Hollywood's leading ladies learn lesson in manners

British director Mike Newell sent his four American female stars to finishing school for a crash course in 1950s etiquette before they began work on his film Mona Lisa Smile.

Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Julia Stiles not only learned how to drink tea properly and sit with their legs together but they also took adagio and swing dancing lessons.

“The person most interested in it was Julia Stiles,” their dance teacher, Yvonne Marceau explained.

"She was very good and very quick.”

Set at Wellesley College in the 1950s, the film features Roberts as a free-spirited professor who shapes her conservative students into budding women’s libbers.