He missed out on several roles that went to his North by Northwest nemesis James Mason. He at first accepted, then turned down the role of Norman Maine in A Star Is Born , citing semi-retirement as his reason. He reportedly refused to work with Judy Garland because he was semi-retired. After Grant's death, his widow revealed that Garland's drug addiction made the actor have second thoughts and drop out of the film.
He turned down the role of Humbert Humbert in Lolita because he considered the film "depraved". Warren Beatty wanted him to play Mr. Jordan in Heaven Can Wait , but he declined due to his retirement. Warner Bros. He turned down the role of Prof. Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady because he felt he would either not be as good as Rex Harrison , who had originated the part on the London stage and on Broadway, or he would be accused of imitating Harrison.
He told producer Jack L. Warner that unless Harrison was cast, he would not even go to see the film. In later years he said the character he played in Father Goose came closest to his real self.
He and his fifth wife Barbara Harris renewed their wedding vows on April 11, , the fifth anniversary of their marriage. For a scene in The Grass Is Greener , he refused to wear a smoking jacket, fearing he would immediately lose the support of the audience if he were seen dressed like that. The director later recalled that an old-fashioned kind of comedy had died that day, and it never came back.
After The Howards of Virginia flopped at the box office, Grant turned down all offers for historical epics until The Pride and the Passion , which was also a failure. He initially decided to end his retirement just to make To Catch a Thief When the film proved to be a huge success, he agreed to make further films. In March he was involved in a serious car crash in New York, but fortunately escaped with only minor injuries.
Elton John recalled that one of the highlights of his tour of the United States was meeting Grant backstage after a concert. For several years he had toyed with the idea of playing Hamlet in an attempt to prove to his critics that he could act. This idea was finally scuppered by Laurence Olivier 's film Hamlet Once lived with silent movie star William Haines. Before he was a star, Stewart unlike Grant once actually played an out-and-out villain, in After the Thin Man The closest Grant came was the original version of Suspicion , directed by Hitchcock, in which Grant's character poisoned his wife, but the film was recut so that Grant wouldn't be a bad guy.
Loved performing on network radio, where he often got to perform in roles different from his screen persona. He once told the producers of the radio series "Suspense", "Invite me back, invite me back. In he and Michael Caine were walking together and a fan approached them, only recognizing Caine. At the end of the conversation the fan turned to Grant and commented how accommodating today's film stars are with the public, to which Grant nodded in agreement.
In June he made a public appeal for gun control following the assassination of his friend Robert F. Introduced Frederick Brisson to future wife Rosalind Russell and acted as his best man at their marriage. Ran away from home at age 13 to join a mime troupe. His father tracked him down and brought him home, but he ran away again and rejoined the troupe.
He kept himself slender and fit until he retired acting, never weighing above pounds. Was once engaged to Queenie Smith. Although he did dye his hair back to its natural black color when it started to gray in the s, when he retired from acting in the s he stopped dying it and his hair was all white by the time of his passing.
Holds the record at the Radio City Music Hall as its leading star films for a total of weeks. Fred Astaire is the runner-up with 16 films for 60 weeks. An executive at Paramount Pictures told struggling actor Archie Leach, "You're bow-legged and your neck is far too thick". Though financially well off, he was considered "tight" by his servants. They reported that, among other things, he charged fans for his autograph, marked the height of the liquor in every bottle, counted the logs for the fireplace and kept a detailed record of how much food was bought and how much was consumed.
However, he was well liked by his servants and paid them very well. Died three days before Desi Arnaz who died on December 2, When the judge ruled that Jennifer should remain in California with her father, taking time out to visit her mother, he was jubilant. He could plan to spend every evening waiting for her to come back from school and every weekend teaching her to ride a horse.
Operation Petticoat , The Grass Is Greener , That Touch of Mink and Charade were all included, as was Penny Serenade , the only one of his earlier films to which he still retained the rights. He had no more connection to the movie business. He invested in a property development in Malaga in southern Spain and another near Shannon in Ireland. He was dismayed by the failure of Operation Musketeer, the Anglo-French attempt to regain the Suez Canal after it had been seized by the Nasser regime in Egypt.
Israel invaded the Sinai peninsula. He turned down the lead role in Gentleman's Agreement because he contended he was Jewish and thought he looked Jewish. He maintained, "The public won't believe my portrayal of a gentile trying to pass himself off as a Jew. He was circumcised at birth, which was highly unusual in the United Kingdom in He was usually considered poor at accents.
Cut back on his heavy drinking after his serious illness in According to Marc Eliot's Cary Grant biography , Grant used to watch the early Marx Brothers on Vaudeville and Broadway, and he was inspired by the most unlikely brother: "While the rest of the country preferred Groucho, Zeppo, the good-looking straight man and romantic lead, was [Grant's] favorite, the one whose foil timing he believed was the real key to the act's success.
