Comprehensive information and links about Cary Grant

Cary Grant , was a British-born American film actor. He was perhaps the foremost exemplar of the debonair leading man, not only handsome, but witty and charming.

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Early life and career

Archie Leach was born in Horfield, Bristol, England. He was an only child and had a confused and unhappy childhood. His mother, Elsie, was placed in a mental institution when Archie was only nine. His father never told him the truth, and he only learned twenty years later that his mother was still alive.

This left LeachGrant with an insecurity in his relations with women and a secretiveness about his inner life that may explain the outward displays of bravado and charm that characterize most of his screen performances, in films as different as .

Grant's unhappy childhood, by his own account, led him to crave applause and attention and to create a new persona that would attract it. After being expelled from Fairfield School in Bristol in 1918 for an incident involving the girls' bathroom, he joined the Bob Pender stage troupe. Grant traveled with the troupe to the United States in 1920 for a two year tour; when the troupe returned to Britain, Grant stayed in the States. There, he created over time a unique accent and persona that mixed working and upper class accents, while supporting himself as, among other things, a hawker.

Hollywood stardom

After some success in light Broadway comedies, he came to Hollywood in 1931, where he acquired the name , with Hepburn, established his best-known screen role: the charming if sometimes unreliable man, formerly married to an intelligent and strong-willed woman who first divorced him, then realized that he was — with all his faults — irresistible. Grant subsequently took that character in a far darker direction in directed by Hitchcock, without somehow losing his charm or his audience's devotion.

Grant was one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for several decades. He was a versatile actor, who did demanding physical comedy in movies like with the skills he had learned on the stage. Hitchcock, who was notorious for disliking actors, was very fond of Grant, saying that Grant was "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life". Howard Hawks was just as devoted, saying that Grant was "so far the best that there is. There isn't any to be compared to him".

In the mid-1950s, Grant formed his own production company, Grantley Productions, and via a distribution deal with Universal produced what many consider some of his finest work, including .

Grant was a favorite actor of Alfred Hitchcock, appearing in his films Suspicion, Notorious, (with Eva Marie Saint). The latter was Grant's most successful movie; he plays an advertising agent who gets mistaken for a spy in a classic story of an average person caught up in situations beyond his or her control.

Grant aged extremely well; many fans believe that he got more handsome with age, as his hair went from dark to a salt and pepper colour that added to his dignified appearance.

Although twice nominated for an Academy Award, he never won but was honored in 1970 with a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1981, he received the Kennedy Center Honors.

In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the United States with his "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and afterward hold a question-and-answer session with the audience. It was just before one of these performances, in Davenport, Iowa, that Grant suffered a severe stroke (November 29, 1986), and died in the hospital a few hours later at the age of 82.

Personal life in Hollywood

Grant's personal life was complicated, involving five marriages and speculation about his sexuality.

In 1932 he met fellow actor Randolph Scott on the set of , and the two developed a close friendship, sharing a rented house for twelve years. The beach house they shared was known as "Bachelor Hall" and was frequently visited by women guests. However, rumors ran rampant at the time that Grant and Scott were actually lovers and that the name "Bachelor Hall" was invented by the studio to keep their two valuable stars from scandal. The story was dismissed by at least one of his wives, Betsy Drake, as unfounded.

Biographers disagree on whether Grant was bisexual. While Marc Elliot, Charles Higham and Roy Moseley consider Grant to have been bisexual, with Higham and Moseley claiming that Grant and Scott were seen kissing in a public carpark outside a social function both were attending in the 1960s, Graham McCann dismisses the claims as rumors. In his book, , Boze Hadleigh cites an interview with gay director George Cukor who said about the homosexual relationship between Scott and Grant: "Oh, Cary won't talk about it. At most, he'll say they did some wonderful pictures together. But Randolph will admit it – to a friend." According to screenwriter Arthur Laurents, Grant was "at best bisexual". According to William J. Mann's book, , photographer Jerome Zerbe spent "three gay months" (his words) in the movie colony taking many photographs of Grant and Scott, "attesting to their involvement in the gay scene." Zerbe says that he often stayed with the two actors, "finding them both warm, charming, and happy." In his book, (2006), Darwin Porter exposes Marlon Brando as a prize lothario, romping his way through Hollywood with the biggest names, both male and female. He claims that Brando had a homosexual affair with Cary Grant.

