User:Dr. Blofeld/Cary Grant

Not to be confused with Carrie Grant or Cary Granat.

Cary Grant
Cary Grant in 1939
Born	Archibald Alexander Leach (1904-01-18)January 18, 1904 Horfield, Bristol, England
Died	November 29, 1986(1986-11-29) (aged 82) Davenport, Iowa, United States
Cause of death	Cerebral haemorrhage
Other names	Archie Leach
Education	Bishop Road Primary School Fairfield Grammar School
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1922–1966
Spouse(s)	Virginia Cherrill ​ ​ (m. 1934; div. 1935)​ Barbara Hutton ​ ​ (m. 1942; div. 1945)​ Betsy Drake ​ ​ (m. 1949; div. 1962)​ Dyan Cannon ​ ​ (m. 1965; div. 1968)​ Barbara Harris ​ ​ (m. 1981)​
Partner	Maureen Donaldson (1973–1977)
Children	Jennifer Grant
Awards	Academy Honorary Award (1970) For his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with the respect and affection of his colleagues. Kennedy Center Honors (1981)

Cary Grant (born Archibald Alexander Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor, who became one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He began a career in Hollywood in the early 1930s, where he became known for his transatlantic accent and debonair demeanor. He became an American citizen in 1942.

Born in Horfield, Bristol, Grant became attracted to the theatre at a very young age, and began performing with a troupe known as "The Penders" from the age of six. After attending Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, he toured the country as a stage performer, and decided to stay in New York City after a performance there. He established a name for himself in Vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s. He initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) and She Done Him Wrong (1933), but later gained renown for his appearances in romantic comedy and screwball comedy films such as Sylvia Scarlett (1935), The Awful Truth (1937), Howard Hawk's Bringing Up Baby (1938), and His Girl Friday (1940). Along with the later Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and I Was a Male War Bride (1949), these films are all frequently cited as among the all-time great comedy films. Having established himself as a major Hollywood star, he was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor (Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944)).

In the 1940s and 1950s, Grant forged a working relationship with renowned director Alfred Hitchcock, appearing in films such as Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959). Hitchcock considered Grant to have been the only actor that he had ever loved. In the twilight of his film career, Grant received much acclaim as a romantic leading man, earning five Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nominations, for films such as That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn. After his retirement from film in 1966, he was presented with an Honorary Oscar by Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart).

Early life and education

Archibald "Archie" Leach was born on January 18, 1904 at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias James Leach (1873–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon; 1877–1973). His father, the son of a potter, worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory named Todd's, while his mother, who also worked at the factory as a seamstress, was from a family of shipwrights. Biographers Charles Higham and Roy Moseley described Elias as "delicately and weakly handsome, with light brown curly hair, soft, dark reflective eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and a sensual mouth decorated with a neat mustache", while biographer Graham McCann described his mother as "a short, slight woman with olive skin, sharp brown eyes and a slightly cleft chin" who "came from a large family of brewery labourers, laundresses and ships' carpenters". Grant considered himself to be partly Jewish. Among the reasons he gave for believing so was because he was circumcised, and circumcision was rare outside the Jewish community in England at that time. In 1948 he donated a large sum of money to help the newly established State of Israel, declaring that it was "in the name of his dead Jewish mother". He also speculated that his handsome appearance with brown curly hair could be due to his father's partly Jewish descent. There is no genealogical evidence available about his possible Jewish ancestry, however. His elder brother, John William Elias Leach (February 9, 1899 – February 6, 1900), died of tubercular meningitis.

"He had such a traumatic childhood, it was horrible. I work with a lot of kids on the street and I've heard a lot of stories about what happens when a family breaks down — but his was just horrendous. And he never really dealt with those things. He tried to. That's the reason he tried LSD ... he thought it was a gateway to God."

—Grant's wife Dyan Cannon on his childhood.

Archie had an unhappy upbringing. His father was an alcoholic, and his mother suffered from clinical depression. Archie grew up resenting his mother, particularly after she left the family. McCann mentions that Maureen Donaldson, a lover of Grant's in the 1970s, claimed in her book that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not known how to receive it either". His mother would reduce his pocket money for at the least little mishap, whether it was marking the table cloth or misplacing a cushion. She did, however, enjoy the cinema, and would occasionally take her son to see a picture; his favourites were Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain and Broncho Billy Anderson. His father later placed his mother in Glenside Hospital (a mental institution) and told the 9-year-old that she had gone away on a "long holiday", later declaring that she had died. When Archie was 10, his father remarried and started a new family that did not include young Archibald. Archie did not learn his mother had not died until he was 31, when his father confessed to the lie, shortly before his own death, and told Leach that he could find her alive in a care facility. Archie made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he found out about her whereabouts. He visited her during a break to England in November 1938.

