Cary Grant

At 82 years old, Cary Grant has this physical status:

Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach, 1904--86) was an English-born American actor who was considered one of Hollywood's most influential men.

He was known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, a light-hearted approach to acting, and a sense of comedy timing.

Grant was born in Horfield, Bristol.

At a young age, he was attracted to theater and began performing with "The Penders" troupe at age six.

He performed with the Pender Troupe on a tour of the United States at the age of 16.

He stayed in New York City after a string of enjoyable performances.

Early life and education

Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in the northern Bristol suburb of Horfield, northern Bristol. Elsie Maria Leach, the second child of Elias James Leach (1872–1935) and Elsie Maria Leach (1877–1973), was the second child of Joseph Leach (1872–1935). His father worked as a tailor's presser in a clothing factory, while his mother was a seamstress. John William Elias Leach (1899-1900), his older brother, died of tuberculous meningitis the day before his first birthday. Grant may have identified himself as Jewish. He had an unhappy childhood; his father was an alcoholic; and his mother was suffering from chronic depression.

When Grant's son was four years old, she taught him song and dance, and she was keen on him learning piano lessons. She took him to the cinema occasionally, where he loved Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, and Broncho Billy Anderson. When he was 4+12 years old, he was sent to Bishop Road Primary School, Bristol, England.

Grant's biographer Graham McCann said that his mother "did not know how to give affection and didn't know how to receive it." Geoffrey Wansell, a historian, claims that his mother blaming herself for Grant's brother John's death and that he never recovered from it. Grant acknowledged that his negative experiences with his mother influenced his later in life's interactions with women. She disliked alcohol and nicotine, but it would decrease pocket money for minor mishaps. Grant attributed her overprotectiveness to fear of losing him as she did John.

When Grant was nine years old, his father told him that she had gone away on a "long holiday"; she later revealed she had died. Grant grew up regretting his mother, especially after she left the family. Grant and his father moved into his grandmother's house in Bristol after she was gone. Grant's father remarried and started a new family, and Grant did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31 years old; his father confessed to the lie shortly after his own death. Grant made plans for his mother to leave the hospital in June 1935, shortly after he learned of her whereabouts. He paid a visit to her in October 1938, only after filming for Gunga Din was complete.

Grant loved the theater, particularly pantomimes at Christmas, which he attended with his father. He befriended "The Penders" or the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe," a group of acrobatic dancers. He later trained as a stilt walker and began touring with them. Jesse Lasky, a Broadway producer at the time, saw Grant appear at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin about 1914.

Grant was granted a scholarship to attend Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1915, but his father could barely afford to pay for the uniform. He was very competent in most academic fields, but he excelled at athletics, especially fives, and his good looks and acrobatic skills made him a hit figure. He had a reputation for mischief, and he didn't like doing his homework. A former classmate referred to him as a "scruffy little boy," while an old teacher recalls "the naughty little boy who was always making commotion and refused to do his homework." He spent his evenings backstage in Bristol theaters and was responsible for magician David Devant's lighting at the Bristol Empire in 1917 at the age of 13. He began hanging around backstage at every opportunity, and volunteered for work in Southampton's summer as a messenger boy and tour guide, escaping the chaos of his home life. The time he spent in Southampton boosted his desire to fly; he was eager to get out of Bristol and sign on as a ship's cabin boy, but he was too young.

Fairfield's 14-year-old Grant was barred from Fairfield on March 13, 1918. Several explanations were given, including being discovered in the girls' lavatory and assisting two other classmates with a robbery in Almondsbury, Texas. Grant had planned to be banned from school in order to pursue a career in theatre with the troupe, according to Wansell, who recovered Pender's troupe just three days after being refused. Grant's dismissal brought local authorities to his door, not with his father in Southampton. Grant's weekly salary, bed and board, dancing lessons, and other preparation for his field were all stipulated in his three-year deal between Grant and Pender, which was also extended to age 18. Salvation increases were also based on job performance, according to a clause in the job.

