Joan Leslie was a performer best known for her roles in the films Sergeant York and Yankee Doodle Dandy.

1941's Sergeant York starred Gary Cooper (who won an Oscar for his role) and Walter Brennan and followed the story of a sharpshooter drafted into World War I. Leslie played Cooper’s love interest, Gracie Williams. In 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy Williams played Mary, a young singer and dancer who marries the protagonist, George M. Cohan (James Cagney, who won the Oscar for his performance).

Leslie had already been performing for years, in a vaudeville act with her two older siblings called The Brodel Sisters and accruing film credits starting in 1936 at the age of 11, but she got her big break at 15 after signing with Warner Bros. She played Velma, a hobbled girl in 1941’s High Sierra, her first film with Humphrey Bogart. Two more with Bogart would follow: 1941’s The Wagons Roll at Night and 1943’s Thank Your Lucky Stars.

She also appeared in the films Nine Lives Are Not Enough,starring Ronald Reagan, The Male Animal, with Henry Fonda, The Sky’s the Limit, with Fred Astaire, The Hard Way, This is the Army, Hollywood Canteen, with Bette Davis, Man in the Saddle, Hellgate and The Revolt of Mamie Stover with Jane Russell.

Additionally, Leslie worked in television and began by appearing in the TV variety series Family Theatre, The Bigelow Theatre, Fireside Theatre, Schlitz Playhouse, Summer Theatre, The Plymouth Playhouse, Lux Video Theatre, The Ford Television Theatre, Chevron Hall of Stars, The 20th Century-Fox Hour and General Electric Theater. She also appeared on the scripted series Branded, Police Story, Charlie’s Angels, The Incredible Hulk, Simon & Simon and Murder, She Wrote, as well as the television movies The Keegans, Shadow of Sam Penny, Charley Hannah, Turn Back the Clock and Fire in the Dark.

Leslie died October 12, 2015, in Los Angeles. She was 90.