name	Cary Grant
birth name	Archibald Alexander Leach
birth date	January 18, 1904
birth place	Bristol, England, United Kingdom
death date	November 29, 1986
death place	Davenport, Iowa, United States
other names	Archie Leach
occupation	Actor
years active	1932–66
spouse	Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935)Barbara Hutton (1942–1945)Betsy Drake (1949–1962)Dyan Cannon (1965–1967)Barbara Harris (1981–1986)
partner	Maureen Donaldson (1973–1977)
children	Jennifer Grant, born on February 26, 1966
relations	Cary Benjamin Grant, born on August 12, 2008
Awards	Academy Honorary Award1970 For his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with the respect and affection of his colleagues. }}

Archibald Alexander Leach (January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986), better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and "dashing good looks", Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men.

He was named the second Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Noted for his dramatic roles as well as screwball comedy, Grant's best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), Gunga Din (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Penny Serenade (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), None but the Lonely Heart (1944), Notorious (1946), To Catch A Thief (1955), An Affair to Remember (1957), and North by Northwest (1959).

Nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor and five times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Grant was continually passed over, and in 1970 was given an Honorary Oscar at the 42nd Academy Awards. Frank Sinatra presented Grant with the award, "for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with the respect and affection of his colleagues".

Early life and career

Archibald Alexander Leach was born in Horfield, Bristol, to Elsie Maria Kingdon (1877–1973) and Elias James Leach (1873–1935). An only child, Leach had an unhappy upbringing, attending Bishop Road Primary School. His mother had suffered from depression since the death of a previous child. Her husband placed her in a mental institution, and told his nine-year-old son only that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; it was not until he was 31 that Grant discovered her alive, in an institutionalized care facility.

He was expelled from the Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1918. After joining the "Bob Pender stage troupe", Leach performed as a stilt walker and travelled with the group to the United States in 1920 at the age of 16, on a two-year tour of the country. He was processed at Ellis Island on July 28, 1920. When the troupe returned to the UK, he decided to stay in the U.S. and continue his stage career. During this time, he became a part of the vaudeville world and toured with Parker, Rand and Leach. Still using his birth name, he performed on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri, in such shows as Irene (1931); Music in May (1931); Nina Rosa (1931); Rio Rita (1931); Street Singer (1931); The Three Musketeers (1931); and Wonderful Night (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.

Hollywood stardom

After the light Broadway comedies, Grant went to Hollywood in 1931. When told to change his name, he proposed "Cary Lockwood," his character's name in a recent play called Nikki, based upon the recent film The Last Flight. He signed with Paramount Pictures, but while studio bosses were impressed with him, they were less than impressed with his adopted stage name. They decided that the name Cary was acceptable, but Lockwood had to go due to a similarity with another actor's name. It was after browsing through a list of the studio's preferred surnames that "Cary Grant" was born. Grant chose the name because the initials C and G had already proved lucky for Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, two of Hollywood's biggest movie stars. Already having appeared as leading man opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus (1932), his stardom was given a further boost by Mae West when she chose him for her leading man in two of her most successful films, She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel (both 1933). I'm No Angel was a tremendous financial success and, along with She Done Him Wrong, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, saved Paramount from bankruptcy. Paramount put Grant in a series of unsuccessful films until 1936, when he signed with Columbia Pictures. His first major comedy hit was when he was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for the 1937 Topper (which was distributed by MGM).

Under the tutelage of director Leo McCarey, his role in The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne was the pivotal film in the establishment of Grant's screen persona; as he 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's sophisticated light comedy persona first evident in The Awful Truth was largely concocted by McCarey, with Grant also copying many of McCarey's mannerisms. Along with the similarity in their names, McCarey and Cary Grant shared a close physical resemblance, making mimicking McCarey's intonations and expressions even easier for Grant. As writer/director Peter Bogdanovich notes, "After The Awful Truth, when it came to light comedy, there was Cary Grant and then everyone else was an also-ran."

The Awful Truth began "what would be the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures"; during the next four years, Grant made the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby and the romantic comedy Holiday (1938) with Katharine Hepburn; the adventures Gunga Din and Only Angels Have Wings (1939); His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell; The Philadelphia Story (1940), with Hepburn and James Stewart; My Favorite Wife (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941) with Irene Dunne; and Suspicion (1941), the first of four with Alfred Hitchcock.

Grant remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Howard Hawks said that Grant was "so far the best that there isn't anybody to be compared to him". David Thomson called him "the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema".

Grant was a favorite 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). Biographer Patrick McGilligan wrote that, in 1965, Hitchcock asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain (1966), only to learn that Grant had decided to retire after making one more film, Walk, Don't Run (1966); Paul Newman was cast instead, opposite Julie Andrews.

