Chapter 01
1904
Archibald Alec Leach is born in Bristol
Born at 15 Hughenden Road, Horfield, Bristol, to Elias James Leach, a tailor's presser, and Elsie Maria Leach. The birth is registered in the Bristol district.
The Life · 1904 — 1986
Archibald Leach,
and after.
A boy in Bristol, a runaway in New York, a leading man in Los Angeles, and — for twenty quiet years afterwards — a private citizen who preferred it that way.
Chapter 02
1906
The death of a brother
John William Elias Leach, born the year before Archibald, dies of tuberculous meningitis in infancy. Elsie's grief shapes the household he grows up in.
Chapter 03
1908
School at Bishop Road
Begins at Bishop Road Junior School in Bristol, where he is remembered as bright and restless rather than studious.
Chapter 04
1913
His mother disappears
Elsie Leach is committed to the Glenside asylum at Fishponds. Archibald, nine years old, is told she has gone away on holiday, and later that she has died. He will not learn the truth for more than twenty years.
Chapter 05
1915
Fairfield Grammar School
Wins a scholarship to Fairfield Secondary School. Out of hours he begins working backstage at the Bristol Hippodrome, running lights and errands.
Chapter 06
1917
Backstage at the Hippodrome
Working as a lighting assistant, he watches acrobats, comics, and dancers at close range every night. It is the only formal training he ever has.
Chapter 07
1918
Expelled from Fairfield
Removed from Fairfield Grammar School. Accounts of exactly why differ; the outcome does not. His education ends at fourteen.
Chapter 08
1918
Apprenticed to Bob Pender
Elias Leach signs a contract with Bob Pender, and Archibald joins the Pender troupe of knockabout comedians and stilt-walkers as a legal apprentice.
Chapter 09
1920
Sails for America
Leaves Southampton aboard the RMS Olympic with the Pender troupe, bound for New York and a booking at the Globe Theatre. He is sixteen.
Chapter 10
1921
Vaudeville across America
Tours the Keith and Orpheum circuits with the troupe, learning timing, pratfalls, and the discipline of playing to a paying room twice a night.
Chapter 11
1922
Leaves the Penders
When the troupe returns to England, he stays behind in New York. He works as a stilt-walker on Coney Island, a sign-spinner, and an escort, and shares rooms with other young performers.
Chapter 12
1927
Broadway: Golden Dawn
Cast in the Hammerstein operetta Golden Dawn at the Hammerstein Theatre, his first substantial Broadway role, billed as Archie Leach.
Chapter 13
1929
Boom Boom and the musical stage
Appears opposite Jeanette MacDonald in Boom Boom. The reviews are unkind to the show and kind to him; a Paramount screen test follows and comes to nothing.
Chapter 14
1931
A first day in front of a camera
Engaged by Paramount for six days to shoot the short Singapore Sue in Astoria, Queens.
Chapter 15
1931
West to California
Drives to Hollywood in the autumn, without an agent or an offer, to try for pictures.
Chapter 16
1931
Cary Grant is invented
Signs a five-year contract with Paramount at $450 a week. The studio rejects Archie Leach as a name. He proposes Cary; Paramount supplies Grant from a list.
Chapter 17
1932
Seven pictures in a year
Paramount works him hard through 1932, including This Is the Night, Sinners in the Sun, Merrily We Go to Hell, and Blonde Venus opposite Marlene Dietrich.
Chapter 18
1933
Mae West and a career
She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel, both opposite Mae West, make him nationally known and give Paramount its biggest grosses of the year.
Chapter 19
1934
Marriage to Virginia Cherrill
Marries the actress Virginia Cherrill, best known as the blind flower girl in City Lights, in London.
Chapter 20
1935
Divorce from Virginia Cherrill
The marriage ends after thirteen months, with press coverage he detests and remembers for the rest of his life.
Chapter 21
1935
The death of Elias Leach
His father dies in Bristol. In settling the estate Grant learns that his mother is alive and has been institutionalised for over twenty years. He arranges her release.