"I learned that my dear parents, products of their parents, could know no better than they knew, and began to remember them only for the most useful, the best, the nicest of their teachings".

—Grant on eventually looking back towards his childhood with more positivity.

Archie enrolled at Bishop Road Primary School at the age of four and a half. Due to alienation from his parents, he was socially inept as a child, with a nervous disposition. He enjoyed the theatre, particularly pantomimes at Christmas which he would attend with his father. Elias frequently flirted with the showgirls backstage, and at the age of six and a half, Archie befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers, known as "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe", and began performing with them. Archie began touring with the troupe from the age of six. One two-week stint at the Wintergarten in Berlin had a profound impact on young Archie, and he subsequently trained as a stilt walker for the troupe. In his first year with the troupe, he performed in the Jack and the Beanstalk Christmas pantomime at Drury Lane's Theatre Royal, donning a bird mask and appearing as a stork.

On March 5, 1911, Archie sailed to New York on the Lusitania with the Pender Troupe. They performed for several weeks on 46th Street. In one nine-minute segment of a three-hour show at the Folies Bergère Theater, the first dinner theatre in the United States, they performed in front of the likes of Diamond Jim Brady, Lillian Russell and the Mellon, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt families. The show eventually began to lose money, and the troupe receive negative press for their vulgarity, leaving Archie feeling disappointed upon his return to England in the September. He developed a love of comedy, attending shows by the likes of John Bunny and Mabel Normand on Saturdays evenings in London. In January 1914 his father took him to see Fanny Brice appear in the revue Hello, Ragtime at the Prince's Theatre.

Fairfield Grammar School, where Grant attended between 1915 and 1918

Archie won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, his father barely scraping together enough money to pay for his uniform. He started at the school on September 2, 1915, and with his good looks and acrobatic talents he became a popular figure among both girls and boys, who affectionately referred to him as "Gussie". Though he was able at most academic subjects and excelled at sports, particularly "fives", similar to squash but with gloves, he developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework". His evenings were spent working backstage in the Bristolian theatres, and in 1917 he was responsible for the lighting for the magician David Devant at the Hippodrome. In the summer he volunteered for work as a messenger boy and guide at the military docks in Southampton, to escape the unhappiness of his home life.

On 13 March 1918, Archie was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, from him being found in the girls' lavatory to being found guilty of theft, along with two other classmates, in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Higham and Moseley believe that the real reason was that he stole a valise full of paints, which is self-referenced for good humor in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.

Vaudeville and performing career

The New York Hippodrome, where Archie was a performer

Without school to attend, Archie rejoined the Pender Troupe, and accepted a salary of 10 shillings a week from Bob Pender. He gave nightly performances at the Norwich Hippodrome from May 13 to 18, 1918, and then the Ipswich Hippodrome for two days until 25 May. During that summer the troupe performed in Aldershot and toured northern England and southern Scotland, including Aberdeen and Dundee, before returning to Bristol in the September. At Christmas he appeared in the pantomime of Babes in the Wood at Edinburgh's Princes Theatre. On July 21, 1920, at the age 16, he travelled with the group on the RMS Olympic to conduct a tour of the United States, arriving a week later. While there the group stayed in a small apartment on 58th Street, just off 8th Avenue. They performed at the New York Hippodrome, the largest theatre in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697 people, in Good Times, described by McCann as a "considerable success". Higham and Moseley note that Grant "fell in love with Manhattan", and was "dazzled" at meeting the stars of Broadway. When the troupe returned to Britain, Archie decided to stay in the US and continue his stage career.

"Doing stand-up comedy is extremely difficult. Your timing has to change from show to show and from town to town. You're always adjusitng to the size of the audience and the size of the theater. We used to do matinees, supper shows and late shows... the response would change from night to night and from town to town. The people in Wilkesbarre and the folks in Wilmington don't necessarily laugh at the same things".

—Grant on stand-up comedy.

Archie became a part of the vaudeville world and toured with Parker and Rand. On March 27, 1922, he performed at the Orpheum in St. Louis, Missouri. He later performed in drag in Coney Island, a place which he detested, wearing "six-foot-high stilts" and a "bright-green coat and jockey cap, long tube-like trousers and a sandwich board advertising the race-track". Grant remembered becoming fond of the performances of the Marx Brothers, billed as the "Greatest Comedy Act in Show Business, Barring None" at the time and that Zeppo Marx was an early role model for him. In the summer of 1922 he formed a group, "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the former members of the Pender Troupe and starred in a variety show at the Hippodrome towards the end of the year. In 1923, the group toured the US, performing in cities such as Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles by later October. After a tour of the mid West in 1924, he returned to Los Angeles in May 1925. Exhausted after touring the entire United States and Canada, the group split up and he returned to New York. There he began living and performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics and comic sketches and having a short spell as a unicycle rider known as "Rubber Legs". The experience was a particular demanding one, but gave Archie the opportunity to perfect his comic technique and timing.