As a young actor, he shared a flat with Ballard Berkeley. Alfred Hitchcock wanted to cast him opposite Grace Kelly in Marnie , but the people of Monaco were not happy with the idea of their Princess playing a compulsive thief. Alfred Hitchcock wanted to cast him in Dial M for Murder , but Warner Brothers felt that he would be miscast as a villain.
Alfred Hitchcock originally wanted to cast him in the lead role in Torn Curtain , but Grant told him he was too old. Mike Todd originally wanted him to star as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days , but gave up after trying for six months.
The role went to his good friend David Niven. In , he was an appointed director of MGM. He played an active role in the promotion of MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas when opened in , and he continued to promote the city throughout the s. When Allan Warren met Grant for a photo shoot that year he noticed how tired Grant looked, and his "slightly melancholic air".
Alfred Hitchcock wanted him for the lead role in Spellbound Alfred Hitchcock briefly considered him for the role of Mitch Brenner in The Birds , but decided against using the hugely expensive actor, because he felt the birds and the Hitchcock name were the big attractions.
Conicidentally, he was a regular lunchtime visitor to the set of the film when the shooting returned to London sound-stages. How you? I have spent the greater part of my life fluctuating between Archie Leach and Cary Grant, unsure of each, suspecting each.
I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and, finally, I became that person. Or he became me. To succeed with the opposite sex, tell her you are impotent; she can't wait to disprove it.
The only really good thing about acting is that there's no heavy lifting. I trust they and all the other directors, writers and producers and my leading women have forgiven me for what I didn't know.
You know that I've never been a joiner or a member of any particular social set, but I've been privileged to be a part of Hollywood's most glorious era. My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can. My father used to say, "Let them see you and not the suit. That should be secondary.
It takes small details to add up to one favorable impression. Actors today try to avoid comedy because if you write a comedy that's not a success, the lack of success is immediately apparent because the audience is not laughing. A comedy is a big risk. This is a tremendously costly business and to put money into a picture that might not come off -- oh, that's pretty risky.
This, I love. I enjoy talking back and forth to people. You know, otherwise, I wouldn't get to meet the people. I tell you, in films, one doesn't really meet the audience. You don't get the impact or spirit of your audience, whereas when you are out in the public, you do. I've often been accused by critics of being myself on-screen. But being oneself is more difficult than you'd suppose. It's important to know where you've come from so that you can know where you're going.
I probably chose my profession because I was seeking approval, adulation, admiration and affection. She was so good that she made comedy look easy.
If she'd made it look as difficult as it really is, she would have won her Oscar. I never married a woman for money, that's the God's truth. I may not have married for very sound reasons, but money was the least of them. I'm rather a fool for punishment--I keep going back for more, don't ask me why. He's the first in line of what turns out to be a huge crowd. The trolley finally arrives, he's the first one on, but then the crowd behind him surges through the door and pushes him right through the door on the other side.
And that's a lot like what Hollywood is like. When you're a young man, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Wallace Beery is the conductor, and Charles Chaplin's got a front-row seat. You take your seat, and back behind you is Gary Cooper. He has got his long feet stuck out in front of one of the exit doors, and people keep tripping over him and onto the street.
Suddenly a young man named Tyrone Power gets on. He asks you to move over. You make a picture with Joan Fontaine. You think you do a good job, but she wins the Oscar, and you get nothing. And pretty soon more and more people get on, it's getting very crowded, and then you decide to get off. When you get off the trolley, you notice that it's been doing nothing but going around in circles.
It doesn't go anywhere. You see the same things over and over. So you might as well get off. But she had this thing, this air you might call it, the most totally magnetic woman I'd ever seen, and probably ever seen since. You had to look at her, you had to listen to her; there was no escaping her. For more than 30 years of my life I had smoked with increasing habit.
I was finally separated from the addiction by Betsy [wife Betsy Drake ], who, after carefully studying hypnosis, practiced it, with my full permission and trust, as I was going off to sleep one night. She sat in a chair near the bed and, in a quiet, calm voice, rhythmically repeated what I inwardly knew to be true, the fact that smoking was not good for me; and, as my conscious mind relaxed and no longer cared to offer a negative thought, her words sank into my subconscious; and the following day, to my surprise I had no need or wish to smoke.
Nor have I smoked since. Nor have I, as far as I know, replaced it with any other harmful habit. Everyone tells me I've had such an interesting life, but sometimes I think it's been nothing but stomach disturbances and self-concern. I'd like to have made one of those big splashy Technicolor musicals with Rita Hayworth.
There are only seven movie stars in the world whose name alone will induce American bankers to lend money for movie productions, and the only woman on the list is Ingrid Bergman. Being a father will make me more free than I have ever been. It will be a great experience. I can't wait. There is no doubt I am aging. My format of comedy is still the same as ever.
I gravitate toward scripts that put me in an untenable position. Then the rest of the picture is spent in trying to squirm out of it. Naturally, I always get the girl in the end. It may appear old-fashioned. There seems to be a trend toward satirical comedy, like The Apartment Perhaps it is because young writers today feel satirical living in a world that seems headed for destruction.