Chapter 22
1936
Sylvia Scarlett
Cast opposite Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor's commercial failure — and gives the first performance recognisably his own, cockney, sly, and dangerous.
Chapter 23
1937
The end of the studio contract
Rather than re-sign exclusively, he negotiates non-exclusive arrangements with Columbia and RKO — an unusual structure that leaves him free to choose his own pictures.
Chapter 24
1937
The Awful Truth
Leo McCarey's screwball comedy opposite Irene Dunne establishes the Cary Grant persona in full: elegant, self-mocking, physically fearless.
Chapter 25
1938
Bringing Up Baby and Holiday
Two films with Hepburn in a single year. Bringing Up Baby fails on release and is later recognised as the definitive screwball comedy.
Chapter 26
1939
Only Angels Have Wings
Howard Hawks casts him as a man who has buried his feelings under professional competence — the first serious use of Grant's reserve.
Chapter 27
1939
Gunga Din
A vast RKO adventure production, and one of the largest commercial successes of his career to that point.
Chapter 28
1940
His Girl Friday
Hawks reverses the sex of Hildy Johnson and runs the dialogue at a speed no one had attempted. Grant plays Walter Burns as charm without conscience.
Chapter 29
1940
The Philadelphia Story
With Hepburn and James Stewart, in the picture that restores Hepburn's standing and demonstrates Grant's willingness to take the least showy of three parts.
Chapter 30
1941
First Academy Award nomination
Nominated for Best Actor for Penny Serenade, a straight dramatic role taken deliberately against type.
Chapter 31
1941
Suspicion: the first Hitchcock
Hitchcock casts him against the persona as a possible murderer. RKO forces a reversal of the ending. The collaboration will run to four films.
Chapter 32
1942
American citizenship
Naturalised as a citizen of the United States, and legally changes his name from Archibald Alec Leach to Cary Grant.
Chapter 33
1942
Marriage to Barbara Hutton
Marries the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton. The press names them Cash and Cary, a phrase he loathes.
Chapter 34
1943
The war effort
Donates his salary from several wartime pictures, including The Philadelphia Story earnings and Arsenic and Old Lace, to British and American war relief.
Chapter 35
1944
Second Academy Award nomination
Nominated for Best Actor for None but the Lonely Heart, in which he plays a drifter in the East End of London and acts opposite Ethel Barrymore.
Chapter 36
1945
Divorce from Barbara Hutton
The marriage ends. They remain on good terms, and he stays close to her son Lance Reventlow.
Chapter 37
1946
Notorious
Hitchcock's second film with Grant, and the one that fully exploits his coldness. Widely regarded as the finest performance of his career.
Chapter 38
1947
King's Medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom
Awarded by the British government in recognition of his wartime work and contributions to relief funds.
Chapter 39
1949
Marriage to Betsy Drake
Marries the actress Betsy Drake, his co-star in Every Girl Should Be Married. The marriage lasts longer than any other before his last, and she introduces him to hypnosis and later to LSD therapy.
Chapter 40
1952
Monkey Business
A late Hawks comedy opposite Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. He is nearly fifty and playing farce as well as he ever has.
Chapter 41
1953
A quiet retirement
Disenchanted with the parts on offer, he stops working for two years and considers leaving the business for good.
Chapter 42
1955
To Catch a Thief
Hitchcock coaxes him back for the Riviera picture opposite Grace Kelly. The return is complete and the persona is now fully mature.
Chapter 43
1957
An Affair to Remember
Leo McCarey remakes his own Love Affair with Grant and Deborah Kerr. It becomes, over decades, one of the most beloved romances in American cinema.
Chapter 44
1958
Indiscreet and Houseboat
Two commercial successes in a year, including a reunion with Ingrid Bergman twelve years after Notorious.
Chapter 45
1958
LSD therapy begins
Under the supervision of Dr Mortimer Hartman in Beverly Hills, he begins a course of LSD sessions, then a legal experimental treatment. He later estimates roughly a hundred sessions and speaks about them publicly.
