Bio: Entrancing, gorgeous Lesley Ann Warren started gearing towards a life in show business right off the bat as a young ballerina who trained at the School of American Ballet at the age of 14. Little did she know that Hollywood stardom would arrive on her doorstep in the form of a "Cinderella" story.The New York-born actress (August 16, 1946) is the daughter of a night club singer, Margot Warren (n��e Verblow), and real estate agent, William Warren. Her mother had earlier given up her own entertainment career for marriage and family. Growing up, Lesley attended the Professional Children's School at the age of 6 and High School of Music & Art as a young teenager. At age 17, she studied under Lee Strasberg at his Actors Studio, the youngest student to ever be accepted at the time.Looking for on-camera work, the teenager appeared unbilled as Shelley Winters's young daughter in the melodrama The Chapman Report (1962) and was given a bit in the daytime TV show "The Doctors." The slender, young hopeful gathered early musical stage experience in such shows as "Bye Bye Birdie" (as swooning teen Kim McAfee), then made an auspicious Broadway debut in "110 in the Shade", the 1963 musical version of "The Rainmaker," and won Broadway's "Most Promising Newcomer" Award. She subsequently received the Theatre World Award for her lead work as a "cat burglar" opposite Elliott Gould in the very short-lived (8 performances) musical "Drat! The Cat!" in 1965.The attention Lesley received from this brief stage venture, however, led to her capturing the beguiling title role in the Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein II TV musical production of Cinderella (1965) with Stuart Damon as her Prince and a glittering, all-star cast in support. The Walt Disney people immediate signed the exquisite "Cinderella" to a fresh-faced ing��nue contract. Co-starring in the moderately-received musical showcases The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), Lesley became convinced that she needed to quickly nip the saccharine stereotype in the bud if she was to grow and sustain as an adult actress.Rebelling against her studio-imposed image, Lesley left Disney determined to pursue roles with more depth, drama and character. Changing her name temporarily to "Lesley Warren" to reinforce her more mature goal, she was hired in 1970 to replace Barbara Bain in the long-running espionage series Mission: Impossible (1966) when Bain left over contractual issues. Audiences were quite cool in their reception to the "new and improved" Lesley and didn't buy her as a femme-fatale replacement for the cool and aloof Ms. Bain.After only one season, Lesley realized her mission to grow was impossible (in spite of an encouraging Golden Globe nomination) and left the show, seeking greener pastures in the TV mini-movie market. She displayed a wide range of vulnerable neurotics as well as sexier ladies that began to alter her pristine image. Such 1970s material included the plane crash adventure Seven in Darkness (1969) as one of several blind survivors; the love drama Love Hate Love (1971) co-starring Ryan O'Neal; a failed pilot in the title role of Cat Ballou (1971); a mild western as one of The Daughters of Joshua Cabe (1972); the exotic "silent star" biopic The Legend of Valentino (1975); the rags-to-riches story Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1977), for which she won a Golden Globe award; the epic WWII story Pearl (1978); and the social melodramas Betrayal (1978) and Portrait of a Stripper (1979). Lesley also impressed with her starring roles in the Civil War miniseries Beulah Land (1980) and as a Polish-Jewish immigrant in Evergreen (1985). On stage, she ambitiously attempted to recreate Scarlett O'Hara opposite Pernell Roberts's Rhett Butler in a 1973 Broadway-bound musical version of "Gone with the Wind: The Musical." The show quickly died on the West Coast before ever reaching New York.In the early 1980s, Lesley's movie career resurrected itself with a priceless performance as kingpin James Garner's whiny-voiced, peroxide-blonde spitfire Norma Cassidy in the slapstick musical Victor/Victoria (1982). Earning both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, this delightful, scene-stealing turn was followed by a couple of other quality offbeat films that were directed by Alan Rudolph -- Choose Me (1984) and Songwriter (1984). Warren