Personal life

Grant became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, aged 38, at which time he also changed his name to "Cary Grant." He referred to his middle name as "Alexander" rather than "Alec" at the time of his naturalization.

Grant, one of Hollywood's most wealthy actors, has bought houses in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Palm Springs. He was immaculate in his personal grooming, and Edith Head, the well-known Hollywood costume designer, lauded his "meticulous" attention to detail, who deemed him to have the most refined fashion sense of any actor she had worked with. McCann attributed his "most obsessive care" with tanning, which exacerbated his older brother's, to Douglas Fairbanks, who also had a major influence on his refined sense of clothing. Grant came from a working-class background and was uninformed, so he made an effort over the course of his career to mix with high society and gather their wisdom, demeanor, and etiquette to compensate and cover it up. Despite smoking two packs a day at a time, his image was delicately crafted from the beginnings of Hollywood, where he would often sunbathe and avoid being photographed smoking. Grant quit smoking in the early 1950s by hypnotherapy. He stayed fit and fit into his late years, but Grant said he never crook[ed] a finger to keep fit." He said he did "everything in moderation." Except for making love.

Grant's daughter Jennifer said that her father met hundreds of people from all walks of life and that their house was often visited by Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Gregory Peck, and his partner Veronique, Kirk Kerkorian and Merv Griffin. Grant and Sinatra were the closest of friends, according to her, and that the two men had a common radiance and "indefinable incandescence of charm" and were "high on life." Grant deposited artifacts from her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality, room-sized vault that he had created in the house when raising Jennifer. Jennifer attributed the flurry collection of artifacts of his own childhood's bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, cousin, and cousin's grandson) and may have prevented her from experiencing a similar loss.

Grant lived with actor Randolph Scott for a year, which some believe was a homosexual relationship. Both Grant and James met at the Paramount studio early in Grant's career in 1932 as Scott was filming Sky Bride, while Grant was shooting Sinners in the Sun, and soon afterwards, they merged in together. Grant and Scott were not homosexual, according to Scott's biographer Robert Nott, and the speculation was based on research that has been published about them in other books. Jennifer Grant's daughter denied the allegations. Grant, according to Chevy Chase, was a "homo" on television in 1980.

What a gal!

Grant sued him for slander, and Chase was forced to retract his words.' In the 1960s, Grant became a fan of Morecambe and Wise, and remained close friends with Eric Morecambe until his death in 1984.

In the late 1950s, Grant began testing LSD before it became fashionable. Betsy Drake's wife at the time, who shared a keen interest in psychotherapy, and she and her Grant obtained a wealth of psychoanalysis experience. Mortimer Hartman, a radiologist, began treating him with LSD in the late 1950s, with Grant hoping that the therapy would help him feel better about himself and get rid of all of his emotional distress caused by his childhood and failed relationships. He had 100 sessions over the years. Grant loved the drug for a long time, and said that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind," and that for the first time in his life, he was "deeply and truly grateful." Dyan Cannon claimed he was a "apostle of LSD" and that he was still taking the drug in 1967 as part of a therapy to save their marriage. Grant later stated that "taking LSD was a completely stupid thing to do," but that I was a self-opinionated boor, concealing all sorts of layers and defenses, hypocrisy, and vanity. I had to get rid of them and wipe the slate clean."

Grant has been married five times. At the Caxton Hall registry office in London, he wed Virginia Cherrill on February 9, 1934. Following allegations that he had assaulted her, she divorced him on March 26, 1935. Both were involved in a bitter divorce case that was widely published in the media, with Cherrill requesting $1,000 a week from him in He dated actress Phyllis Brooks from 1937, after the demise of the marriage. In mid-1939, they considered marriage and holidaying in Europe, but the friendship ended later this year.

Barbara Hutton married Barbara Hutton in 1942, one of the world's richest women, following her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth's $50 million inheritance. They were branded "Cash and Cary" by a derisively pundit, but Grant denied any financial settlement in a prenuptial deal to avoid the suggestion that he married for money. They lived in a white mansion at 10615 Bellagio Road in Bel Air near the end of their marriage. They divorced in 1945, but they remained the "fondest of friends"." Betty Hensel lived with Betty Hensel for a while, but then married Betsy Drake on December 25, 1949, the co-star of two of his films. This was his longest marriage, which ended on August 14, 1962.