In the mid-1950s, Grant formed his own production company, Granart Productions, and produced a number of movies distributed by Universal, such as Operation Petticoat (1959), Indiscreet (1958), That Touch of Mink (co-starring with Doris Day, 1962), and Father Goose (1964). In 1963, he appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963). His last feature film was Walk, Don't Run with Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton.

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, Grant 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 movies he was going to appear in, he often had personal choice of the directors and his co-stars and at times even negotiated a share of the gross, something uncommon at the time.

Grant was nominated for two Academy Awards in the 1940s, and received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. In 1981, he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Never self-absorbed, Grant poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant". After seeing a telegram from a magazine editor to his agent asking "HOW OLD CARY GRANT?", Grant reportedly responded with "OLD CARY GRANT FINE. HOW YOU?"

Retirement and death

Although Grant had retired from the screen, he remained active in other areas. In the late 1960s, 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 his mere appearance at a product launch would almost certainly guarantee its success. 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, CA) Western Airlines (now Delta Air Lines), and MGM.

In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the United States in a one-man show. It was called "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. Grant was preparing for a performance at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa on the afternoon of November 29, 1986 when he sustained a cerebral hemorrhage. He had previously suffered a stroke in October 1984. He died at 11:22 pm in St. Luke's Hospital at the age of 82.

In 2001 a statue of Grant was erected in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to the harbour in his city of birth, Bristol, England.

In November 2005, Grant came in first in the "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time" list by Premiere Magazine. Richard Schickel, the film critic, said about Grant: "He's the best star actor there ever was in the movies."

Personal life

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. In 1942 he married Barbara Hutton, one of the wealthiest women in the world, and became a father figure to her son, Lance Reventlow. 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. After divorcing in 1945, they remained lifelong 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 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. Drake introduced Grant to LSD, and in the early 1960s he related how treatment with the hallucinogenic drug —legal at the time— at a prestigious California clinic had finally brought him inner peace after yoga, hypnotism, and mysticism had proved ineffective. (In 1932, Grant had also met the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba.) Grant and Drake divorced in 1962.

He eloped with Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, in Las Vegas. Their daughter, Jennifer Grant, was born prematurely on February 26, 1966. He frequently called her his "best production" and regretted that he had not had children sooner. The marriage was troubled from the beginning, and Cannon left him in December 1966, claiming that Grant flew into frequent rages and spanked her when she "disobeyed" him. The divorce, finalized in 1968, was bitter and public, and custody fights over their daughter went on for nearly ten years.

On April 11, 1981, Grant married long-time companion Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent, who was 47 years his junior. They renewed their vows on their fifth wedding anniversary. (Fifteen years after Grant's death, Harris married former Kansas Jayhawks All-American quarterback David Jaynes in 2001.)

Some, including Hedda Hopper and screenwriter Arthur Laurents have said, that Grant was bisexual, the latter writing that Grant "told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless". Grant allegedly was involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan, and lived with Randolph Scott off and on for twelve years. Richard Blackwell wrote that Grant and Scott were "deeply, madly in love", and alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published. However, Grant did admit in an interview that his first two wives had accused him of being homosexual. Betsy Drake commented: "Why would I believe that Cary was homosexual when we were busy fucking?"

Politics

Grant did not think movie stars should publicly make political declarations. Grant described his politics and his reticence about them this way:

Throughout his life, Grant maintained personal friendships with colleagues of varying political stripes, and his few political activities seemed to be shaped by personal friendships. Repulsed by the human costs to many in Hollywood, Grant publicly condemned McCarthyism in 1953, and when his friend Charlie Chaplin, was blacklisted, Grant insisted that the actor's artistic value outweighed political concerns. Grant was also a friend of the Kennedy brothers and Robert Kennedy's press secretary Frank Mankiewicz. He hosted one of Robert Kennedy's first political fundraisers at his home. He made one of his rare statements on public issues following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, calling for gun control.

In 1976, after his retirement from movies, Grant made his one overtly partisan appearance, introducing his friend Betty Ford, the First Lady, at the Republican National Convention, but even in this he maintained some distance from partisanship, speaking of "your" party, rather than "ours" in his remarks.

