Joan Leslie

Joan Leslie (born Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodell; January 26, 1925 – October 12, 2015) was an American actress and vaudevillian, who during the Hollywood Golden Age, appeared in such films as High Sierra (1941), Sergeant York (1941), and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).

Leslie was born Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodell, the youngest child in her family.

Her father was a bank clerk.

Joan's two older sisters, Betty and Mary Brodell, shared their mother's musical interest and started to learn how to play instruments, such as the saxophone and the banjo, at an early age.

They began performing in front of audiences in acts that included singing and dancing.

Leslie joined the duo at two and a half years of age.

She was soon able to play the accordion.

With her father losing his job in the mid-1930s, the Great Depression caused financial difficulties for the family.

As a result, the three sisters entered show business as vaudeville performers to support the family.

They began touring in Canada and the United States.

Collectively, they were known as The Three Brodels.

As an attempt to bypass child labor laws at the time, both Mary and Joan pretended to be older than they were.

When Leslie was nine, she told child labor investigators that she was 16 years old.

Joan proved to be the scene stealer of the three sisters because of her impersonations of figures such as Katharine Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, and Jimmy Durante.

Coming from a family of Irish ancestry, Leslie was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools in Detroit, Toronto, and Montreal.

In 1936, 11-year-old Leslie caught the attention of a talent scout from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) when the three Brodel sisters were performing in New York.

She was given a six-month contract with the studio, earning $200 per week.

While working at the studio, she attended MGM's Little Red Schoolhouse with other child actors such as Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Freddie Bartholomew.

Her first film role was in Camille (1936), a romantic drama starring Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor.

She played Taylor's younger sister Marie Jeanette, but her speaking scenes were deleted and she was uncredited.

MGM had trouble finding suitable roles for her, and she was let go by the studio along with Deanna Durbin.

Leslie returned to New York, working on the radio and as a model.

During this time, her older sister Mary was signed to Universal Studios.

Leslie returned to Hollywood with the rest of her family, working for different studios as a freelancer.

She mainly worked for RKO Pictures.

Leslie was selected to play a small role in Men with Wings (1938).

While shooting the film, director William A. Wellman discovered that Leslie's mother had lied about her daughter's age and that she was only 13 years old.

For the remainder of the filming schedule, Wellman replaced her with Mary.

Leslie gained her first credited role in Winter Carnival (1939) as Betsy Phillips.

She was chosen for the part because the director was searching for an actress with a southern accent.

She was billed as Joan Brodel.

Later that year, she co-starred with Jimmy Lydon in Two Thoroughbreds, in which she played the daughter of a horse owner.

At age 15, Leslie was selected by a group of Hollywood directors as one of 13 "baby stars of 1940."

That same year, she appeared in the Warner Bros. film short, Alice in Movieland, about a starlet trying to make her mark in Hollywood.

One of the first films directed by Jean Negulesco in Hollywood, it was based on a story by Ed Sullivan.

Her big break came when she signed a contract with Warner Bros. in 1941.

At the time, actress Joan Blondell's name was considered too similar, so Brodel's acting name was changed to Joan Leslie.

Two weeks later, the then-15-year-old actress was asked to do a screen test while unaware which movie it was for.

She got the part because she could cry on cue.

The movie was High Sierra (1941), starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart.