Lesley Ann Warren

Youngest actor ever to have attended NYs Actors Studio. She was 17.

Was a student at the School of American Ballet when she switched to acting.

Lives in LA with her companion Ronald Taft , an ad executive.

Auditioned for the role of Liesl in The Sound of Music .

Tried out for the role of Lois Lane in Superman , but lost to Margot Kidder.

Is a vegetarian.

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.

At age 13, she won a scholarship to study with ballet legend George Balanchine.

She once enrolled in an acting class with drama coach Stella Adler.

Warren says she won the highly-coveted part of Susans high-maintenance mom "Sophie" on "Desperate Housewives" because of her son, Christopher Peters.

Was supposed to play the role of Brenda in Goodbye, Columbus , but she got pregnant and had to be replaced. Ali MacGraw then got the part.

Was very proud of her work in Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story , 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 ) that came out at about the same time, starring Holly Hunter.

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.

Of all her television experiences, Warren said she had an especially great time on "Will & Grace" and "Dr. Kildare" , and that her favorite television experience was the making of Cinderella .

Says her favorite genre is the Musical.

Starred in an early 1970s busted TV pilot as "Cat Ballou," the role Jane Fonda made famous on film.

Walt Disney hand-picked Lesley for the ingnue role in the film The Happiest Millionaire after her "Cinderella" success. This film was the last live-action movie Disney supervised before his death.

Was extremely upset at first about her performance as the gangsters moll in Victor Victoria 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.

Lesley was to co-star in the beautician comedy series "Snip" , a TV takeoff of the Warren Beatty movie Shampoo 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 shows supporting characters, a fellow hairdresser named "Michael", was openly gay and NBC got cold feet at the last minute. Had "Snip" 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" . Seven episodes of "Snip" 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.

Played Lois Lane in a television production of the musical Its a Bird... Its a Plane... Its Superman! , and later screen tested for the role in Superman .

Friend of Marianne Williamson.

Was fired after only the second day of filming for The Devil You Know due to reported unreasonable diva demands and tantrums. Similar reports were made back in 1997 when Warren wasnt getting star treatment for her Broadway show: Dream: the Johnny Mercer Musical Revue.

(April 1992) Appeared as one of the celebrity models in a charity fashion show staged by Thierry Mugler to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles.

Was in a relationship with choreographer Jeffrey Hornaday (1980-1987).

Was originally offered Jean Seberg s role in Paint Your Wagon .

Won the most promising newcomer on Broadway for her work in 110 in the shade in 1963.

Suffered from Anorexia nervosa in her teen years and into her twenties.

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.

Gave birth to her 1st child at age 22, a son Christopher Peters on September 23, 1968. Childs father is her now ex-1st husband, Jon Peters.

Acting protge of Peter Graves.

Shes designated Elia Kazans "Splendor in the Grass" as her favorite film.

Is one of 26 actresses to have received an Academy Award nomination for their performance in a musical; hers being Victor Victoria . The others, in chronological order, are: Bessie Love ( The Broadway Melody ), Grace Moore ( One Night of Love ), Jean Hagen ( Singin in the Rain (1952) ), Marjorie Rambeau ( Torch Song ), Dorothy Dandridge ( Carmen Jones ), Deborah Kerr ( The King and I ), Rita Moreno ( West Side Story ), Gladys Cooper ( My Fair Lady ), Julie Andrews ( Mary Poppins , The Sound of Music , and Victor Victoria ), Debbie Reynolds ( The Unsinkable Molly Brown ), Peggy Wood ( The Sound of Music ), Carol Channing ( Thoroughly Modern Millie ), Kay Medford ( Funny Girl ), Barbra Streisand ( Funny Girl ), Liza Minnelli ( Cabaret ), Ronee Blakley ( Nashville ), Lily Tomlin ( Nashville ), Ann-Margret ( Tommy ), Amy Irving ( Yentl ), Nicole Kidman ( Moulin Rouge! ), Queen Latifah ( Chicago ), Catherine Zeta-Jones ( Chicago ), Rene Zellweger ( Chicago ), Jennifer Hudson ( Dreamgirls ), Penlope Cruz ( Nine ), Anne Hathaway ( Les Misrables ), and Meryl Streep ( Into the Woods ).

That was a tremendous blessing.

Good work is good work wherever it is.

Your best is good enough. The only one you have to please is yourself.

So to be picked by him was such an unbelievable honor for me.

[on making Songwriter (1984) ] What happened on "Songwriter" was,that I was doing that movie, but with a different director.