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" |- ! style="background: B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background: B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background: B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background: B0C4DE;" | Notes |- | rowspan=8|1932 | This Is the Night | Stephen | With Lili Damita, Charles Ruggles, and Thelma Todd |- | Sinners in the Sun | Ridgeway | With Carole Lombard and Chester Morris |- | Singapore Sue | First Sailor | Musical Comedy short subject |- | Merrily We Go to Hell | Charlie Baxter | UK title: Merrily We Go to _____ With Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March |- | Devil and the Deep | Lieutenant Jaeckel | With Tallulah Bankhead and Gary Cooper |- | Blonde Venus | Nick Townsend | With Marlene Dietrich |- | Hot Saturday | Romer Sheffield | With Nancy Carroll and Edward Woods |- | Madame Butterfly | Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton | With Sylvia Sidney and Charles Ruggles |- | rowspan=6|1933 | She Done Him Wrong | Capt. Cummings | With Mae West and Noah Beery, Sr. |- | The Woman Accused | Jeffrey Baxter | With Nancy Carroll |- | The Eagle and the Hawk | Henry Crocker | With Fredric March and Carole Lombard |- | Gambling Ship | Ace Corbin | With Jack La Rue and Glenda Farrell |- | I'm No Angel | Jack Clayton | With Mae West |- | Alice in Wonderland | The Mock Turtle | With W. C. Fields and Gary Cooper |- | rowspan=4|1934 | Thirty Day Princess | Porter Madison III | With Sylvia Sidney and Edward Arnold |- | Born to Be Bad | Malcolm Trevor | With Loretta Young (Heavily censored by the Hayes Office) |- | Kiss and Make-Up | Dr. Maurice Lamar | With Helen Mack and the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1934 |- | Ladies Should Listen | Julian De Lussac | With Francis Drake and Edward Everett Horton |- | rowspan=4|1935 | Enter Madame | Gerald Fitzgerald | With top-billed Elissa Landi |- | Wings in the Dark | Ken Gordon | With Myrna Loy |- | The Last Outpost | Michael Andrews | With Claude Rains |- | Sylvia Scarlett | Jimmy Monkley | Directed by George Cukor With Katharine Hepburn |- | rowspan=4|1936 | Big Brown Eyes | Det. Sgt. Danny Barr | With Joan Bennett and Walter Pidgeon |- | Suzy | Andre | With Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone |- | The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss | Ernest Bliss | US title: Romance and Riches Alt title: The Amazing Adventure |- | Wedding Present | Charlie | With Joan Bennett |- | rowspan=4|1937 | When You're in Love | Jimmy Hudson | UK title: For You Alone With Grace Moore |- | Topper | George Kerby | With Constance Bennett |- | The Toast of New York | Nicholas "Nick" Boyd | With Edward Arnold and Jack Oakie |- | The Awful Truth | Jerry Warriner | Directed by Leo McCareyWith Irene DunneIntroduced the "Cary Grant persona" |- | rowspan=2|1938 | Bringing up Baby | Dr. David Huxley | Directed by Howard HawksWith Katharine Hepburn and Charles Ruggles |- | Holiday | John "Johnny" Case | Directed by George CukorWith Katharine HepburnUK title: Free to Live |- | rowspan=3|1939 | Gunga Din | Sgt. Archibald Cutter | Directed by George StevensWith Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. |- | Only Angels Have Wings | Geoff Carter | Directed by Howard HawksWith Jean Arthur, Thomas Mitchell, and Rita Hayworth |- | In Name Only | Alec Walker | With Carole Lombard and Charles Coburn |- | rowspan=4|1940 | His Girl Friday | Walter Burns | Directed by Howard HawksRemake of The Front PageWith Rosalind Russell |- | My Favorite Wife | Nick | Co-written by Leo McCarey Directed by Garson KaninWith Irene Dunne and Gail Patrick |- | The Howards of Virginia | Matt Howard |UK title: The Tree of Liberty With Martha Scott |- | The Philadelphia Story | C.K. Dexter Haven | With Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart |- | rowspan=2|1941 | Penny Serenade | Roger Adams | Nominated – Academy Award for Best ActorDirected by George StevensWith Irene Dunne and Edgar Buchanan |- | Suspicion | Johnnie | Directed by Alfred HitchcockWith Joan Fontaine |- | rowspan=2|1942 | The Talk of the Town | Leopold Dilg aka Joseph | With Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur |- | Once Upon a Honeymoon | Patrick "Pat" O'Toole | Directed by Leo McCareyWith Ginger Rogers |- | rowspan=2|1943 | Mr. Lucky | Joe Adams/Joe Bascopolous | With Laraine Day and Charles Bickford |- | Destination Tokyo | Capt. Cassidy | With John Garfield and Dane Clark |- | rowspan=3|1944 | Once Upon a Time | Jerry Flynn | With Janet Blair |- | Arsenic and Old Lace | Mortimer Brewster | With Priscilla Lane and Peter Lorre |- | None But the Lonely Heart | Ernie Mott | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor Written and directed by Clifford OdetsWith Ethel Barrymore |- | rowspan=3|1946 | Without Reservations | Himself (cameo) | With Claudette Colbert and John Wayne |- | Night and Day | Cole Porter | Directed by Michael Curtiz |- | Notorious | T.R. Devlin |Directed by Alfred HitchcockWith Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains |- | rowspan=2|1947 | The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer | Dick | UK title: Bachelor Knight With Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple |- | The Bishop's Wife | Dudley | With Loretta Young and David Niven |- | rowspan=2|1948 | Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House | Jim Blandings | With Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas |- | Every Girl Should Be Married | Dr. Madison W. Brown | With Betsy Drake |- | 1949 | I Was a Male War Bride | Capt. Henri Rochard | UK title: You Can't Sleep HereWith Ann Sheridan |- | 1950 | Crisis | Dr. Eugene Norland Ferguson | With Jose Ferrer |- | 1951 | People Will Talk | Dr. Noah Praetorius | With Jeanne Crain |- | rowspan=2|1952 | Room for One More | George "Poppy" Rose | With Betsy Drake |- | Monkey Business | Dr. Barnaby Fulton | Directed by Howard HawksWith Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe |- | 1953 | Dream Wife | Clemson Reade | With Deborah Kerr and Walter Pidgeon |- | 1955 | To Catch a Thief | John Robie |Directed by Alfred HitchcockWith Grace Kelly |- | rowspan=3|1957 | The Pride and the Passion | Anthony | With Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren |- | An Affair to Remember | Nickie Ferrante |A same-script remake of Love Affair (1939 film), both directed by Leo McCarey With Deborah Kerr |- | Kiss Them for Me | Cmdr. Andy Crewson | Directed by Stanley DonenWith Jayne Mansfield and Suzy Parker |- | rowspan=2|1958 | Indiscreet | Philip Adams | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyDirected by Stanley DonenWith Ingrid Bergman |- | Houseboat | Tom Winters | With Sophia Loren |- | rowspan=2|1959 | North by Northwest | Roger O. Thornhill |Directed by Alfred Hitchcock With Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and Martin Landau |- | Operation Petticoat | Lt. Cmdr. Matt T. Sherman | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyWith Dina Merrill and Arthur O'Connell |- | 1960 | The Grass Is Greener | Victor Rhyall, Earl | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Directed by Stanley DonenWith Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Jean Simmons |- | 1962 | That Touch of Mink | Philip Shayne | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyDirected by Delbert MannWith Doris Day and Gig Young |- | 1963 | Charade | Peter Joshua / Carson Dyle / Alexander Dyle / Adam Canfield / Brian Cruikshank | Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Foreign ActorNominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyDirected by Stanley DonenWith Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, and James Coburn |- | 1964 | Father Goose | Walter Christopher Eckland | Directed by Ralph NelsonWith Leslie Caron and Trevor Howard |- | 1966 | Walk, Don't Run | Sir William Rutland | With Samantha Eggar Remake of The More the Merrier |}