Grant became acquainted with Jean Dalrymple and Dan Jarrott, and decided to form the Jack Janis Company, which commenced touring in May 1926. In 1927 he was cast as an Australian in the critically panned musical, Golden Dawn. Higham and Moseley state that by this time Archie had "shed his callow, awkward manner, his strutting, bowlegged, cockney walk and his excessive mugging; he looked like a man-about-town and at the same time he displayed the necessary roughness of an Australian type". The following year he joined the William Morris Agency and appeared in a production of Polly, which was seen as a disaster. Despite the poor reception of the play, Archie was spotted by J. J. Shubert, who cast him in a small role opposite Jeanette MacDonald in the French risqué comedy production of Boom-Boom at the Casino Theatre on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 1929. The production moved on to Detroit and Chicago, before Archie took leave to return to England and visit his half-brother Eric. Upon returning to New York later in the year, he played the role of Max in a production of A Wonderful Night. He began to attract a significant following from several critics and theatre fans, who frequently praised his dashing good looks. Higham and Moseley state that by this time, at the age of 26, he was at the "full bloom of his handsomeness" and would "merely have to appear before an audience to captivate virtually every woman in it".

In 1930, Archie toured in a show named The Street Singer, a musical comedy about Americans living in Paris. He performed on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri, in such shows as Irene, Music in May, Nina Rosa, Rio Rita and The Three Musketeers 1931. Leach's experience on stage as a stilt walker, acrobat, juggler, and mime taught him "phenomenal physical grace and exquisite comic timing", and the value of teamwork, skills which would benefit him in Hollywood.

Film career

Early roles (1932–1936)

"It wasn't merely a question of ideally photogenic features, the bone structure without which no leading man could possibly succeed on film. Nor was it merely a question of a classically constructed physique, with the broad shoulders, sculptured chest muscles, and narrow hips of the athlete. It was the extraordinary combination of aggressive charm and confidence, and underneath it a little boy's vulnerability, unease, and even shyness... The self-confidence was a mask; the camera saw through the mask to an insecurity within. Women would not feel threatened or overridden by his personality, and yet at the same time they would warm to his apparently unequivocal masculinity. The result of the test was an immediate contract and an invitation to Hollywood".

—Higham and Moseley on Grant's natural appeal on camera.

Leach's role in songwriter and theatre producer William B. Friedlander's play Nikki (1931), where he starred opposite actress Fay Wray as a soldier named Cary Lockwood, was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". This review got him a screen test as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1932), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson for Warner Bros.. After seeing him on screen, Robinson instantly knew that a "new screen personality had been born" and cast him, though the role went uncredited. Leach filmed his portions for the short in a day.

Through Casey Robinson, Leach met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, whom Leach would later work with in Devil and the Deep (1932) and Madame Butterfly (1932), Schulberg signed Leach at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg also requested Leach to change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper". While having dinner with Fay Wray, she asked Leach to choose the name "Cary Lockwood", the name of his character in Nikki. Schulberg decided the name "Cary" was acceptable, but was less satisfied with "Lockwood" as it was too similar to another actor's surname. Schulberg gave Leach a list of surnames compiled by Paramount's publicity department, and Leach chose "Grant", which Schulberg liked.

Cary Grant made his feature film debut with Frank Tuttle's adaptation of playwright Avery Hopwood's 1925 comedy Naughty Cinderella, This is the Night (1932), opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita, who played his wife and love interest respectively. Grant disliked his role, believing that a man accepting the unfaithfulness of his wife so calmly was unbelievable. After seeing the film, he decided to quit Hollywood. However, his friend Orry-Kelly talked him out of it. Grant's performance in the film was praised by critics, much to the actor's surprise, with a critic from Variety describing it as "striking" and noting that "he looks like a potential femme rave". Grant then appeared opposite Carole Lombard in Sinners in the Sun (1932) as a "sophisticated man-about-town" named Ridgeway, a role which he felt was more suited to his acting style. The film was poorly received by critics with Variety calling it "a very weak picture with an unimpressive future before it." Grant later featured in five more films in 1932 — Blonde Venus opposite Marlene Dietrich in which he played a "superficial, wealthy playboy", Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Frederic March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep alongside Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton and Tallulah Bankhead, Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to Higham and Moseley, this busy shooting schedule immediately began to take its toll on Grant, who became moody. He reportedly conflicted with co-stars such as Bankhead in Devil and the Deep and Virginia Cherrill in The Nuisance (1933). Despite the initial frostiness, Grant and Cherrill married the following year. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films didn't make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors".

