Film Biographies & Interviews, Entertainment Biography

Cary Grant: A Biography

Name: Cary Grant: A Biography
Author: Marc Eliot
ISBN: 9780307209832

by Marc Eliot

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Overview

Rigorously researched and elegantly written, Cary Grant: A Biography is a complete, nuanced portrait of the greatest star in cinema history. Exploring Grant’s troubled childhood, ambiguous sexuality, and lifelong insecurities, as well as the magical amalgam of characteristics that allowed him to remain Hollywood’s favorite romantic lead for more than thirty-five years, Cary Grant is the definitive examination of every aspect of Grant’s professional and private life and the first biography to reveal the real man behind the movie star.

Synopsis

“Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”
—Cary Grant

He is Hollywood’s most fascinating and timeless star. Although he came to personify the debonair American, Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach on January 18, 1904, in the seaport village of Bristol, England. Combining the captivating beauty of silent-screen legend Rudolph Valentino with the masculine irresistibility of Clark Gable, Grant emerged as Hollywood’s quintessential leading man. Today, “the man from dream city,” as critic Pauline Kael once described him, remains forever young, an icon of quick wit, romantic charm, and urbane sophistication, the epitome of male physical perfection. Yet beneath this idealized movie image was a conflicted man struggling to balance fame with a desire for an intensely private life separate from the “Cary Grant” persona celebrated by directors and movie studios.

Exploring Grant’s troubled childhood, ambiguous sexuality, and lifelong insecurities as well as the magical amalgam of characteristics that allowed him to remain Hollywood’s favorite romantic lead for more than thirty-five years, Cary Grant is the definitive examination of every aspect of Grant’s professional and private life, and the first to reveal the man behind the movie star.

Working with the most talented directors of his time, Grant starred in an astonishing seventy-two films, ranging from his groundbreaking comedic roles in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks) and The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor) to the darker, unforgettable characters of Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion and Notorious,culminating in the consummate sophisticates of An Affair to Remember (Leo McCarey), North by Northwest (Hitchcock), and Charade (Stanley Donen). The camera loved Grant, and his magnetism helped illuminate his leading ladies, some of the most glamorous women ever to grace the silver screen: Mae West, Irene Dunne, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, and Sophia Loren, among others. Yet, because of his pioneering role as an independent player, Grant was repeatedly denied the Oscar he coveted—a snub from the Academy that would last until 1970, when he graciously accepted a special lifetime achievement award.

Grant’s sparkling image on-screen hid a tumultuous personal life that he tried desperately to keep out of the public eye, including his controversial eleven-year relationship with Randolph Scott, five marriages, and numerous affairs.

Rigorously researched and elegantly written, Cary Grant: A Biography is a complete, nuanced portrait of the greatest Hollywood star in cinema history.

The Washington Post - Molly Haskell

Earning our trust with his neutral, unsensational tone, the author fills in the blanks, without lingering over less flattering details in a lipsmacking manner. If Eliot's is not a book of startling critical insights, his more than adequate prose offers something just as valuable: the evidence by which a case can be made for Grant's stature, not just as myth or icon, but as an artist as well. Keeping the actor's astonishing career firmly in view, Eliot assembles a portrait that shows the dark shadows behind the gleaming façade, while also revealing Grant's own shrewdness in maintaining that fictional persona.

About the Author, Marc Eliot

Marc Eliot has been writing about pop culture for more than twenty-five years and is the author of over a dozen books, translated into twenty-seven languages, including the New York Times bestselling Erin Brockovich autobiography, Take It from Me, and the critically acclaimed, award-winning biography Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince. His work has appeared in Penthouse, LA Weekly,
California Magazine, and the Metropolitan Review, as well as in numerous other publications both here and abroad. He divides his time among Los Angeles, New York City, and upstate New York.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

Our interest in Cary Grant should be more than skin deep. Behind his charismatic screen image was a man whose inner life was far more interesting than that of any debonair character he ever played. Hollywood biographer Marc Eliot traces the long life (1904-86) of the British-born actor, exploring his troubled childhood, ambiguous sexuality, difficult domestic relations (Grant married five times), and lifelong insecurities. This book includes much new information, including revelations about Grant's relationship with fellow actor Randolph Scott and his dabblings with LSD.

Molly Haskell

Publishers Weekly

During a four-decade career filled with outstanding performances (The Awful Truth; The Philadelphia Story; Notorious; North by Northwest; Charade), Grant's greatest creation was the illusion that the suave Cary Grant really existed offscreen. Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England, in 1904, he was traumatized at 10 when told of his mother's death. Eighteen years later, he learned she was alive (his father had committed her to an asylum). Grant nonetheless succeeded in Hollywood. After making 24 films in five years, he refused to re-sign with Paramount and, in 1936, became one of Hollywood's first freelance actors. On-screen and off, Grant was pursued by women, but his openly gay relationship with Randolph Scott lasted until both were pressured by studios to marry. Eliot, who has coauthored memoirs with Donna Summer, Barry White and Erin Brockovich, convincingly alleges that Grant was pressured by the FBI to spy on his second wife, heiress Barbara Hutton, in 1942 in return for American citizenship. Eliot's fascinating, sympathetic portrait is of a consummate performer who hid inner demons and used filmmaking to distance himself from reality (and four of his five wives). After years of therapy, weekly LSD treatments and retirement from films, he had a daughter (at age 62), a later happy marriage (he was 74, she 25) and some inner peace before his 1986 death. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Mel Berger. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Two biographers attempt to unravel the mystery of Archie Leach, the product of a dysfunctional working-class English family who went to Hollywood and through sheer will transformed himself into Cary Grant. Eliot (Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince) explores how Grant's unhappy upbringing influenced his later life and career, notably, his passivity in pursuing romantic relationships and his obsession with achieving financial security. Other topics include his years on the music hall stage; angry, ambivalent relationship with the Motion Picture Academy; pioneering path in shunning contracts with studios in favor of shopping his services around as an independent talent; and fruitful collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock. On the personal side, there is plenty to dish: his many marriages (including a stormy one to heiress Barbara Hutton), friendship with Howard Hughes, longtime affair with actor Randolph Scott, and later experiments with LSD. Only in retirement did Grant find contentment, a happy marriage, and the daughter he so desperately wanted. Morecambe covers much of the same ground but from a British perspective (he is the son of famed comic Eric Morecambe). Grant, a notoriously private man, would have probably been offended by the attention that both books pay his personal life. In fact, both could be stronger in discussing Grant's films, his undervalued genius at physical comedy, and his ability to create his screen persona. Over the last 15 years, several biographies on Grant have been published (and gone out of print); chances are, your library owns one or two of them. Those institutions lacking a biography can purchase Eliot's. Because of its British slant and considerable duplication of material, Morecambe's is not a necessary purchase. Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.