By any measure, Cary Grant was an odd duck. No wonder. The handsome charmer, adored by millions, got off to a rotten start in life. His father left home and he was told, when he was 10, that his mother had died, a lie he had to live with for years.
Left pretty much to his own devices, he threw in with a theatrical troupe in his native England, and later came to America, beginning his astonishing career as a stilt-walker.
Marc Eliot’s “Cary Grant” is an interesting, detailed account of the long and conflicted life of one of Hollywood’s brightest stars. Archie Leach didn’t become the cool and handsome Cary Grant overnight, but put in his time, beginning as a teen-aged knockabout with a troupe of comedians.
Grieving deeply over his mother’s “death,” Archie had little to keep him in England and was happy to be on his way to America with the troupe, under the auspices of Charles Dillingham. Alas, Fred Stone found the troupe too funny and chose not to compete, demanding that the lot of them be taken off the bill at the Globe Theater. The canny Dillingham booked the show into the Hippodrome.
Later on, the troupe joined the Keith circuit. With that under his belt, Grant returned to New York, getting jobs here and there, but making more money as an escort to rich older women, Gigolo? Walker? Whatever. He was an escort-for-hire, did quite well at it and gained some polish.
When he landed in Hollywood at long last, his cockney accent was lamented by the directors, and he worked hard to get rid of it. That he didn’t quite succeed was a blessing, for the accent folded into a smooth, off-beat diction that set him apart for all time.
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