Grant with Mae West in I'm No Angel (1933)

In 1933, Grant garnered attention for appearing in the Pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. According to biographer Jerry Vermilye, West had asked one of Paramount's office boys about Grant to which the boy replied, "Oh, that's Cary Grant. He's making [Madame] Butterfly with Sylvia Sidney". West then retorted, "I don't care if he's making Little Nell. If he can talk, I'll take him." Andre Sennwald of The New York Times found Grant's performance in She Done Him Wrong to be "commendable" while Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader described him as "a callow young actor". The film is placed at 75 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list, while West's line "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?" was voted number 26 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes. She Done Him Wrong was nominated in the Best Picture category but lost to Cavalcade (1933). For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong and Vermilye noted that it became "one of the best comedy films of the 1930s." These two films saved Paramount from bankruptcy. Despite the success, Grant continued to be troubled, and refused to attend the premiere of the film in London. His health declined, and he suffered from a severe gum infection and had an operation to remove an early cancerous growth from his rectum while in England.

Later in 1933, Grant also featured as New York gangster Ace Corbin in Gambling Ship, and portrayed the Mock Turtle in Norman Z. McLeod's Alice in Wonderland, a role which was originally intended for Bing Crosby. The New York Times referred to Grant's turtle as a "highly amusing" one. The following year, he again starred opposite Sidney as newspaper publisher Porter Madison III in Marion Gering's Thirty-Day Princess and played the romantic interest of Loretta Young in Born to Be Bad for 20th Century Fox, which was poorly received at the box office. The other Paramount films of that year, Kiss and Make-Up and Ladies Should Listen fared no better, but his prospects perked up in 1935 when was loaned to RKO Pictures. He starred in his first venture with RKO, Sylvia Scarlett (1935), opposite Katharine Hepburn marking his first collaboration with her. The pair would later on feature in Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940). Despite the film being a commercial failure, Grant's performance was praised by critics, with Variety noting that he "practically steals the picture". It was also in 1936 his contract with Paramount ended with the release of Wedding Present (1936), which co-starred Joan Bennett. Grant decided not to renew his contract with the studio and wished to work free-lance. Vermilye notes that Grant claimed to be the first free-lance actor in Hollywood and it helped increase his salary to $300,000 per picture. His first venture as a free-lance actor was The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936), a remake of The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss (1920). The film was a box office bomb and prompted Grant to reconsider his decision to work free-lance. However, his performances in Sylvia Scarlett and Suzy (1936), where he co-starred with Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, received favourable public response. This lead him to sign joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to choose the stories that he felt suited his acting style.

Hollywood stardom (1937–1954)

Grant on the lobby card for Topper (1937)

In 1937, Grant began the first film under his contract with Columbia Pictures, When You're in Love, His performance in the film received positive feedback from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune noting that Grant's role of "a wealthy American artist" was the "best thing he's done in a long time". He followed it up with the first picture of his new contract with RKO, The Toast of New York where he played a supporting role opposite Edward Arnold and Frances Farmer. The film was a commercial disappointment but Tinee found Grant to "qualify magnificently" for his role of Nick Boyd.

Grant's first major comedy hit was when he was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper (1937), a screwball comedy film distributed by MGM. In Topper, Grant plays George Kerby while Constance Bennett plays his wife, Marion Kerby. Both are a wealthy, freewheeling married couple living an uninhibited lifestyle. Vermilye believed Topper "offered the actor not only a delightful change of pace, but also a prophetic look at the upward course of his career as an expert light comedian". The film's producer Hal Roach wanted Grant to play the role of George Kerby, but had difficulties getting the actor to agree to play the part, since Grant was concerned about the supernatural aspects of the story. Roach assured the actor that Topper would be more of a screwball comedy than a ghost film and paid him an advance fee of $50,000. Topper became one of the most popular movies of the year. A critic from Variety notes that both Grant and Bennett "do their assignments with great skill". Vermilye described the film's success as "a logical springboard" for Grant to star in The Awful Truth (1937). The film saw Grant pairing up with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy, with whom he would make three and two films altogether, respectively. The film was a huge critical and commercial success and made Grant a top star. It earned half a million dollars in just a week weeks, exorbitant for the period, and Grant earned ten percent of the box office takings. Critics also appreciated the actor's onscreen chemistry with Dunne, with Dennis Schwartz terming the comic timing between the two as "pitch perfect". Grant became a naturalised United States citizen on June 26, 1942, at which time he also legally changed his name from "Archibald Alexander Leach" to "Cary Grant". The Awful Truth help establish for Grant, a screen persona as a sophisticated light comedy leading man in screwball comedies. As Grant later wrote, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point." According to professor Wes D. Gehring, Grant based his characterisation in The Awful Truth on the mannerisms and intonations of the film's director, Leo McCarey, whom he resembled physically.

