It's hard to believe, but the pretty redheaded actress who seemed to be an ingenue most of her career is now in her 80s! She made four dozen films, mostly in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, but hasn't received the acclaim of some of her contemporaries.
Born in Detroit as Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel, she began working at the age of three, as a model and also as part of a Vaudeville act with her two sisters, The Brodel Sisters. Eventually she found her way to Hollywood as a very young teen. Performing under her real name or in uncredited parts, she appeared in Camille in 1936 and more than a dozen other films.
Finally she got her first meaty role in 1941 for Warner Brothers, as the crippled girl in High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart, her first billing under her new name, "Joan Leslie." That same year she played Gary Cooper's girl in Sergeant York and appeared once again with Bogie in The Wagons Roll at Night (1941). Later she played James Cagney's wife in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and danced with Fred Astaire in The Sky's the Limit (1943). She was only 18.
During the early 1940s she appeared in many other WB movies, including The Male Animal (1942), The Hard Way (1942), This Is the Army (1943), Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943), Hollywood Canteen (1944, as herself), Where Do We Go From Here? (1945 - 20th Century-Fox), Rhapsody in Blue (1945), Too Young to Know (1945), Cinderella Jones (1946), Janie Gets Married (1946) and Two Guys From Milwaukee (1946).
A contract dispute with WB resulted in a switch to Republic, where she finally got some parts that didn't call for her to play the girl next door, including The Woman They Almost Lynched (1953), Born to Be Bad (1950), Hellgate (1952), Jubilee Trail (1954), Flight Nurse (1954), and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956). She had married Dr. William Caldwell in 1950, and eventually quit acting in order to devote herself to her family. Eventually, she did work in TV commercials, and appeared in made-for-TV movies such Turn Back the Clock (1989) -- a remake of Repeat Performance, a film she made during the period between WB and Republic -- Fire in the Dark (1991), and as herself in Let Freedom Sing! The Story of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (2003). She also appeared in TV shows such as Murder, She Wrote and Charlie's Angels.
