Working with geniuses: Lesley Ann Warren reveals filmmaker Blake Edwards' secrets

LOS ANGELES – Lesley Ann Warren knows a little something about geniuses.

She worked with filmmakers Walt Disney and Blake Edwards during her career and saw first-hand why they got the moniker.

Both, she says, were “absolutely wonderful to me.”

Disney, who cast her in her first movie, “The Happiest Millionaire,” “was protective and like a granddad. He invited me and the other actors to his home for dinners. I felt very taken care of.”

And Edwards, who directed her to an Oscar nomination in “Victor/Victoria,” had the capacity “to envision what someone was capable of without ever having seen it before.”

Grabbing 'Victor'

Although Warren had played a number of leading ladies in film and on television, she never had a character part like Norma Cassidy in Edwards’ film.

“My agent, Ron Meyer, called me and said, ‘You need to go meet Blake.’ And I said I couldn’t go because my hair was in braids and I had a baseball cap on. He said, ‘No, no. He’s leaving for London tomorrow; you’ve got to meet him.’”

Warren went and “we didn’t really discuss the part very much. We just kind of laughed and talked about Cinderella that both (wife Julie Andrews) and I had done. He knew that I danced and had this kind of character in me. And then he said, ‘Do you want to do this part?’ I hadn’t read it, but I was such a gigantic Blake Edwards fan I said, ‘I’d do anything you want me to do.’”

When she got home and pored over the script, Warren realized Norma was static and needed a little something – a backstory. Quickly, she created a character, worked with Edwards’ wig maker and costume designer and came up with this brassy chorine. “When I went to England for the hair and makeup tests, I was sure he would either love it or I would get fired.”

A great audience

Edwards, of course, loved it and gave Warren ample opportunity to improvise. “He was a great audience for an actor,” Warren says. “He would fall off his chair laughing, and you would hear his laugh through the take, and we’d have to do it again.”

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Andrews was not comfortable improvising. “She wanted to stick to the script…but he found I was comfortable (improvising) so he would keep the camera rolling endlessly on my takes, which was fun for me. He was not critical of her, but he was supportive of me, allowing us both to engage in our process in a way that served him and our own talent.”

In “Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames,” Warren, Andrews, Bo Derek and others who worked with the director talk about his methods, his creativity and his genius. From “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” to “The Pink Panther” to “10” to “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Victor/Victoria,” Edwards delivered films that delighted audiences.

When Edwards adapted “Victor/Victoria” for the stage, he asked Warren if she’d like to reprise the character.

“I felt that I had done her the best way I possibly could and I didn’t want to diminish that,” Warren explains. She was already committed to another show, so she had an out.

The character, however, is one that stands out in a career filled with highlights.

A crowning achievement

One of her first – Cinderella in the television version of the musical – brought her considerable attention and a place in the business.

“The things that I’ve done that have become iconic – like Cinderella and ‘Victor/Victoria’ – are my legacy. I don’t feel like I have to create something new. But I still want to learn and try different things," Warren says.

To commemorate “Cinderella,” Warren’s husband searched for the crown she wore in the 1965 production. He found it in an antique store. The owner let girls who came into the store try it on. When she was very ill, the owner said she wanted the crown to find its original home. “And my husband, without my knowing it, got in touch with her.” With the help of a relative, he presented it to her in a glass dome with a photograph of her wearing it. “It was in perfect condition.” And it holds a place of honor – along with Norma’s cigarette holder from “Victor/Victoria.”

While Warren says she has worked with other directing geniuses – like Alan Rudolph, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Steven Soderbergh – the opportunities Edwards and Disney afforded her allowed her to do smaller, more independent things like “Choose Me.”

Choices, she says, is often what a career is about. “Of course I have a few things that I would have done differently. At times I think I did things out of financial fear. But when I look back on my career, I’m really proud of what I’ve done, 100,000 percent.”

“Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames” airs as part of the “American Masters” series. It will premiere Aug. 27 on PBS.