went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination supporting Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson in the former, and a People's Choice Award for the latter. She continued to attempt to spread her wings as a worldly "cougar" type opposite young blond and boyish Christopher Atkins in the critically-panned drama A Night in Heaven (1983). She also played Miss Scarlet in the movie version of the board game Clue (1985).Award-worthy TV roles for Lesley with a Golden Globe performance as a successful madam in the miniseries Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1977). She also received Emmy and Golden Globe noms as the conflicted wife of a naval officer turned Russian double agent (Powers Boothe) in Family of Spies (1990), as well as for her Cable Ace nom for her work as a barmaid who aspires to be a country-western singer in Baja Oklahoma (1988). In 1997, she returned to Broadway with the musical revue "Dream" co-starring Margaret Whiting, which focused on classic "Golden Age" standards.Entering her sixth decade of acting, Lesley remains highly active well into the millennium with often high-maintenance roles in such films as the Losing Grace (2001), Secretary (2002), My Tiny Universe (2004), When Do We Eat? (2005), The Shore (2006), Stiffs (2010), I Am Michael (2015), The Sphere and the Labyrinth (2015) and 3 Days with Dad (2019). Among her later TV credits are "Touched by an Angel," "The Practice," "Less Than Perfect," "American Princess," and a recurring role as an overly dependent mom named Jinx in the mystery crime series In Plain Sight (2008). Her dim, riotous Norma Cassady role had TV often pitching her as a scatter-brained comedienne, as in her recurring TV guest parts on Will & Grace (1998) and Desperate Housewives (2004).Lesley has a son, actor/producer Christopher Peters, from her 1967-'73 marriage to makeup artist/hair stylist-cum-film producer Jon Peters. Since 2000, she has been married to advertising exec and sometime actor Ron Taft, a former vice-president at Columbia.
Tivia: Youngest actor ever to have attended NY's Actors Studio, when she was 17.Says her favorite genre is the Musical.Replaced Carrie Fisher for the role of Miss Scarlet in Clue (1985).Portrayed Lois Lane in the made-for-TV musical It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman! (1975) and tried out for the same role in Superman (1978), but lost to Margot Kidder. Her screen test was later included as a DVD extra.Was originally offered Jean Seberg's role in Paint Your Wagon (1969).Starred in an early 1970s busted TV pilot as "Cat Ballou," the role Jane Fonda made famous on film.Was supposed to play the role of Brenda in Goodbye, Columbus (1969), but she got pregnant and had to be replaced. Ali MacGraw then got the part.Was fired after only the second day of filming for The Devil You Know (2013) due to reported unreasonable 'diva' demands and tantrums. Similar reports were made back in 1997 when Warren wasn't getting star treatment for her Broadway show: 'Dream: the Johnny Mercer Musical Revue'.Turned down a chance to audition for the Kathleen Turner role in Romancing the Stone (1984).Auditioned for the role of Liesl in The Sound of Music (1965).Was extremely upset at first about her performance as the gangster's moll in Victor/Victoria (1982) prior to its release, having thought she went horribly over the top. She did go over the top and the audiences loved her for it. Lesley was nominated for a "Supporting Actress" Academy Award, her only nod so far.Suffered from anorexia nervosa in her teen years and into her twenties.Was very proud of her work in Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story (1992), and was disappointed that it got clobbered by an HBO movie on the same story (The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993)) that came out at about the same time, starring Holly Hunter.Walt Disney hand-picked Lesley for the ing��nue role in the film The Happiest Millionaire (1967) after her "Cinderella" success. This film was the last live-action movie Disney supervised before his death.Warren says she won the highly-coveted part of Susan's high-maintenance mom "Sophie" on Desperate Housewives (2004) because of her son, Christopher Peters.Offered the stage role of Norma Cassidy (her Oscar-nominated role) in the stage version of "Victor/Victoria" starring Julie Andrews, but had to turn it down due to