References

Notes

Bibliography of cited references

Bogdanovich, Peter. Who the Hell's in It: Portraits and Conversations. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2004. ISBN 0-37540-010-9.

Eliot, Marc. Cary Grant: The Biography. New York: Aurum Press, 2005. ISBN 1-84513-073-1.

Higham, Charles and Roy Moseley. Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart. London: Thompson Learning, 1997. ISBN 0-15115-787-1.

Johannson, Warren and William A. Percy. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence.. Kirkwood, New York: Harrington Park Press, 1994, pp. 146–147.

Kael, Pauline. "The Man from Dream City – Cary Grant" – The New Yorker – July 14, 1975 – (reprinted in: Pauline Kael: For Keeps – 30 Years at the Movies. New York: Dutton, 1994.)

Laurents, Arthur. Original Story by: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corp, 2001. ISBN 1-55783-467-9.

Mann, William J. Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969. New York: Viking, 2001. ISBN 0-67003-017-1.

McCann, Graham. Cary Grant: A Class Apart. London: Fourth Estate, 1997. ISBN 1-85702-574-1.

McGilligan, Patrick. Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York: Regan Books, 2003. ISBN 0-06039-322-X.

Morecambe, Gary; Sterling, Martin. Cary Grant: In Name Alone. London: Robson Books, 2001. ISBN 1-86105-466-1.

Nelson, Nancy and Cary Grant. Evenings With Cary Grant: Recollections In His Own Words and By Those Who Loved Him Best. Thorndike, Maine: Thorndike Press, 1992. ISBN 1-56054-342-6.

Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies [revised edition]. New York: Harrow & Row, 1987. ISBN 0-06096-132-5.

Wansell, Geoffrey. Cary Grant: Dark Angel. London: Arcade, 1997. ISBN 1-55970-369-5.

External links

Becoming Cary Grant (in Atlantic Magazine)

Category:1904 births Category:1986 deaths Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:American film actors Category:American people of English descent Category:Deaths from cerebral hemorrhage Category:Deaths from stroke Category:English film actors Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Old Fairfieldians Category:People from Bristol Category:Stroke survivors Category:Vaudeville performers Category:20th-century actors Category:European families of English ancestry

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