Cary Grant ~ 68 Films
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Cary Grant ~ 68 Films Cary Grant is one of the most consistent stars from the Golden Age of the Hollywood Studio System. Perhaps more than any other actor, he understood that what he was presenting to the public was an image. Quite famously, he has been quoted as saying, "Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant." What this means for fans of the legendary actor is that when we sit down and watch one of his films, good or bad, we know what we can expect of Cary Grant. His long-lasting appeal is down to his striking good looks, his dashing poise and a natural gift for both romance and comedy. Cary Grant can make you laugh even while he sweeps you off your feet. Archibald "Archie" Leach was born on 18 January 1904 at 15 Hughenden Road in the Bristol suburb of Horfield. He was the second child of Elias and Elsie Leach (their first having died in 1900). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory while his mother was from a family of shipwrights. Archie had an unhappy upbringing. His father was an alcoholic and his mother suffered from clinical depression. His father placed her in a mental institution and first told the nine-year-old that she had gone away on a "long holiday" and later that she had died. When Archie was ten, his father remarried and started a new family that did not include young Archibald. Little is known about how he was cared for, or by whom. Archie did not learn his mother was still alive until he was 31, when, shortly before his own death, his father confessed to the lie. He told Leach that he could find her in a care home. At this point she was 57. She eventually died, aged 95, in 1973. 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 fourth wife, Dyan Cannon) It is alleged that, after being expelled from school aged fourteen, Archie lied about his age and forged his father's signature in order to join the Bob Pender Stage Troupe, with whom he performed as a stilt walker. In 1920, aged sixteen, he toured with the group through the United States, entering through Ellis Island on 28 July. When the troupe returned home, Archie decided to stay on in the U.S. to pursue a stage career. He performed in vaudeville and then on stage at The Muny in St. Louis in shows such as Irene, Music In May, Nina Rosa, Rio Rita, Street Singer, The Three Musketeers and Wonderful Night. Leach's previous experience as a stilt walker, acrobat, juggler and mime taught him "phenomenal physical grace and exquisite comic timing" as well as the value of teamwork - all skills that would benefit him in Hollywood. After appearing in several Broadway musicals under his own name, Leach went to Hollywood in 1931 when he signed for Paramount. When advised to change his name, he proposed "Cary Lockwood", the character he had played opposite Fay Wray in a show called Nikki. The Paramount bosses decided that "Cary" was acceptable but that "Lockwood" was not and gave their new actor a list of surnames to choose from. He selected "Grant". Leach became a naturalised United States citizen on 26 June 1942, at which time he also legally changed his name from "Archibald Alexander Leach" to "Cary Grant". Grant appeared as a leading man opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus (1932) and his stardom was given a further boost when Mae West chose him to lead in two of her most successful films: She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel (both 1933), the success of which reputedly saved Paramount from bankruptcy. The studio put Grant in a series of unsuccessful films until 1936, when he moved to Columbia. His first major comedy hit came when he was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for 1937's Topper. Another pivotal film in Grant's career was The Awful Truth, which established his enduring screen persona as a sophisticated light comedy leading man. 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." Grant is said to have based his characterisation in The Awful Truth on the mannerisms and intonations of the film's director, Leo McCarey, whom he resembled physically. As writer/director Peter Bogdanovich noted: "After The Awful Truth, when it came to light comedy, there was Cary Grant and then everyone else." 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 and screwball comedies including Holiday and Bringing Up Baby (both 1938, opposite Katharine Hepburn), The Phila- delphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart, 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. During this time, he also made the adventure films Gunga Din (1939) with Douglas Fairbanks Junior and Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth and dramas Penny Serenade (1941) with Dunne, and Suspicion (1941), the first of Grant's four collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock. Grant was a favourite of Hitchcock, who called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life". Besides Suspicion, Grant appeared in the Hitchcock classics Notorious (1946), To Catch A Thief (1955) and North By Northwest (1959). In 1952, Grant co-starred with Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe in Monkey Business. In the mid-fifties, he formed his own production company, Granart Productions, and produced a number of films, distributed by Universal, such as Indiscreet (1958), Operation Petticoat (1959), That Touch Of Mink (1962, with Doris Day) and Father Goose (1964). Grant was considered for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962) but the idea fell through due to his age. In 1963, he appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Hitchcock asked him to star in Torn Curtain (1966) only to learn that the actor had decided to retire. Grant was the first actor to "go independent" by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled what an actor could or could not do. In this way, he was able to control every aspect of his career, at the risk of not working because no particular studio had an interest in his career long term. 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. Though nominated for two Academy Awards, for Penny Serenade and None But The Lonely Heart (1944), Grant never won a competitive Oscar. He did, however, receive a special Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. Accepting the Best Original Screenplay Oscar on 5 April 1965, Father Goose co-writer Peter Stone quipped: "My thanks to Cary Grant, who keeps winning these things for other people." Grant was married five times, first to Virginia Cherrill from February 1934 to March 1935, then from 1942 to 1945 to Barbara Hutton, who, following a $50 million inheritance from her grandfather F. W. Woolworth, was one of the wealthiest women in the world. 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 pair 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." On 25 December 1949, he married Betsy Drake. He appeared with her in two films - Every Girl Should Be Married (1948) and Room For One More (1952). This would prove to be his longest marriage, ending in August 1962. In July 1965 he eloped with Dyan Cannon in Las Vegas. Their daughter Jennifer was born in February 1966. He frequently called Jennifer his "best production". Grant and Cannon divorced in March 1968. In April 1981, Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent 47 years his junior. They renewed their vows on their fifth wedding anniversary and remained wed until Grant's death in November 1986. Some, including Hedda Hopper and screenwriter Arthur Laurents, claimed that Grant was bisexual. Grant was allegedly involved with costume designer Orry- Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan and lived with actor Randolph Scott off and on for twelve years. Richard Blackwell wrote that Grant and Scott were "deeply, madly in love." Scotty Bowers alleged in his 2012 memoir Full Service that he had been intimately involved with both Grant and Scott. Cole Porter biographer William McBrien states that Porter and Grant frequented the same upscale house of male prostitution in Harlem, run by Clint Moore and popular with celebrities.