JOAN LESLIE LEAFS HER MEMORY BOOK JOAN LESLIE, the recently graduated high school girl, who was not discovered by a Warner talent scout while perched on a stool at a Hollywood drug store fountain inhaling an icecream soda through a straw, may never be a great actress, but in her infancy she brushed with greatness. That was in 1934, when she was trying unsuccessfully to become another Shirley Temple and went to school with Mickey Rooney on the Metro lot. Freddie Bartholomew was also in the class, but if Joan can just be remembered by posterity as the little girl who went to school with Mickey Rooney, she will be satisfied. "Of course, Freddie was better looking," Joan said reminiscently, when interviewed about this academic matter recently in her dressing room at Warner's, "but there was something about Mickey that would have brought out the mother in almost any girl with pigtails. For one thing, his hair would never stay combed and it made you want to help him when he struggled with it. Then he was in such a hurry all the time that he always got mixed up in his arms and legs and things. No. I shall never forget about my school days with that strange and fascinating little boy if I live to be a hundred." If Joan does live to be a hundred, there's no telling what she may have done by that time in the way of high-class Thespianism--maybe played Hedda Gabler, or Lady Macbeth. She is just Irish enough not to be able to recognize a limitation if she met one in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, or, rather, if she did meet one, would probably translate it rapidly into a shining asset. For instance, a sweet, unsophisticated visage might be considered a handicap by most talented young actresses in this day and age, but as Gary Cooper's mountain sweetheart in "Sergeant York," the young girl converted this daring difference into an avalanche of fan mail. She is always acquring some new accomplishment to keep her directors happy. For instance, in "The Hard Way," now at the Strand, she rumbas as rompingly as Hayworth, and the body she flings about enchantingly in these swirling numbers is not exactly a liability itself. Joan can pose in the act of licking a lollypop with every appearance of enjoying an experience which, to most of Hollywood's young leading ladies, would be equivalent to bussing a king cobra; but she can also look exciting in a cocktail gown. Moreover, she can do funny imitations of Wendy Hiller, George Arliss, Garbo, Zasu Pitts and others whom you would recognize at a glance, and she's a great little clothes model, in addition to the fact that she knows how to make a heroine look just prefectly lyrical in a calico dress and undone hair. Favorite Joan Leslie Film Select your favorite Joan Leslie film here. High Sierra The Great Mr. Nobody The Wagons Roll at Night Sergeant York The Male Animal Yankee Doodle Dandy The Hard Way This Is the Army The Sky's the Limit Thank Your Lucky Stars Hollywood Canteen Where Do We Go From Here? Rhapsody in Blue Too Young to Know Cinderella Jones Two Guys from Milwaukee Repeat Performance Northwest Stampede The Skipper Surprised His Wife Man in the Saddle The Woman They Almost Lynched Flight Nurse Jubilee Trail Hell's Outpost Other Current Results [Sign My Guestbook] [View My Guestbook]