Cary Grant
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Archibald Alec Leach (January 18 1904 – November 29 1986), better known by his stage name, Cary Grant, was a British-born American 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. He was well known for starring in classic films such as The Philadelphia Story, North by Northwest, Notorious, His Girl Friday, To Catch A Thief, Bringing Up Baby and The Bishop's Wife.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and career
Archibald Alec Leach was born in Horfield, Bristol, England in 1904 to Elsie Kingdom and Elias Leach.[1][2] An only child, he had a confused and unhappy childhood, attending Bishop Road Primary School. His father placed his mother in a mental institution when he was ten and his mother never overcame her depression after the death of a previous child. His father had told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday" and it was not until he was in his thirties that Leach discovered her still alive, living in an institutionalized care facility.
He was expelled from the Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1918. He subsequently joined the "Bob Pender stage troupe" and travelled with the group to the United States as a stilt walker in 1920, on a two-year tour of the country. When the troupe returned to England, he decided to stay in the US and continue his stage career.
Still under 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).
[edit] Hollywood stardom
After some success in light Broadway comedies, he went to Hollywood in 1931, where he acquired the name Cary Lockwood. He chose the name Lockwood after the surname of his character in a recent play called Nikki. 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 OK, 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 then-biggest movie stars.
Having already appeared as leading man opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, 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).[3] 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 indifferent films until 1936, when he signed with Columbia Pictures. His first major comedy hit was when he loaned to Hal Roach's studio for the 1937 Topper (which was distributed by MGM).
Grant starred in some of the classic screwball comedies, including Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell, Arsenic and Old Lace with Priscilla Lane, and Monkey Business with Ginger Rogers. 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".[4]
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".[5] Grant appeared in such Hitchcock classics as Suspicion, Notorious, To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest. 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 in Torn Curtain, opposite Julie Andrews.[6]
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. In 1963, he appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade.
Grant 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. He decided which movies he was going to appear in, he had personal choice of the directors and his co-stars and at times, even negotiated a share of the gross, something unheard of at the time, but now common among A-list stars.
Grant was nominated for two Academy Awards in the 1940s. He was denied the Oscar throughout his active career because he was one of the first actors to be independent of the major studios. Grant received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. In 1981, he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors.
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Feature films
[edit] Short subjects
- Singapore Sue (1932) (uncredited)
- Hollywood on Parade (1932)
- Hollywood on Parade No. 9 (1933)
- Pirate Party on Catalina Isle (1935)
- Road to Victory (1944)
- A Tribute to the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital (1965)
[edit] References
- ^ "Elsie Kingdom". Retrieved on 2008-07-12.
- ^ Eric Pace (1 December 1986). "Movies' Epitome of Elegance Dies of a Stroke", New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-07-12.
- ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, Cary Grant biography
- ^ Interview of Howard Hawks with Joseph McBride, in Hawks, Howard and Gerald Mast, Bringing Up Baby, p. 260. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988.
- ^ 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. p.325. ISBN 1560543426
- ^ McGilligan, Patrick. Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York, New York: Regan Books. 2003. pp.663-664. ISBN 006039322X
[edit] Further reading
- Bogdanovich, Peter. Who the Hell's in It: Portraits and Conversations. New York, New York: A.A. Knopf. 2004. ISBN 0375400109
- Eliot, Marc. Cary Grant: The Biography New York, New York: Aurum Press. 2005. ISBN 1845130731
- Higham, Charles, and Roy Moseley. Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart Thompson Learning, 1997, ISBN 0151157871
- Johannson, Warren, and William A. Percy. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Harrington Park Press, 1994, pp.146-7.
- 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. Dutton, 1994.)
- McCann, Graham. Cary Grant: A Class Apart Fourth Estate, 1997. ISBN 1857025741
- Morecambe, Gary, and Martin Sterling, Cary Grant: In Name Alone Robson Books, 2001. ISBN 1861054661
- 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 1560543426
- Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies [revised edition] Harrow & Row, 1987. ISBN 0060961325
- Wansell, Geoffrey. Cary Grant: Dark Angel. Arcade, 1997. ISBN 1559703695
[edit] External links
- "The Man From Dream City" by Pauline Kael, originally published in The New Yorker, July 14, 1975
- "Cary Grant: Style as a Martial Art" by Wu Ming, on the inclusion of Grant in their novel 54.
- Radio Shows: The Ultimate Cary Grant Pages. A vast collection of mp3 files.
- Crème de la Crème: Cary Grant
- Cary Grant biography and filmography by cosmopolis.ch
Categories: American film actors | English film actors | Vaudeville performers | Academy Honorary Award recipients | California Republicans | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Kennedy Center honorees | People from Bristol | English Anglicans | Naturalized citizens of the United States | English Americans | Deaths from stroke | 1904 births | 1986 deaths
