Age, Biography, and Wiki
Cary Grant, born Archibald Alexander Leach on January 18, 1904, in Bristol, England, passed away on November 29, 1986, at the age of 82. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1942 and became one of Hollywood's most iconic figures, known for his charming on-screen presence and distinctive voice.
| Occupation | Autobiographer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 18 January 1904 |
| Age | 121 Years |
| Birth Place | Horfield, Bristol, England |
| Horoscope | Capricorn |
| Country | England |
| Date of death | 29 November, 1986 |
| Died Place | Davenport, Iowa, US |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Cary Grant was known for his tall and slender frame. He stood at 6 feet 1.5 inches (187 cm) and maintained a fit physique throughout his life.
| Height | 187 cm |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Grant was married five times:
- Virginia Cherrill (married 1934, divorced 1935)
- Barbara Hutton (married 1942, divorced 1945)
- Betsy Drake (married 1949, divorced 1962)
- Dyan Cannon (married 1965, divorced 1968)
- Barbara Harris (married 1981, remained married until his death in 1986).
During the 1940s and 1950s, Grant had a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). For the suspense-dramas Suspicion and Notorious, Grant took on darker, morally ambiguous characters, both challenging Grant's screen persona and his acting abilities. Toward the end of his career he starred in the romantic films Indiscreet (1958), Operation Petticoat (1959), That Touch of Mink (1962), and Charade (1963). He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, and in comedies was able to toy with his dignity without sacrificing it entirely.
He was the second child of Elias James Leach and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress. His older brother John William Elias Leach died of tuberculous meningitis two days before his first birthday. Grant may have considered himself partly Jewish. He had an unhappy upbringing; his father was an alcoholic and his mother had clinical depression.
Grant's mother taught him song and dance when he was four, and she was keen on his having piano lessons. She occasionally took him to the cinema, where he enjoyed the performances of Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. He moved a short distance to 50 Berkeley Road at about age 4, and was sent to Bishop Road Primary School when he was 4 1/2. He lived at six addresses in Bristol, but said his time at Berkeley Road were his childhood "happiest days".
Grant's biographer Graham McCann claimed that his mother "did not know how to give affection and did not know how to receive it either". Biographer Geoffrey Wansell notes that his mother blamed herself bitterly for the death of Grant's brother John, and never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother affected his relationships with women later in life. She frowned on alcohol and tobacco, and would reduce pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her behavior to overprotectiveness, fearing that she would lose him as she did John.
When Grant was nine, his father placed his mother in Glenside Hospital, a mental institution, and told him she had gone away on a "long holiday", later declaring that she had died. Grant grew up resenting his mother, particularly after being told she left the family. After she was institutionalised, Grant and his father moved into Grant's grandmother's home in Bristol. When Grant was ten, his father remarried and started a new family. Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31, his father confessing to the lie shortly before his own death. Grant made arrangements for his mother to leave the institution in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He visited her regularly, including after filming Gunga Din in October 1938.
Grant enjoyed the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended a troupe of acrobatic dancers known as The Penders or the Bob Pender Stage Troupe. He subsequently trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky was a Broadway producer at the time and saw Grant performing at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin around 1914.
In 1915, Grant won a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol, although his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was quite capable in most academic subjects, but he excelled at sports, particularly fives, and his good looks and acrobatic talents made him a popular figure. He developed a reputation for mischief, and frequently refused to do his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy", while an old teacher remembered "the naughty little boy who was always making a noise in the back row and would never do his homework".
On March 13, 1918, the 14-year-old Grant was expelled from Fairfield. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with theft in the nearby town of Almondsbury. Wansell claims that Grant had set out intentionally to get himself expelled from school to pursue a career in entertainment with the troupe, and he did rejoin Pender's troupe three days after being expelled. His father had a better-paying job in Southampton, and Grant's expulsion brought local authorities to Pender's door with questions about why he was living in Bristol and not with his father in Southampton. His father then co-signed a three-year contract between Grant and Pender that stipulated Grant's weekly salary, along with room and board, dancing lessons, and other training for his profession until age 18. There was also a provision in the contract for salary raises based on job performance.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Virginia Cherrill (m. 1934-1935) Barbara Hutton (m. 1942-1945) Betsy Drake (m. 1949-1962) Dyan Cannon (m. 1965-1968) Barbara Harris (m. 1981) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death in 1986, Cary Grant's net worth was approximately $60 million, which is equivalent to about $130 million today when adjusted for inflation. His earnings came from a successful acting career and various business ventures.
He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a pay cut because of financial difficulties caused by the Depression. His unemployment was short-lived, however; impresario William B. Friedlander offered him the romantic lead in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened on September 29, 1931, in New York, but was stopped after just 39 performances due to the effects of the Depression.