Grant married Dyan Cannon, 1965, at Howard Hughes' Desert Inn in Las Vegas, with their daughter Jennifer, who was born on February 26, 1966, his only child; she has often been described as his "best production."

He said of fatherhood:

In August 1967, Grant and Cannon split.

Grant was involved in a car accident in Queens, New York, en route to JFK Airport on March 12, 1968, when a truck struck the side of his limousine. Grant was hospitalized for 17 days with three fractured ribs and bruising. Baroness Gratia von Furstenberg, a female companion, was also injured in the accident. Grant and Cannon divorced nine days later.

In the late 1960s, Grant had a brief association with actress Cynthia Bouron. He had been unable to attend the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1958, but he was honoured with the Academy Honorary Award in 1970. Grant declared that he would attend the awards ceremony to accept his award, putting an end to his 12-year absence from the event. Bouron filed a paternity complaint against him two days after receiving notice that he was the father of her seven-week-old daughter's seven-week-old daughter's birth certificate, and she listed him as the father on the child's birth certificate. Grant requested a blood test but Bouron refused to supply one, and the court ordered her to delete his name from the document. He dated British photojournalist Maureen Donaldson from 1973 to 1977, followed by Victoria Morgan, who was much younger.

Grant married Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years old at the time, on April 11, 1981. Both were in 1976 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, where Harris was employed at the time and Grant was attending a Fabergé conference. They became friends, but they didn't get to California until 1979. Grant's family members agreed that she had a positive influence on them, and Prince Rainier of Monaco said that she had never been happier" than she had in his last years with her.

Grant did not explicitly endorse political causes, according to biographer Nancy Nelson, but she did occasionally comment on current events. During McCarthyism's period, Grant condemned Charlie Chaplin's blacklisting and argued that Chaplin's character as an entertainer was more relevant than his political convictions. He told a reporter in 1950 that he wanted to see a female president of the United States but that he did not have the right to comment on political affairs, citing the fact that actors were not qualified to do so.

Grant made a public appearance at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976, during which he gave a address in favour of Gerald Ford's reelection and for female equality before introducing Betty Ford. Grant's 1977 interview with him in The New York Times revealed that his ideological views were conservative, but that he did not campaign for candidates.

On Saturday, November 29, 1986, Grant was at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, preparing for his role in A Conversation with Cary Grant, but he wasn't feeling sick when he arrived at the theater. Basil Williams thought he was still looking his normal suave self, but he noticed that he was drained and that he staggered once in the auditorium. Williams recalls that Grant rehearsed for half an hour before "something seemed wrong" all of a sudden, and he disappeared backstage. Grant was admitted to the Blackhawk Hotel, where he and his wife had checked in, and a doctor was alerted that Grant was suffering a huge stroke, with a blood pressure reading of 210 over 130. Grant was refused admission to the hospital by mistake. "The stroke was getting worse," the doctor said. He died in only fifteen minutes. It was difficult to watch him die and not be able to help. "But he wouldn't let us down." Grant had fallen into a coma by 8:45 p.m. and was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital in Davenport, Iowa, Iowa. He spent 45 minutes in the ambulance before being transferred to intensive care. He died at 11:22 p.m. on Monday, aged 82.

"Cary Grant was not supposed to die," The New York Times' editorial said. Cary Grant was supposed to stay around, our constant touchstone of beauty and sophistication, romance, and youth." His body was recovered and scattered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where it was cremated and scattered. Following his request, he did not want the nonsense of a funeral," Roderick Mann said. His estate was worth between 60 and 80 million dollars, but the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer; the bulk of it went to Barbara Harris and Jennifer.