I'm myself in that role. The most difficult thing is to be yourself--especially when you know it's going to be seen immediately by million people. It was in these early years of the decade that Cary started to set hearts racing, impressing producers and cinema-goers with his genuine charm and skillful light-hearted approach to acting.
After jumping the pond, the Englishman was beginning to make it big! He knew he made the right decision, and he even started to lose his distinctive cockney accent.
Cary was becoming a star. As the late 30s rolled in, Cary started to find his niche in cinema — comedy. His high-spirited persona and exuberant charisma meant he had a flair for romance and comedic acting. Cary had undoubtedly made it big time. Cary was more than lucky with the ladies too.
In fact, Cary was married five different times. His first wife was Virginia Cherrill, a fellow actress who he married in Next, he married Barbara Hutton in , but the two divorced just three years later in His third marriage was to Betsy Drake, in which they remained a couple for 12 years. However, the two divorced due to an affair he had with co-star Sophia Loren.
Next was his fourth marriage to Dyan Cannon, and the two had a daughter together — Jennifer Grant was the only child Cary ever conceived. His fifth and final marriage was to Barbara Harris where the two remained together until he passed away. Instead, he focused his attention on the corporate side of entertainment, joining the board of directors for MGM in In the last few years of his life, Cary decided he would tour cities as the star of a one-man question and answer show.
The show would feature clips of his movies, and then he would answer questions asked by eager audience members. Cary was excited about this next venture. He felt it was a new chapter in his life. However, it was in the final preparations for this show that he suffered a stroke. Shortly after on November 29, , Cary passed away.
In the decades since his passing, his legacy has lingered on. He will forever be known for his professionalism both on and off screen, and also the unparalleled comedic performances of his movies.
He was a true pioneer of the comedy genre. However, there was always a darker side of Cary that the world failed to grasp. In an attempt to bring light and understanding to the private life of Cary, his fourth wife Dyan Cannon decided to release a memoir of the time they spent together.
Being the mother of his daughter, Dyan wanted to tell her side of the story that the media could only speculate on for so long. In the memoir, she explains how she loved dating Cary at the start of their relationship, but as the two grew closer, she eventually began noticing a dark side to him.
She revealed how he started criticizing her appearance, becoming agitated at the littlest things. She knew he held a host of negative emotions deep within his soul. She started to think these types of behaviors were not uncommon for him. Cary himself was always rather open about the struggles he encountered with marriage…. Explaining how each new marriage gets more difficult for him. He admitted that he had a lot of trust issues, with the progressive fear of losing someone bringing about the very thing he had feared in the first place — losing them.
With Dyan and Cary having a baby together, she had hoped a child would be the well-needed change to bring Cary out of his negative self-destructive cycle. However, Dyan revealed how even after the pregnancy, Cary withdrew from her physically, with things becoming cold between them.
She went on to explain how even though Cary was overjoyed with the arrival of his beautiful daughter, new family-life was not enough to save their marriage. The two continued to head towards divorce. On the outside, Cary almost always seemed confident and content, but he had been suffering from depression for years.
As part of his therapy, he started to take an extremely psychoactive substance which was supposedly used as a mild-altering form of treatment. However, Dyan has labeled his substance abuse as undeniably destructive.
As he had in life, Grant continued to seek privacy after his death. No public funeral was held for the great star, but many who knew him expressed their grief over his passing. President Ronald Reagan said that "He was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood and his elegance, wit and charm will endure on film and in our hearts. Unlike his suave film characters, Grant seemed to struggle in his romantic life off-screen. He was married five times and went through four divorces.
Several of his ex-wives described him as controlling. His fourth wife, actress Dyan Cannon, said that he tried to tell her what to wear. She has also claimed that he forced her to take LSD, a drug he took himself.
She later explained that Grant took LSD as "a gateway to peace inside himself. Some have said, including Cannon herself, that Grant's troubled childhood affected his romantic relationships. After believing her to be dead, Grant discovered his mother was still alive when he was 30 years old.
He was reunited with his mother, but they never regained the close bond they had once shared. While his romantic relationships may have been troubled, Grant was an attentive father. He only had one child, a daughter Jennifer, who was born in , with wife Dyan Cannon.
Grant became a doting and adoring parent. After he and Cannon divorced, Grant spent as much time as he could with his daughter. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!
Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. Grant Wood was an American painter who is best known for the iconic work 'American Gothic. Ulysses S. Grant served as U. Amy Grant is a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who came up in the Christian music industry and became a crossover pop success. She's married to Vince Gill. Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was nicknamed the "Master of Suspense" for employing a kind of psychological suspense in his films, producing a distinct viewer experience.
Comedian and actor John Leguizamo is best known for his one-man stage shows and his ability to satirize a range of ethnic groups. English writer A. Milne is best known for his children's stories about the adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.
Actor Cary Grant performed in films from the s through the s. He starred in several Alfred Hitchcock films, including the hit 'North by Northwest.
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