The Awful Truth began what The Atlantic later called "the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures". During the next four years, Grant appeared in several classic romantic comedies and screwball comedies, including Holiday (1938) and Bringing Up Baby (1938), both opposite Katharine Hepburn. Grant was initially uncertain how to play his character in Bringing Up Baby, but was told by director Howard Hawks to think of Harold Lloyd. The film earned rave reviews from critics but wasn't a major box office success. Bosley Crowther wrote: "This [movie] has just about everything that a Blue Chip comedy should have...and a splendid cast of performers headed by Katherine Hepburn, James Stewart and Cary Grant [who] is warmly congenial as the cast-off but undefeated mate". During this time, he also made the adventure films Gunga Din (1939) with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth. Later in 1939 Grant starred opposite Carole Lombard in In Name Only, a sentimental melodrama.

Grant, Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy in a publicity photo for His Girl Friday (1940)

In 1940, Grant starred in The Philadelphia Story with Hepburn and James Stewart. Camerman Joseph Ruttenberg recalled: "Everyone had enormous fun on the movie. The days and nights were sweltering that summer of 1940, but nobody cared. Cary got along very well with Kate Hepburn. She enjoyed him pushing her through a doorway in one scene (so she fell over backward) so much that she had him do it to her over and over again. There was a scene in which she had to throw Cary out the door of a house, bag and baggage, an d she did it so vigorously he fell over and was bruised. As he stood up, looking rueful, Kate said, "That'll serve you right, Cary, for trying to be your own stuntman". Grant donated his $175,000 earnings from the film to British War Relief and the Red Cross.

Grant later appeared in His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell; and My Favorite Wife (1940), which reunited him with Irene Dunne, his co-star in The Awful Truth. Grant appeared in dramas Penny Serenade (1941) with Dunne, and Suspicion (1941), the first of Grant's four collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock. Production for Suspicion began on February 10, 1941. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, finding her to be temperamental and a hypochondriac. In 1943 Grant starred in the submarine war film Destination Tokyo. Grant suffered during the production, growing irritable with his cast members and disapproving of the set, from the smallest of details such as a missing light. In 1944, Grant starred opposite Raymond Massey in the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing the manic Mortimer Brewster, described by Higham and Moseley as the "scion of a crazy family that included two murderous aunts and an uncle who thought he was President Teddy Roosevelt". Grant was testy during the production, displaying obsessive compulsive behaviour over the set and the furnishings which he frequently changed to his own preferences, and complaining about the costumes. He donated his earnings from the film to the United Service Organization, British War Relief and the Red Cross. That year he also appeared opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in Clifford Odets's None but the Lonely Heart, set in London during the Depression. On November 30 he featured in the CBS Radio series Suspense, playing a convincing "tormented, haunted near-psychopath" in Cornell Woolrich's "The Black Curtain".

With Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946)

In 1946 Grant portrayed Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day. The film commenced shooting on June 14, 1945. During the production Grant expressed concern with the quality of the script, believing it to have been poorly written and making for a "lousy characterization" of Porter. Many scenes required multiple takes, which frustrated the cast and crew. Grant intensely disliked the film and was surprised to learn that Cole and Linda Porter enjoyed the film upon release. Grant next appeared in the Hitchcock classic Notorious (1946). Grant was a favourite of Hitchcock, who called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life". In 1949 Grant starred in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride. A month into the filming he was taken ill with infectious hepatitis, leading him to lose around 30 pounds and turning his skin yellow. The illness lasted for several weeks.

