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Cary Grant (Horfield, Bristol, England, January
18, 1904 – Davenport, Iowa, USA, November
29, 1986) was an United Kingdom|English-born actor
in mostly American films. He was perhaps the
foremost exemplar of the debonair leading man, not
only handsome, but witty and charming.

Born Archibald Alexander Leach in Horfield,
England, he had a confused and unhappy childhood.
His mother was removed to a mental institution
when Archie Leach was only nine. Grant's father
never told him the truth, and he only learned
twenty years later that his mother was still
alive.

That left Archie Leach/Cary Grant with both a
certain insecurity in his relations with women and
a secretiveness about his inner life that may
explain his bravado and charm. Those traits also
come through more directly in many of his
performances, in films as different as Suspicion
(movie)|Suspicion and Notorious, directed by
Alfred Hitchcock, and tear-jerkers, such as Mr.
Lucky.  



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, in 1918 (from Fairfield School in
Bristol) for an incident involving the girls'
toilets, 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 the United Kingdom, Grant
stayed — creating over time that unique
accent and persona that mixed working and upper
class accents as he supported himself as, among
other things, a hawker. After some success in
light Broadway theatre|Broadway comedies, he made
it to Hollywood in 1931, where he acquired the
name "Cary Grant".  In 1932 he met fellow actor
Randolph Scott on the set of Hot Saturday, 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 and continue to
this day that Grant and Scott were actually lovers
and that the name "Bachelor Hall" was made up by
the studio to keep their two valuable stars from
being thrust into scandal. Dismissed by most fans
as simple gossip, many modern biographers tend to
view both men as probably involved romantically.On
June 26, 1942, he became a naturalized citizen of
the United States and a some years later married
the wealthy socialite Barbara Hutton. Grant became
the surrogate father and had a lifelong influence
on her son, Lance Reventlow.

Grant starred in some of the classic screwball
comedy film|screwball comedies, including The
Awful Truth with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby
with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday with
Rosalind Russell and Arsenic and Old Lace
(movie)|Arsenic and Old Lace with Lane
Sisters|Priscilla Lane.  These performances
solidifed his appeal, and The Philadelphia Story,
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 Suspicion,
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 "Gunga Din" 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 isn't anybody to be compared to him". 


In the September, 1959 issue of Look magazine,
Grant related how treatment with LSD at a
prestigious California clinic -- it was legal at
the time -- had finally brought him inner peace
after yoga, hypnotism, and mysticism had proved
ineffective.
In the mid-1950s Grant formed his own production
company, Grantley Productions, and via a
distribution deal with Universal
Pictures|Universal produced some of his finest
work, which included Operation Petticoat,
Indiscreet, That Touch Of Mink (co-starring Doris
Day), and Father Goose.

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.

His fourth marriage was to actress Dyan Cannon,
with whom he had his only child, a daughter,
Jennifer Grant, who would later become an actress
herself.

In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook
tours of the USA 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 and
died in hospital a few hours later. His cremated
ashes were given to his family.

==Quotations==

*"Everyone wants to be Cary Grant: even I want to
be Cary Grant."

*Following his failed marriage to Barbara Hutton:
"She thought that she was marrying Cary Grant."

*"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."

-- Cary Grant

His personal dichotomy was referenced in films
from time to time:

*In Arsenic and Old Lace Grant is in a graveyard,
and one of the stones reads "Archie Leach".

*In His Girl Friday, he responds to a pointed
comment by saying, "The last person who said that
to me was Archie Leach, before he cut his throat."

*His character in Gunga Din was named "Archie". 

*as per: http://www.eeggs.com/items/5985.html


In one of his early films, She Done Him Wrong,
Grant engages in this memorable dialogue with the
film's sexy star, Mae West:

: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.
:Cary: Yeah, but I'm busy every evening.
:Mae: Busy? So, what are you tryin' to do, insult
me?
:Cary: Why no, no, not at all. I'm just busy,
that's all...
:Mae: You ain't kiddin' me any. You know, I met
your kind before. Why don't you come up sometime,
huh?
:Cary: Well, I...
:Mae: Don't be afraid. I won't tell...Come up.
I'll tell your fortune...Aw, you can be had.