Source

Vaudeville and performing career

Grant earned his pantomime skills while on tour, and the Pender Troupe began touring the country, and he learned to extend his physical acting skills. On July 21, 1920, he was 16 years old and heading to run a tour of the United States on the RMS Olympic ship, arriving a week later. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship on their honeymoon, according to biographer Richard Schickel, and Grant played shuffleboard with him. He was so impressed with Fairbanks that he became a leading role model. The company opened in New York and performed at the New York Hippodrome, which was the country's largest theater with a capacity of 5,697 people at the time. They were on display for nine months, with 12 shows in a week, and Good Times was a hit.

Grant became a member of the vainanceville tour and began touring in places such as St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, and Milwaukee. When the majority of the troupe returned to the United Kingdom, he stayed in the United States with several of the other performers. During this period, he became fond of the Marx Brothers, and Zeppo Marx was a leading role model for him. He appeared in the Palace Theater on Broadway in July 1922 as part of a group called the "Knockabout Comedians." He formed "The Walking Stanleys" with several of the Pender Troupe's former members, and he appeared in a variety show called "Better Times" at the Hippodrome toward the end of the year. George C. Tilyou Jr., whose family owned Steeplechase Park, attended a Park Avenue party while serving as a paid escort for opera singer Lucrezia Bori. Tilyou recruited him to walk stilts on the newly opened Coney Island Boardwalk, wearing a bright coat and a sandwich board, advertising the amusement park, after hearing of his acrobatic experience.

Grant spent the next two years with "The Walking Stanleys" in the United States. He visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1924, leaving a lasting impression on him. The group disbanded, and he returned to New York, where he performed on West 46th Street, juggling, performing acrobatics, and sketch sketches, as well as a short stint as "Rubber Legs." Grant had a particularly challenging time, but it did give him the opportunity to develop his comedy skills and gain skills that later helped him in Hollywood.

Grant, alongside Jean Dalrymple, became a leading man and formed the "Jack Janis Company," which began touring vaudeville. During this period, he was often mistaken for an Australian and was dubbed "Kangaroo" or "Boomerang" in honor of his name. His accent seemed to have changed as a result of living in many music halls in the United Kingdom and the United States, and eventually developed what some call a 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. Grant was not well-received, but it lasted for 184 performances, and many commentators began to regard him as either the "pleasant new child" or "competent young newcomer." He joined the William Morris Agency and was given another juvenile role by Hammerstein in his play Polly, which was an unevente production. Grant, "has a good masculine demeanor," one critic wrote, but "the score's beauty isn't lacking." After six weeks of poor reviews, Wansell admits that the pressure of a failing product made him anxious, and he was eventually dismissed from the game. Despite the setback, Hammerstein's rival Florenz Ziegfeld attempted to buy Grant's deal but Hammerstein sold it to the Shubert Brothers instead. In the French risqué comedy Boom-Boom at the Casino Theater on Broadway, J. J. Shubert starred him as a Spaniard opposite Jeanette MacDonald, ten days after his 25th birthday. Grant was "completely ineffective in the role," MacDonald later admitted, but he lent him a charm that endeared him to people and effectively saved the show from disaster. Grant was paid $350 a week before heading to Detroit and Chicago, then to Chicago.

Grant bought a 1927 Packard sport phaeton to console himself. Eric, his half-brother, was born in England, and he returned to New York to play Max Grunewald in a Shubert production of A Wonderful Night. It opened at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, two days after the Wall Street Crash, and it continued until February 1930 with 125 shows. The performance received mixed reviews; one critic compared his portrayal to a "mixture of John Barrymore and cockney," while another said he had brought a "breath of elfin Broadway" to the role. Even after many years of being "surrounded by all sorts of attractive women" in the theater, on the road, and in New York, Grant found it difficult to form relationships with women, remarking that he "never seemed to be able to fully engage with them."

