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Archibald Alec Leach
(January 18, 1904 – November
29, 1986), better known by his
screen name, Cary Grant, was an
iconic English film actor. With
his distinctive Mid-Atlantic
accent, he was noted as perhaps
the foremost exemplar of the
debonair leading man, handsome,
virile, charismatic and
charming. He was named the
second Greatest Male Star of
All Time of American cinema,
after Humphrey Bogart, by the
American Film Institute.
 Early
life and
career
Archibald
Alec Leach was born in
Horfield, Bristol, England
in 1904. He attended
Bishop Road Primary
School. An only child, he
had a confused and unhappy
childhood. His mother
Elsie was placed by his
father in a mental
institution when Archie
was ten. She had
apparently never overcome
her depression after the
death of a previous child
in infancy. His father,
who had a son with another
woman, told him that she
had gone away on a "long
holiday". It was only when
he was in his thirties
that he discovered she was
still alive, and
institutionalized.
After being expelled from
Fairfield Grammar School in
Bristol in 1918, he joined the
"Bob Pender stage troupe" and
travelled with the group as a
stilt walker to the United
States in 1920, on the RMS
Olympic for a two-year tour.
When the troupe returned to
England, he decided to stay in
the U.S. and continue his stage
career.
Still as Archie Leach, 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). Over
time, he created a unique
accent and persona that mixed
working and upper class
accents, while supporting
himself as a hawker and a male
escort for socialites.
Hollywood
stardom
After some success in light
Broadway comedies, he came to
Hollywood in 1931, where he
acquired the name Cary
Grant.
His stardom owes a great deal
to Mae West. Grant became a
star when Mae West chose him
for her leading man in two of
her most successful films, She
Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel
(both 1933). (Encyclopedia
Britannia, Cary Grant
biography)
Her next release was I'm No
Angel, which paired her with
Grant again. "I'm No Angel" was
nominated for an Academy Award
for "Best Picture." It was a
tremendous financial success
and, along with She Done Him
Wrong, saved Paramount from
bankruptcy.
Grant starred in some of the
classic screwball comedies,
including Bringing Up Baby with
Katharine Hepburn, His Girl
Friday with Rosalind Russell
and Arsenic and Old Lace with
Priscilla Lane. His role in The
Awful Truth with Irene Dunne
was the pivotal film in the
establishment of Grant's screen
persona. These performances
solidified his appeal, and The
Philadelphia Story, with
Hepburn and James Stewart,
showcased his best-known screen
persona: 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 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 Gunga Din with the
skills he had learned on the
stage. Howard Hawks said that
Grant was "so far the best that
there isn't anybody to be
compared to him".
Grant was a favorite actor of
Alfred Hitchcock, notorious for
disliking actors, who said that
Grant was "the only actor I
ever loved in my whole life".
Grant appeared in such
Hitchcock classics as
Suspicion, Notorious, To Catch
a Thief and North by
Northwest.
In the mid-1950s, Grant formed
his own production company,
Grantley Productions, and
produced a number of movies
distributed by Universal, such
as Operation Petticoat,
Indiscreet, That Touch of Mink
(co-starring Doris Day), and
Father Goose.
Grant was nominated for two
Academy Awards in the 1940s. He
was denied the Oscar throughout
his active career as he was
considered a maverick by virtue
of the fact that he was the
first actor to "go
independent," effectively
bucking the old 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. Grant
received a special Academy
Award for Lifetime Achievement
in 1970. In 1981, he was
accorded the Kennedy Center
Honors.
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. It was just
before one of these
performances in Davenport,
Iowa, on November 29, 1986,
that Grant suffered a stroke
and died.
Personal
life in
Hollywood
Grant's
personal life was
complicated, involving
five marriages. Rumors
persisted regarding his
sexual orientation.
Marriages
Grant's first wife, Virginia
Cherrill, divorced him on March
26, 1935 following charges that
Grant had hit her. They married
on February 10, 1934.
Grant became a naturalized U.S.
citizen in 1942 in order to
defuse the scandal resulting
from his failure to return to
Britain to serve in the
military. Grant married
ultra-wealthy socialite Barbara
Hutton and became a surrogate
father and lifelong influence
on her son, Lance Reventlow,
who later died in a plane
crash. The couple were
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 married third wife,
actress Betsy Drake, on
December 25, 1949. Grant
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 '60s 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.
His fourth marriage to actress
Dyan Cannon, who was
thirty-three years his junior,
took place on July 22, 1965 in
Las Vegas. The marriage was
followed by the premature birth
of his only child, Jennifer
Grant, on February 26, 1966
when Grant was sixty-two. He
frequently called her his "best
production", and regretted that
he hadn't 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
around ten years.
On April 11, 1981 Grant married
his long-time companion,
British hotel PR agent Barbara
Harris, who was forty-seven
years his junior. Harris was by
his side when he died.
Politics
Grant
was a Republican. He
introduced First Lady
Betty Ford to the audience
at the Republican National
Convention in 1976. He was
opposed to McCarthyism and
defended Charles Chaplin
in 1953.
Legacy
In 2001 a statue of Grant was
erected in Millennium Square, a
regenerated area next to the
harbor in his city of birth —
Bristol, England.
In November 2004 Grant was
named "The Greatest Movie Star
of All Time" by Premiere
Magazine.
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 likeness to Grant.
Likewise, the later Bond, Roger
Moore, was also selected for
sharing Grant's wry sense of
humor.
Source
:
Some of the
information on this page came
from a Wikipedia
article and is
licensed under the GNU
Documentation License.
©2008
www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Cary
Grant - Generator
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