other movie commitments.Had to turn down Mary Steenburgen's role in Step Brothers (2008) because of scheduling conflicts with In Plain Sight (2008).Of all her television experiences, Warren said she had an especially great time on Will & Grace (1998) and Dr. Kildare (1961), and that her favorite television experience was the making of Cinderella (1965).Acting prot��g��e of Peter Graves.Played Lois Lane in a television production of the musical It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman! (1975), and later screen tested for the role in Superman (1978).Started working on her first Broadway show (110 in the Shade) at sixteen and a half years old.When she first auditioned for Cinderella, she was so nervous that the audition tanked. She had to audition a second time, and then was hired.She has a son, Christopher Peters, from producer Jon Peters.Dated Scott Baio, Robert Blake, Bobby Darin, Robert Evans, Val Kilmer, David Sanborn, Paul Stanley and John Strasberg. She had a long-term boyfriend in the latter part of the 1980s but refused to identify him.Was student at School of American Ballet when she switched to acting.At age 13, she won a scholarship to study with ballet legend George Balanchine.Won the most promising newcomer on Broadway for her work in 110 in the Shade in 1963.Her father was a World War II vet and realtor while her mother was a nightclub singer who stopped working when Lesley Ann was born.Appeared as one of the celebrity models in a charity fashion show staged by Thierry Mugler to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles. (April 1992)Was considered for the female lead in Finian's Rainbow (1968) that later went to Petula Clark.Was in a relationship with choreographer Jeffrey Hornaday (1977-1985).She once enrolled in an acting class with drama coach Stella Adler.Lesley was to co-star in the beautician comedy series Snip (1976), a TV takeoff of the Warren Beatty movie Shampoo (1975) starring David Brenner as a divorced hairdresser. Just before its scheduled September 30, 1976, debut, NBC abruptly canceled the show, so fast in fact that TV Guide did not even have time to remove a special feature on the show in its Fall Preview of September 18-24, 1976. Why? One of the show's supporting characters, a fellow hairdresser named "Michael", was openly gay and NBC got cold feet at the last minute. Had Snip (1976) premiered, it would have been a first on American series TV. Instead, Billy Crystal went on to receive that honor with his gay character a year later on the popular series Soap (1977). Seven episodes of Snip (1976) were completed when it got the ax. The only place the series ended up airing was in Australia, and it became the highest rated show in Australian history up until that time.She's designated Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961) as her favorite film.Lives in LA with husband Ron Taft, an ad executive.Friend of Marianne Williamson.Is one of 26 actresses to have received an Academy Award nomination for their performance in a musical; hers being Victor/Victoria (1982). The others, in chronological order, are: Bessie Love (The Broadway Melody (1929)), Grace Moore (One Night of Love (1934)), Jean Hagen (Singin' in the Rain (1952)), Marjorie Rambeau (Torch Song (1953)), Dorothy Dandridge (Carmen Jones (1954)), Deborah Kerr (The King and I (1956)), Rita Moreno (West Side Story (1961)), Gladys Cooper (My Fair Lady (1964)), Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and Victor/Victoria (1982)), Debbie Reynolds (The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)), Peggy Wood (The Sound of Music (1965)), Carol Channing (Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)), Kay Medford (Funny Girl (1968)), Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl (1968)), Liza Minnelli (Cabaret (1972)), Ronee Blakley (Nashville (1975)), Lily Tomlin (Nashville (1975)), Ann-Margret (Tommy (1975)), Amy Irving (Yentl (1983)), Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge! (2001)), Queen Latifah (Chicago (2002)), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago (2002)), Ren��e Zellweger (Chicago (2002)), Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls (2006)), Pen��lope Cruz (Nine (2009)), Anne Hathaway (Les Mis��rables (2012)), and 'Meryl Streep (Into the Woods (2014)).Sister of Richard Lewis Warren.Daughter of Margot Warren.Mother-in-law of Daniella Peters.