Grant spent nine months in a revival of the musical The Street Singer in 1930. In early 1931, it came to an end, and the Shuberts invited him to spend the summer at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri; he appeared in 12 different productions, totaling 87 shows. He received acclaim from local newspapers for his appearances, and he's gaining a reputation as a romantic leading man. Gerald du Maurier, A. E. Matthews, Jack Buchanan, and Ronald Squire were all key influences on his performance during this period. He confessed to being drawn to acting as a result of a "strong desire to be liked and revered." He was eventually fired by the Shuberts at the end of the summer season when he refused to accept a salary cut due to financial difficulties exacerbated by the depression. However, his service was short-lived; impresario William B. Friedlander gave him the leading romantic role in his musical Nikki, and Grant starred opposite Fay Wray as a soldier in post-World War I France. The production opened in September 29, 1931, in New York, but it was interrupted after just 39 performances due to the Depression's effects.

Film career

Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News praised Grant's role in Nikki, saying that the "new lad from England" had "a long future in film's. The investigation culminated in another screen test by In Singapore Sue (1931), a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson, a sailor appears as a sailor. According to McCann, Grant wrote his lines "without fear of guilt." Grant worked with Jesse L. Lasky and B. P. Schulberg, the co-founder and general manager of The two friends met through Robinson. Schulberg signed a five-year deal with the 27-year-old Grant on December 7, 1931, at a starting salary of $450 a week, following a fruitful screen-test directed by Marion Gering. Schulberg requested that his name be changed to "something that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper," and the pair eventually settled on Cary Grant.

Grant set out to establish himself as the "epitome of masculine glamour," and he made Douglas Fairbanks his first role model. Grant's career in Hollywood immediately took off because he had a "genuine charisma," which made him stand out among the other good looking actors at the time, making it "surprisingly easy to find people who are willing to help his embryonic career." He made his film debut with Frank Tuttle-directed comedy This is the Night (1932), opposite Thelma Todd and Lili Damita. Grant disliked his job and threatened to leave Hollywood, but a Variety reporter praised his performance, saying he seemed to be a "potential femme rave."

In 1932, Grant played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, directed by Josef von Sternberg. William Rothman's account of Grant as projecting the "distinctive kind of nonmacho masculinity that was supposed to inspire him to incarnate a man capable of being a romantic hero." During the filming, Grant discovered that he disagreed with the director during the shooting, and the two characters often argued in German. In a number of films, including 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. Although these films did not make Grant a celebrity, they did a good job to make him a contender in Hollywood's "new crop of fast-rising actors," according to biographer Marc Eliot.

Grant gained fame in 1933 for his appearances in She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel opposite Mae West. Cary Grant would later be discovered by West. Well, Grant had already made Blonde Venus in the previous year, when he was Marlene Dietrich's top guy. Grant did not appear confident in his role as a Salvation Army chief in She Done Him Wrong, which made it all the more charming. The film was a box office smash, grossing more than $2 million in the United States, and has since received a lot of attention. Grant's salary went from $450 to $750 per week. Vermilye says it was even more popular than She Done He Wrong, and it saved The film was also more popular than She Done Him Wrong, and it saved Vermilye calls it one of the 1930s' finest comedy films ever made.

Grant was expendable after a string of financially unsuccessful films, including scenes as the president of a corporation that is being sued for knocking down a boy in a crash in Born to Be Bad (1934), a cosmetic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up (1934), and a blinded pilot opposite Myrna Loy in Wings in the Dark (1935), as well as press reports of his marriage to Cherrill.

Grant's career soared in the latter half of 1935, when he was loaned out to RKO Pictures. Pandro Berman, a producer, decided to take him on in the face of failure because "I'd seen him do things that were outstanding, and [Katharine] Hepburn wanted him too." He was the first of four collaborations with Hepburn (1935), his first experience with RKO, playing a raffish cockney swindler in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett (1935). Despite the fact that his commercial success was hailed by critics, Grant's acclaimed role was still to be considered the triumph of his career. Grant decided not to renew it and wanted to work freelance after his When his With the announcement of Wedding Present, he decided not to renew it and went back to work freelance. Grant was described as the first Hollywood freelance actor to perform. Ernest Bliss (1936), which was shot in England, was his first attempt as a freelance actor. Grant was compelled to reconsider his decision after the film was a box office bomb. Suzy's commercial success in the early years, in which he played a French airman opposite Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone, resulted in him acquiring joint contracts with RKO and Columbia Pictures, enabling him to select the scripts that he felt suited his acting style. Over two years, his Columbia contract was a four-film contract, guaranteeing him $100,000 each for the first two years and $75,000 each for the others.

