I was scared," Caron said of arriving at MGM, the Tiffany of studios. "MGM was a formidable . . . I don't want to say war machine, but there were all these buildings and all these directors and vice president of this and that."

The situation became more tense when Caron arrived on the set the first day with her hair trimmed in the style of Bettina, a popular fashion model of the time. "She had her hair completely straight and cut short like a boy. I thought that was the neatest thing I'd ever seen," Caron recalled. "Gene Kelly said, 'You know they fire girls for less than that.' Shooting was postponed for two weeks."

CHANGE PARTNERS

Work on "Paris" was demanding but enjoyable for Caron, especially the elaborate 16-minute dance sequence that closes the movie. "I adored getting to do modern dancing. I had never done jazz," she said. "Gene was a wonderful partner for lifts and adagios."

Still, her favorite number was the jitterbuggy "Sluefoot" with Fred Astaire in "Daddy Long Legs" (1955). "It was a bit of nonsense where Fred really let go and it's all arms and legs flying around," she said. "Unfortunately, he had just lost his wife when we started filming. He was extremely courageous. And there were moments where I could see dancing was taking over, and he was having fun."

Nothing, however, may ever top the night in 1988 when she appeared with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev at a gala at the Metropolitan Opera, Caron said. "If I'm feeling depressed, I think, "Wait a minute. I'm the girl who danced with Baryshnikov and Nureyev on the same stage for 20 minutes, which was terrific."