Hollywood Distribution Directory 2010

Cary Grant – Iconic British Comic Actor

Cary Grant was one of Britain’s greatest actors who was famous for his great acting and comic timing. Archibald Alexander Leach (January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986), better known by his screen name, Cary Grant, was an English film actor. With his distinctive Mid-Atlantic accent, he was perhaps the foremost exemplar of the debonair leading man, not only handsome, but also witty and charming. He was named the second Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.

Archie Leach was born in Horfield, Bristol, England. An only child (before he was born his parents had had another son who died in infancy), Leach had a confused and unhappy childhood. His mother, Elsie, was placed in a mental institution when he was nine. His father (who later had a relationship with another woman, with whom he had a son) never told him the truth, and he only learned in 1935 that she was still alive, in an institution.

This left Leach with an insecurity in his relations with women and a secretiveness about his inner life. These insecurities, by his own admission, led him to crave applause and attention and to create a new persona that would attract it. After being expelled from Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1918 (for investigating the girls’ bathroom), 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 England, Grant decided to stay in the U.S.

Over time, he created a unique accent and persona that mixed working and upper class accents, while supporting himself as, among other things, a hawker.

After some success in light Broadway comedies, he came to Hollywood in 1931, where he acquired the name Cary Grant.

Grant starred in some of the classic screwball comedies, including The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne (the pivotal film in the establishment of Grant’s screen persona), Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell and Arsenic and Old Lace with Priscilla Lane. These performances solidified his appeal, and The Philadelphia Story, with Hepburn and James Stewart, presented 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 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 is. 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.

While 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 pretty much completely controlled what an actor could or could not do. In this way, Grant was able to control every aspect of his career. The cost was no golden statuette during his active career.

Grant finally received the long overdue honors he so deserved in 1970 with a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1981, he received the Kennedy Centre Honours.

Filmography

1. This Is the Night (1932)

2. Sinners in the Sun (1932)

3. Singapore Sue (1932) (short subject)

4. Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)

5. Devil and the Deep (1932)

6. Blonde Venus (1932)

7. Hot Saturday (1932)

8. Madame Butterfly (1932)

9. Hollywood on Parade (1932) (short subject)

10. She Done Him Wrong (1933)

11. Woman Accused (1933)

12. Hollywood on Parade No. 9 (1933) (short subject)

13. The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)

14. Gambling Ship (1933)

15. I’m No Angel (1933)

16. Alice in Wonderland (1933)

17. Thirty Day Princess (1934)

18. Born to Be Bad (1934)

19. Kiss and Make Up (1934)

20. Ladies Should Listen (1934)

21. Enter Madame (1935)

22. Wings in the Dark (1935)

23. The Last Outpost (1935)

24. Pirate Party on Catalina Isle (1935) (short subject)

25. Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

26. The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936)

27. Big Brown Eyes (1936)

28. Suzy (1936)

29. Wedding Present (1936)

30. When You’re in Love (1937)

31. Topper (1937)

32. The Toast of New York (1937)

33. The Awful Truth (1937)

34. Bringing up Baby (1938)

35. Holiday (1938)

36. Gunga Din (1939)

37. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

38. In Name Only (1939)

39. His Girl Friday (1940)

40. My Favorite Wife (1940)

41. The Howards of Virginia (1940)

42. The Philadelphia Story (1940)

43. Penny Serenade (1941)

44. Suspicion (1941)

45. The Talk of the Town (1942)

46. Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)

47. Mr. Lucky (1943)

48. Destination Tokyo (1943)

49. Once Upon a Time (1944)

50. Road to Victory (1944) (short subject)

51. None But the Lonely Heart (1944)

52. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

53. Without Reservations (1946) (Cameo)

54. Night and Day (1946)

55. Notorious (1946)

56. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)

57. The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

58. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

59. Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)

60. I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

61. Crisis (1950)

62. People Will Talk (1951)

63. Room for One More (1952)

64. Monkey Business (1952)

65. Dream Wife (1953)

66. To Catch a Thief (1955)

67. An Affair to Remember (1957)

68. The Pride and the Passion (1957)

69. Kiss Them for Me (1957)

70. Indiscreet (1958)

71. Houseboat (1958)

72. North by Northwest (1959)

73. Operation Petticoat (1959)

74. The Grass Is Greener (1960)

75. That Touch of Mink (1962)

76. Charade (1963)

77. Father Goose (1964)

78. A Tribute to the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital (1965) (short subject)

79. Walk, Don’t Run (1966)

80. Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) (Documentary Commentary)

In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the United States with “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 (November 29, 1986), and died in the hospital a few hours later.

Ian Fleming stated that he partially had Cary Grant in mind when he created his suave super-spy, James Bond. The later Bond, Roger Moore, was selected for sharing Grant’s wry sense of humour.

In November 2004 Grant was named “The Greatest Movie Star of All Time” by Premiere Magazine.

Please visit my Funny Animal Art Prints Collection @ http://www.fabprints.com

My other website is called Directory of British Icons: http://fabprints.webs.com

The Chinese call Britain ‘The Island of Hero’s’ which I think sums up what we British are all about. We British are inquisitive and competitive and are always looking over the horizon to the next adventure and discovery.

Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author

My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th Century AD. I am also a direct descendent of Sir Christopher Wren which has given me an interest in English History which is great fun to research.

I have recently decided to write articles on my favourite subjects: English Sports, English History, English Icons, English Discoveries and English Inventions. At present I have written over 100 articles which I call “An Englishman’s Favourite Bits Of England” in various Volumes. Please visit my fun Blogs page http://Bloggs.Resourcez.Com where I have listed all my fun articles to date.

Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

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