In 1950, Grant starred in Crisis, followed by People Will Talk the following year. By this point he was one of the highest paid Hollywood stars, commanding $300,000 per picture. In 1952, he appeared in Monkey Business co-starring with Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Monkey Business, like the pictures preceding it were not box office success, and Grant began to question his career as an actor. He later said of the 1950s: "That was the period of blue jeans, dope addicts, and Method, nobody cared about comedy at all". In 1953 Grant starred opposite Deborah Kerr in Dream Wife. During the production he was taken ill again with another bout of hepatitis and became thin and drawn, and refused to wear makeup to mask his yellowed skin. He was critical of the set of the palace and the costumes in the film, and underwent hypnosis during the production by his wife to quit smoking. At this time Grant was considered for the leading part in George Cukor's A Star is Born, and Grant was invited to read the script at Cukor's house several times. The role eventually went to James Mason.

A romantic leading man (1955–1963)

Grant with Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief (1955)

In 1955 Grant starred opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. The film commenced filming in Cannes in the south of France on May 1, 1954. The two got on famously during the production, and marked one of the most enjoyable experiences of Grant's career. Along with his wife and Kelly's lover Oleg Cassini, the four would frequently dine together at fine restaurants throughout the shoot. Grant was one of the first actors to go independent by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled all aspects of their lives. He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times even negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross for To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it.

In 1957 Grant starred opposite Sophia Loren in Stanley Kramer's The Pride and the Passion, and Deborah Kerr in the romantic An Affair to Remember. The Pride and the Passion was shot on location in Spain and was a problematic shoot. Grant had another bout of hepatitis, while co-star Frank Sinatra was particularly volatile, irritating his co-stars and the crew. It was a disaster critically and at the box office. Grant's attempts to woo Loren during the production proved fruitless, which led to him expressing anger when Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. Higham and Moseley claim that Grant was so on edge during the filming of Houseboat that it "almost made it impossible for him to play the light comedy scenes". Later that year he starred opposite Ingrid Bergman in the romantic comedy Indiscreet. During the filming he formed a closer friendship with her, and gained new respect for her as an actress. In 1959 Grant starred in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, which like Indiscreet was warmly received by the critics and a major commercial success. Blake Edwards' Operation Petticoat, co-starring Tony Curtis and set aboard a submarine was a further box office success.

With Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963)

In 1960 Grant appeared opposite Robert Mitchum in The Grass is Greener, on location in England. Footage for the film was shot at Osterley Park ant Shepparton Studios. After That Touch of Mink (co-starring with Doris Day) in 1962, he produced Father Goose in 1964. With the exception of Indiscreet, which was distributed by Warner Brothers, all the films were distributed by Universal.

Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman originally sought Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film; therefore, the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise. In 1963, Grant appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade directed by Stanley Donen. Hitchcock asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain (1966) only to learn that Grant had decided to retire.

Retirement and death

Grant in 1973

Grant retired from the screen at 62, when his daughter Jennifer was born, to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanency and stability in her life. While raising his daughter, he archived artefacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault he had installed in the house. His daughter attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artefacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bristol in the Second World War (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and the cousin's husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.

Although Grant had retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and travelled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1987), and MGM.

Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. In 1982 he was honoured with the "Man of the Year" award by the New York Friars Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The event raised around $250,000 for charity. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the United States in a one-man show, A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions.

Grant was at the Adler Theatre in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of November 29, 1986, preparing for his performance when he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage. He died at 11:22 p.m. in St. Luke's Hospital, at age 82. Grant had refused a funeral, so was simply cremated and his ashes scattered. The bulk of his estate, worth around 80 million dollars, went to his wife Barbara Harris and his daughter Jennifer Grant.

Personal life

With Betsy Drake and Saxophonist Dick Stabile in 1955

One of the wealthiest stars in Hollywood, Grant owned houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He stayed at the finest hotels, had his clothes and shoes hand-made especially for him, and owned two Rolls-Royces. Biographers Higham and Moseley note that such was his level of sophistication, he became the envy of the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan and Bob Hope. They state that Grant was the "ultimate matinee idol", with a charm that endeared him to both men and women. He wore "perfectly tailored" suits and was immaculate in his personal grooming, with neatly coiffured hair and a sun tan.

Relationships

Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 10, 1934. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that Grant had hit her. After the demise of the marriage, he later dated actress Phyllis Brooks, and became engaged to her before calling it off late in 1939. In 1942, he married Barbara Hutton, one of the wealthiest women in the world following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather, Frank Winfield Woolworth. The couple was derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although in an extensive prenuptial agreement Grant refused any financial settlement in the event of a divorce. The couple invested heavily in real estate development in Acapulco at a time when it was little more than a fishing village. Towards the end of their marriage they lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. After divorcing in 1945, they remained the "fondest of friends". Grant always bristled at the accusation that he married for money: "I may not have married for very sound reasons, but money was never one of them." After dating Betty Hensel, the daughter of the organizers of the St. Louis Municipal Opera, for a period, on December 25, 1949, Grant married Betsy Drake. He appeared with her in two films. This would prove to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962.