Grant's role in Nikki was praised by Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, who noted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". The review led to another screen test by Paramount Publix, resulting in an appearance as a sailor in Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. Grant delivered his lines "without any conviction" according to McCann. Through Robinson, Grant met with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of Paramount Pictures respectively. After a successful screen-test directed by Marion Gering, Schulberg signed a contract with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, for five years, at a starting salary of $450 a week. Schulberg demanded that he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper", and they eventually agreed on Cary Grant.
In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. Grant's role is described by William Rothman as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was to enable him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero". Grant found that he conflicted with the director during the filming and the two often argued in German. He played a suave playboy type in a number of films: Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton (Cooper and Grant had no scenes together), Hot Saturday opposite Nancy Carroll and Randolph Scott, and Madame Butterfly with Sidney. According to biographer Marc Eliot, while these films did not make Grant a star, they did well enough to establish him as one of Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors". In 1933, Grant gained attention for appearing in the pre-Code films She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. West would later claim that she had discovered Cary Grant. Of course Grant had already made Blonde Venus the previous year in which he was Marlene Dietrich's leading man. Pauline Kael noted that Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army director in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office hit, earning more than $2 million in the United States, and has since won much acclaim. For I'm No Angel, Grant's salary was increased from $450 to $750 a week. The film was even more successful than She Done Him Wrong, and saved Paramount from bankruptcy; Vermilye cites it as one of the best comedy films of the 1930s.
Career, Business, and Investments
Grant's acting career spanned decades, with notable films like "North by Northwest," "Gunga Din," and "His Girl Friday." He was also a shrewd businessman, investing in real estate and partnering with Barbara Hutton in Acapulco developments. After retiring from acting, he served on the board of directors at Fabergé, significantly contributing to the company's growth.
Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had daughter Jennifer Grant with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He died of a stroke in 1986 at the age of 82.
The Pender Troupe began touring the country, and Grant's performing pantomime developed his physical skills, broadening the range of his acting. The troupe traveled on the RMS Olympic to conduct a tour of the United States on July 21, 1920, when he was 16, arriving a week later. Biographer Richard Schickel writes that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon; Grant played shuffleboard with Fairbanks, who became an important role model for him. After arriving in New York, the group performed at the New York Hippodrome, the largest theater in the world at the time with a capacity of 5,697. They performed there for nine months, putting on 12 shows a week, and they had a successful production of Good Times.
Grant spent the next couple of years touring the United States with "The Walking Stanleys". He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, which made a lasting impression on him. The group split up and he returned to New York, where he began performing at the National Vaudeville Artists Club on West 46th Street, doing comic sketches, juggling, performing acrobatics, and as "Rubber Legs", riding a unicycle. The experience was a particularly demanding one, but it gave Grant the opportunity to improve his comic technique and to develop skills that benefitted him later in Hollywood.
Grant became a leading man alongside Jean Dalrymple and decided to form the "Jack Janis Company", which began touring vaudeville. He was sometimes mistaken for an Australian during this period and was nicknamed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang". His accent seemed to have changed as a result of moving to London with the Pender troupe and working in so many music halls in the UK and the US, eventually developing a sort of transatlantic or mid-Atlantic accent. In 1927, he was cast as an Australian in Reggie Hammerstein's musical Golden Dawn, for which he earned $75 a week. The show was not well received, but it lasted for 184 performances and several critics started to notice Grant as the "pleasant new juvenile" or "competent young newcomer".
A string of financially unsuccessful films followed, including roles as a president of a company who is sued for knocking down a boy in an accident in Born to Be Bad (1934) for 20th Century Fox, a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935). Amid press reports of problems in his marriage to Cherrill, Paramount concluded that Grant was expendable.
Grant's prospects picked up in the latter half of 1935 when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Producer Pandro Berman agreed to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things which were excellent, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." His first venture with RKO, playing a raffish Cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935), was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn. Though a commercial failure, his dominating performance was praised by critics, and Grant always considered the film to have been the breakthrough for his career.
Social Network
Cary Grant was not active on social media, as these platforms did not exist during his lifetime. However, his legacy continues to be celebrated through various fan pages and tributes.
Grant initially appeared in crime films and dramas, such as Blonde Venus (1932) and She Done Him Wrong (1933), but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), and The Philadelphia Story (1940). These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time.<ref name="ATCF"> Sources:
Grant set out to establish himself as what McCann calls the "epitome of masculine glamour", and made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. McCann notes that Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he exhibited a "genuine charm", which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "remarkably easy to find people who were willing to support his embryonic career". He made his feature film debut with the Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), playing an Olympic javelin thrower opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his role and threatened to leave Hollywood, but to his surprise a critic from Variety praised his performance, and thought that he looked like a "potential femme rave".
Education
Grant attended the Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol. His early interests in acrobatics and comedy led him to join the Bob Pender Stage Troupe at a young age, marking the beginning of his entertainment career.
Cary Grant's enduring impact on cinema and his savvy business acumen have cemented his place as one of Hollywood's most beloved and financially successful stars.
