I often turn to my favorite Movie Historian Robert Osborne for factual and personal references when I write each month about the Golden Age of Hollywood and with this star I took a particular interest in what Robert had to say. His adjectives or should I say superlatives included: looks, versatility, charm, talent and that va-voom factor. Robert said he was like a “beacon” compared to other actors and Cary’s friend David Niven said that other actors owed him a debt of gratitude because Grant turned down so many roles offered to him which enabled other actors the ability to play some really good roles. Just think about this list of movies that were offered to Cary first and you’ll recognize most if not all of them. Ninotchka, The Lost Weekend, Sabrina, Love in the Afternoon, Around the World in 80 Days, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Music Man and My Fair Lady.
Let’s march back a bit. Born Archie Leach on January 18, 1904 to a lower middle class family in Bristol England. He would later recall that he was always cold and when he landed in Hollywood the warmth of the California sun relieved him of those frigid feelings from the days of his youth. His first role came in 1932 This Is the Night but he played third billing to Roland Young and Thelma Todd but that wouldn’t last long. The famed director 6 time Oscar Winner Billy Wilder would lament that he would never get to work with Cary and although he would screen test for roles that would tap into his deep reservoir of talent he would continue to opt for roles that were lighter weight in nature he would excel in virtually all of them. No matter the script if it was a Cary Grant movie people came to see him. Remembering one of the first madcap movies I first watched was Hal Roach’s Topper in 1937 wherein he and Constance Bennett played ghosts wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting banker friend Cosmo Topper played by Roland Young. Five years earlier is was Roland Young that had top billing now it was Cary. When the studio asked for him to reprise the role a year later Grant’s star had already taken off into the stratosphere and Roach was relegated to splicing scenes from the year before. Although he played opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus in 1932 and Mae West in She Done Him Wrong in 1933 it was not until The Awful Truth in 1937 with Irene Dunne and Bringing Up Baby with Katherine Hepburn and later in 1940 The Philadelphia Story did Cary become a true Super Star. In both roles he displayed his comic genius and only hinted at the real depth of his untapped serious side that some of the aforementioned roles he turned down would have showcased.
This column doesn’t provide enough space to do justice to this man because so many movies need a close inspection for sheer genius. Films like 1946’s Arsenic and Old Lace that had to sit in the can for two years because the Broadway play was still running. This movie can be watched over and over as there are so many comic gems shot rapid fire at us the viewer. And talk about rapid dialogue how about His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell it was amazing script writer could fit so many words in a 92 minute movie. But probably Grant’s biggest commercial success came in 1959 when he starred opposite the luminescent Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest, which continues to top the charts in the greatest movies list of all time. Hitchcock found perhaps his best leading man in Cary for his I think his greatest picture.
By the time Grant hit his 60’s Cary’s romantic lead window began to close and with Audrey Hepburn in the Hitchcock like thriller Charade in 1963 and Leslie Caron a year later in Father Goose Grant no longer felt comfortable playing opposite younger starlets anymore. His final role in 1966 Walk Don’t Run Grant opted for an avuncular part instead. Cary had several wives and his personal life didn’t mirror his onscreen success with women as he often felt Cary Grant was a mythical figure that lived outside the Hollywood movie star. Nonetheless everyone wanted to be Cary Grant and he exclaimed that he did too.
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