Chapter 46
1959
North by Northwest
Hitchcock's fourth and final film with Grant, and the summation of the persona: the advertising man who is mistaken for someone who does not exist.
Chapter 47
1962
Divorce from Betsy Drake
The marriage ends after twelve years.
Chapter 48
1963
Charade
Opposite Audrey Hepburn in Stanley Donen's Paris thriller. He insists the script be rewritten so that she pursues him, not the reverse — he is fifty-nine and will not play the aggressor.
Chapter 49
1963
Archie Leach, in his own words
Publishes a three-part autobiographical account in the Ladies' Home Journal — the fullest first-person record he ever gives of Bristol and his mother.
Chapter 50
1964
Father Goose
A deliberate departure: unshaven, ill-tempered, and comic. He later calls it the closest a part ever came to his actual character.
Chapter 51
1965
Marriage to Dyan Cannon
Marries the actress Dyan Cannon in Las Vegas. He is sixty-one; she is twenty-eight.
Chapter 52
1966
Jennifer Grant is born
His only child is born in Burbank, California. Fatherhood at sixty-two reorders his priorities entirely.
Chapter 53
1966
Walk, Don't Run — and the end
Makes his seventy-second and final feature, a remake of The More the Merrier set at the Tokyo Olympics, in which he plays the matchmaker rather than the lover. He then stops, permanently, at the height of his standing.
Chapter 54
1968
Divorce from Dyan Cannon
The marriage ends after less than three years, followed by a long and bitter custody dispute.
Chapter 55
1968
A seat on the board
Joins the board of directors of Fabergé, and later of MGM, Western Airlines, and Hollywood Park. The second career is corporate, and he takes it seriously.
Chapter 56
1970
Academy Honorary Award
Frank Sinatra presents him with an Honorary Award for extraordinary talent. The Academy had never given him a competitive Oscar. He receives a standing ovation and speaks for less than a minute.
Chapter 57
1973
The death of Elsie Leach
His mother dies in Bristol at ninety-five. He had visited her regularly for nearly forty years after finding her alive.
Chapter 58
1975
A libel action, and a verdict
Sues over a published claim about his private life and wins. He rarely comments publicly on such matters, but does not let this one stand.
Chapter 59
1977
Refusing the roles
Turns down, among others, the part eventually played in Heaven Can Wait. He declines every offer to return, consistently, for twenty years.
Chapter 60
1981
Marriage to Barbara Harris
Marries Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations manager forty-seven years his junior. The marriage lasts until his death and is by all accounts the happiest of the five.
Chapter 61
1981
Kennedy Center Honors
Honoured at the Kennedy Center in Washington for lifetime contribution to American culture through the performing arts.
Chapter 62
1982
Man of the Year
Named Man of the Year by the New York Friars Club.
Chapter 63
1984
A Conversation with Cary Grant
Begins touring a one-man evening: film clips, questions from the audience, and no script. He plays theatres across America for the last two years of his life.
Chapter 64
1986
Death in Davenport, Iowa
Suffers a massive stroke while preparing for A Conversation with Cary Grant at the Adler Theatre, and dies that evening at St Luke's Hospital in Davenport, aged eighty-two. There is no funeral; at his request, no service is held.
Chapter 65
1999
Second among the legends
The American Film Institute ranks him the second greatest male screen legend of classic Hollywood, behind Humphrey Bogart.
Chapter 66
2001
The statue in Millennium Square
A bronze statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson is unveiled in Millennium Square, Bristol, a mile from Hughenden Road.
Chapter 67
2014
Cary Comes Home
Bristol establishes an annual festival in his name, drawing on the city archives and the surviving record of the Leach family.
Chapter 68
2020
The archival record
Mark Glancy's Cary Grant: The Making of a Hollywood Legend appears, built on studio contracts and contemporary press, and corrects much of the anecdotal biography that preceded it.