He eloped with Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, at friend Howard Hughes's Desert Inn in Las Vegas. Their daughter, Jennifer Grant, was born on February 26, 1966. Jennifer is Grant's only child. He frequently called Jennifer his "best production". Grant and Cannon divorced in March 1968. On March 12 that month he was involved in a car accident on Long Island when a truck struck the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalised for 17 days with two broken ribs and bruising from head to foot.

Grant became more reclusive in the late 1960s following the demise of his marriage to Cannon. He avoided parties and detested the "celebrity roasting" culture which was emerging at the time. He remained in contact with Howard Hughes in Las Vegas, Hughes finding it therapeutic to occasionally confide his troubles in Grant by phone. Grant continued to visit Las Vegas frequently throughout the 1970s, though as Hughes's health declined and he broke off contact with the outside world, Grant was reduced to waving at cameras in hotels owned by Hughes, which he knew Hughes would see. Grant had an affair with showgirl Cynthia Bouron in the late 1960s, but soon found that Bouron was a liar and had become pregnant by a younger man resembling Grant. Bouron named Grant as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant challenged her to a blood test and Bouron failed to provide one. Several years later she was found murdered in a San Fernando parking lot. Between 1973 and 1977 he dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson, followed by Victoria Morgan, who was only in her twenties at the time and Grant in his early seventies. On April 11, 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years his junior.

Sexuality

Several authors, including Higham and Moseley in their book, have implied that Grant was homosexual. Others such as Hedda Hopper, and screenwriter Arthur Laurents claimed that Grant was bisexual. Grant lived with actor Randolph Scott off and on for 12 years, which several authors have claimed was a gay relationship. The two had first met early on in Grant's career in 1932 at the Paramount studio when Scott was filming Sky Bride at the same time as Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and moved in together soon afterwards. When Chevy Chase joked on television in 1980 that Grant was a "homo. What a gal!", Grant sued him for slander, and he was forced to retract his words. Similarly, when gossip columnist Louella Parsons suggested he was gay, he sued her for libel.

Scott biographer Robert Nott states that there has never been any evidence to prove that Grant and Scott had been in a gay relationship. He blames the rumours on the fact that a lot of material written about them in books was obtained from other authors and that most historians just assumed that they were gay or bisexual. Virginia Cherrill, Grant's first wife, states that Grant and Scott who had worked on films together and had lived together at times, were never more than platonic friends. Grant's daughter, Jennifer Grant, writes that her father was not gay, although he didn't mind people thinking it since "it made women want to prove the assertion was wrong." She adds that her father had always thought the "gay rumor seemed funny." In 2012, Dyan Cannon, his wife of four years, further diminished the rumours: "[He] was all man in the bedroom. That part of our life was very fulfilling. There were no problems. There's rumors about everyone in Hollywood."

Legacy

"Cary Grant was the man that most men dreamed of being, an exceptional man, the 'man from dream city'. He was that most unexpected but attractive of contradictions: a democratic symbol of gentlemanly grace. No other man seemed so classless and self-assured, as happy with the world of music-hall as with the haut monde, as adept at polite restraint as at acrobatic pratfalls. No other man was equally at ease with the romantic as the comic. No other man seemed sufficiently secure in himself and his abilities to toy with his own dignity without ever losing it. No other man aged so well and with such fine style. No other man, in short, played the part so well: Cary Grant made men seem like a good idea".

—Biographer Graham McCann on Cary Grant.

Film critic David Thomson referred to Grant as "the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema", while the film critic Richard Schickel said that he's the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". James Mason commented that "If there were a question in a test paper that required me to fill in the name of an actor who showed the same grace and perfect timing that Fred Astaire showed in his dancing, I should put Cary Grant". James Stewart described him as the "consummate actor" while director Stanley Donen declared Grant to have been "the absolute best in the world at his job". Howard Hawks concurred, remarking that Grant "so far the best that there isn't anybody to be compared to him". Grant remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years.

Statue of Cary Grant in Millennium Square, Bristol

Grant was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. Accepting the Best Original Screenplay Oscar on April 5, 1965 at the 37th Academy Awards, Father Goose co-writer Peter Stone had quipped, "My thanks to Cary Grant, who keeps winning these things for other people". In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. In 1987, People magazine named him, along with Greta Garbo, as the greatest of all stars. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". Ten years earlier they had declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".

Grant poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant", and in ad-lib lines—such as in the film His Girl Friday (1940), saying, "Listen, the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat." In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. According to a famous story now believed to be apocryphal, after seeing a telegram from a magazine editor to his agent asking, "How old Cary Grant?", Grant reportedly responded, "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"

On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, in the city where he was born.