Many writers seem to have no doubt about the actor's bisexuality. Although Grant had many gay friends, including William Haines and Australian artist Orry-Kelly, there is no conclusive evidence that he was bisexual, as the star never outed himself. However at the start of his film career outing himself was not an option. Will Hays, author of the Hays Code which censored "indecent" references in films, notably references to homosexuality, admitted in the 1930s to keeping a "Doom Book" of actors he considered "unsafe" because of their personal lives.span As gay film director James Whale discovered, being featured in Hays's list could instantly end a career, with studios dropping those on the list from their employment for fear of criticism from Hays and the Roman Catholic League of Decency.

Grant was the first to use the word "gay" meaning homosexual context on screen, in an during a take that was kept in the film. This was possible because its meaning was not fully grasped by censors and so slipped by the Hays code. In the famous 1938 screwball comedy, , he appears in one scene wearing a pink dressing gown, telling incredulous observers "I just went gay all of a sudden".span

Grant's first wife was actress Virginia Cherrill. They married on February 10, 1934, and divorced just over a year later on 26 March 1935.

Grant became a naturalized citizen of the United States on June 26, 1942. Two weeks later, he married the wealthy socialite Barbara Hutton and became the surrogate father of, and lifelong influence on, her son, Lance Reventlow. He and Hutton divorced in 1945.

Grant's third wife was Betsy Drake. This was his longest marriage, beginning on December 25, 1949, and ending in divorce on August 14, 1962.

In the September, 1959 issue of magazine, Grant related how treatment with LSD at a prestigious California clinic - legal at the time - had finally brought him inner peace after yoga, hypnotism, and mysticism had proved ineffective.

His fourth marriage was to actress Dyan Cannon, July 22, 1965, in Las Vegas, with whom he had his only child, a daughter, Jennifer Grant (who would later become an actress herself). The marriage was troubled from the beginning: Cannon, who was 28 at the time, and Grant, who was 61, did not get along after their honeymoon in Bristol. Cannon filed for divorce less than two years later, claiming "brutal and inhuman treatment." The divorce, finalized on May 28, 1967, was bitter and messy.

Grant's final marriage was to Barbara Harris. They married on 11 April 1981. The couple was married until Grant's death.

When he died in 1986, Grant's cremated ashes were given to his family.

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Ian Fleming stated that he partially had Cary Grant in mind when he created his suave super-spy, James Bond. Sean Connery was selected for the first James Bond movie because of his uncanny likeness to Grant. Likewise, the later Bond, Roger Moore, was also selected for sharing Grant's wry sense of humor and lightheartedness.

"I probably chose my profession because I was seeking approval, adulation, admiration and affection.""I have spent the greater part of my life fluctuating between Archie Leach and Cary Grant, unsure of each, suspecting each."Visiting his agent Grant intercepted a telegram from a journalist writing a profile asking "How Old Cary Grant?". Grant sent a reply saying "Old Cary Grant fine, how you?"., he responds to a pointed comment by saying, "The last person who said that to me was Archie Leach, before he cut his throat."Mae: I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand. Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me? I'm home every evening.Mae: You ain't kiddin' me any. You know, I met your kind before. Why don't you come up sometime, huh? is memorable; after his clothes get drenched and he puts on a woman's frilly bathrobe, May Robson encounters Grant:, the character played by John Cleese is named Archibald Leach in reference to Cary Grant after his real name [4]. Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, just a few kilometres from Cary Grant's birthplace, Bristol.Although many Cary Grant impressions include the quotation, "Judy, Judy, Judy", Grant never actually said that phrase in any of his movies. In Christopher Reeve said he based his portrayal of Clark Kent on Grant's 1938 performance as the awkward bespectacled scientist in Some of his younger fans told him that he looked just like the comic book superhero Captain Marvel. (However, cartoonist C.C. Beck in fact based the superhero's appearance on fellow actor Fred MacMurray.)