* as per: http://www.filmsite.org/shed.html


Perhaps ironically, given the eventual rumors
about his private life, and also indicating how
old the term is, there is this exchange from
Bringing Up Baby after his clothes get drenched
and he puts on a woman's frilly bathrobe.  Then
May Robson comes in:

May (perplexed): What happened here?
Cary (sarcastically): I went gay all of a sudden!

== Miscellaneous ==
* In the film A Fish Called Wanda, the character
played by John Cleese is named Archibald (Archie)
Leach. Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, just
a few kilometers from Cary Grant's birthplace,
Horfield.

==Filmography==
* This Is the Night (1932)
* Sinners in the Sun (1932)
* Singapore Sue (1932) (short subject)
* Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)
* Devil and the Deep (1932)
* Blonde Venus (1932)
* Hot Saturdy (1932)
* Madame Butterfly (1932)
* Hollywood on Parade (1932) (short subject)
* She Done Him Wrong (1933)
* Woman Accused (1933)
* Hollywood on Parade No. 9 (1933) (short subject)
* The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)
* Gambling Ship (1933)
* I'm No Angel (1933)
* Alice in Wonderland (1933)
* Thirty Day Princess (1934)
* Born to Be Bad (1934)
* Kiss and Make Up (1934)
* Ladies Should Listen (1934)
* Enter Madame (1935)
* Wings in the Dark (1935)
* The Last Outpost (1935 movie)|The Last Outpost
(1935)
* Pirate Party on Catalina Isle (1935) (short
subject)
* Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
* The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936)
* Big Brown Eyes (1936)
* Suzy (1936)
* Wedding Present (1936)
* When You're in Love (1937)
* Topper (movie)|Topper (1937)
* The Toast of New York (1937)
* The Awful Truth (1937)
* Bringing Up Baby (1938)
* Holiday (movie)|Holiday (1938)
* Gunga Din (1939)
* Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
* In Name Only (1939)
* His Girl Friday (1940)
* My Favorite Wife (1940)
* The Howards of Virginia (1940)
* The Philadelphia Story (1940)
* Penny Serenade (1941)
* Suspicion (1941)
* The Talk of the Town (1942)
* Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)
* Mr. Lucky (1943)
* Destination Tokyo (1943)
* Once Upon a Time (1944)
* Road to Victory (1944) (short subject)
* None But the Lonely Heart (1944)
* Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
* Without Reservations (1946)
* Night and Day (1946)
* Notorious (1946)
* The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
* The Bishop's Wife (1947)
* Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
* Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)
* I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
* Crisis (1950 film)|Crisis (1950)
* People Will Talk (1951)
* Room for One More (1952)
* Monkey Business (1952)|Monkey Business (1952)
* Dream Wife (1953)
* To Catch a Thief (1955)
* An Affair to Remember (1957)
* The Pride and the Passion (1957)
* Kiss Them for Me (1957)
* Indiscreet (1958)
* Houseboat (film)|Houseboat (1958)
* North by Northwest (1959)
* Operation Petticoat (1959)
* The Grass Is Greener (1960)
* That Touch of Mink (1962)
* Charade (1963)
* Father Goose (movie)|Father Goose (1964)
* A Tribute to the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital
(1965) (short subject)
* Walk, Don't Run (1966)
* Elvis: That's the Way It Is (1970)

==External links==
*imdb name|id=0000026|name=Cary Grant
*http://www.carygrant.net Carygrant.net —
fan site with filmography etc.
*http://www.carygrant.net/autobiography/index.html
Autobiography
*http://www.thegoldenyears.org/grant.html Classic
Movies (1939 - 1969): Cary Grant