Filmography and stage work

Main article: Cary Grant on stage, radio and screen

See also

• Cary Grant – Wikipedia book

References

Sources

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• Boze, Hadleigh (December 11, 2012). Holy Matrimony!: Better Halves and Bitter Halves: Actors, Athletes, Comedians, Directors, Divas, Philosophers, Poets. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4494-4098-5.
• Braun, Eric (January 2007). Frightening the Horses: Gay Icons of the Cinema. Reynolds & Hearn. ISBN 978-1-905287-37-6.
• Clear, Rebecca D. (1993). Jazz on Film and Video in the Library of Congress. DIANE Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7881-1436-6.
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• Crouse, Richard (2005). Reel Winners: Movie Award Trivia. Dundurn. ISBN 978-1-55002-574-3.
• Donnelley, Paul (2003). Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries. Omnibus. ISBN 978-0-7119-9512-3.
• Drury, Jack (2008). Fort Lauderdale: Playground of the Stars. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-5351-1.
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• Fells, Maurice (July 15, 2015). The Little Book of Bristol. History Press Limited. ISBN 978-0-7509-6543-9.
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• Gehring, Wes D. (2005). Leo McCarey: From Marx to McCarthy. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5263-1.
• Godfrey, Lionel. Cary Grant: The Light Touch. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981. ISBN 0-312-12309-4.
• Grant, Jennifer (May 3, 2011). Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-59667-3.
• Gressor, Megan; Cook, Kerry (2005). Affair to Remember. Fair Winds. ISBN 978-1-61059-557-5.
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• Halliwell, Leslie; Walker, John (2001). Halliwell's Who's who in the Movies. HarperCollinsEntertainment. ISBN 978-0-00-257214-9.
• Heymann, C. David (November 1, 1987). Poor Ltl Rch Grl M. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-64069-9.
• Higham, Charles; Moseley, Roy (1990). Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart. Avon Books. ISBN 978-0-380-71009-6.
• Hodgins, Eric (May 10, 1957). "Amid Ruins of an Empire a New Hollywood Arises". Life.
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• Laurents, Arthur (2001). Original Story by: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood. Applause. ISBN 978-1-55783-467-6.
• Mann, William J. (2001). Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-03017-0.
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• McBrien, William (2000). Cole Porter. ISBN 978-0-679-72792-7. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• McCann, Graham (1997). Cary Grant: A Class Apart. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-1-8570-2574-3.
• McIntosh, William Currie; Weaver, William (1983). The private Cary Grant. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-283-98989-6.
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• Royce, William; Donaldson, Maureen (1989). An Affair to Remember: My Life With Cary Grant.
• Seymour, Miranda (May 5, 2009). Chaplin's Girl: The Life and Loves of Virginia Cherrill. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-84737-737-1.
• Shevey, Sandra (September 7, 1990). The Marilyn Scandal. Arrow. ISBN 978-0-09-960760-1.
• Vermilye, Jerry (January 1, 1973). Cary Grant. Pyramid Publications. ISBN 978-0-515-03246-8.
• Wansell, Geoffrey (December 13, 2013) [1996]. Cary Grant, Dark Angel. Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62872-336-6.
• Wansell, Geoffrey (1996). Cary Grant, Dark Angel. Arcade Pub. ISBN 978-1-55970-369-7.
• Weiten, Wayne (1996). Psychology: Themes and Variations. Brooks/Cole. ISBN 978-0-534-33926-5.
• Wilt, David E. (January 1991). Hardboiled in Hollywood. Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-525-9.

Further reading

• Nelson, Nancy; Grant, Jennifer (August 1, 2012). Evenings with Cary Grant: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those who Knew Him Best. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. ISBN 978-1-55783-923-7.
• Schickel, Richard (November 29, 2009). Cary Grant: A Celebration. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-09032-2.

External links

• Dr. Blofeld/Cary Grant at the Internet Broadway Database
• Dr. Blofeld/Cary Grant at AllMovie
• Dr. Blofeld/Cary Grant at IMDb
• Dr. Blofeld/Cary Grant at the TCM Movie Database
• Works by or about Dr. Blofeld/Cary Grant in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• "Archibald Leach's christening record". Familysearch.org.
• "Archibald Leach's entry in the England/Wales Census". Familysearch.org. 1911.
• "Archibald Leach's US immigration record". Familysearch.org. 1920.
• "Social Security Death index". Familysearch.org. 1986.
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "Cary Grant papers". Margaret Herrick Library.

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