Grant made the first film under his Columbia Pictures contract, When You're in Love, a wealthy American singer who eventually woos a well-known opera singer (Grace Moore). His results received praise from critics, with Mae Tinee of The Chicago Daily Tribune describing it as the "best thing he's done in a long time" in his opinion. Grant was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for Topper, MGM's first major comedy success, after a commercial failure in his second RKO venture The Toast of New York. After dying in a car accident, Grant played one half of a wealthy, freewheeling married couple with Constance Bennett, who caused a lot of turbulence on the planet as ghosts. Topper was one of the year's most popular films, with a Variety writer remarking that both Grant and Bennett "do their jobs with a great deal of confidence." Grant's participation in The Awful Truth, his first film co-produced with Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy, was described as "a logical springboard" for the film's success. Despite the fact that Leo McCarey allegedly disliked Grant, who had mocked the director by enacting his demeanors in the film, he acknowledged Grant's comedic abilities and encouraged him to improve his lines and draw upon his experience in vaudeville. Grant was a top Hollywood actor, making him a leading man in screwball comedies, making him a leading man in screwball comedies.

The Awful Truth began with film critic Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic's "most spectacular run ever for an actor in American films" for Grant. In 1938, he costarred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, which included a leopard and a lot of bickering and verbal rivalry between Grant and Hepburn. He was initially uncertain how to act his character, but director Howard Hawks advised Harold Lloyd to think about him. Grant was given more leeway in the comedy scenes, the film's editing, and even in training Hepburn in the art of comedy. Despite losing over $350,000 for RKO, the film received rave reviews from critics. He appeared alongside Hepburn in the romantic comedy Holiday later this year, which did not do well commercially, to the point that Hepburn was thought to be "box office poison" at the time.

Despite a string of commercial flops, Grant was now more popular than ever and in high demand. Grant played parts that were more dramatic, even with comedic undertones, according to Vermilye. In the George Stevens-directed adventure film Gunga Dina Dina Dina Dina, set at a military station in India, he played a British army sergeant opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. In Only Angels Have Wings' Only Angels Have Wings stars Roles as a pilot opposite Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth, and Carole Lombard appears alongside a wealthy landowner in In Name Only follows.

In 1940, Grant played a callous newspaper editor who discovers that his ex-wife and former journalist, played by Rosalind Russell, is to marry insurance officer Ralph Bellamy in Hawks' comedy "History Together," which was praised for its chemistry and "extraordinary verbal athleticism" between Grant and Russell. According to Life magazine, Grant reunited with Irene Dunne in My Favorite Wife, a "first rate comedy" that became RKO's second largest picture of the year, with sales of $505,000. After playing a Virginian backwoodsman in McCann's last film and appearance, Grant's last film of the year was The Philadelphia Story, in which he played Hepburn's ex-husband. Grant said his performance was so good that he was terribly disappointed not to have been nominated for an Academy Award, particularly because Hepburn and James Stewart, both his lead co-stars, received them, with Stewart winning Best Actor. "I'd have to blacken my teeth first before the Academy will seriously consider me," Grant joked. "The wrong one got the Oscar" for The Philadelphia Story, according to film historian David Thomson, "Grant got better performances out of Hepburn than her (long-time companion) Spencer Tracy ever did." Stewart's winning the Oscar "was considered a gold-plated restitution for being robbed of the honor" for the previous year's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grant's inability to vote for His Girl Friday the same year is also a "sin of omission" for the Oscars.

This year, Grant was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade, his first selection from the academy. Grant said it was an emotional roller coaster, as he and wife-to-be Barbara Hutton began to discuss having their own children. He appeared in Suspicion, the first of Grant's four collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock later this year. Grant did not warm to co-star Joan Fontaine, who was found to be temperamental and unprofessional. Grant was "provocably irresponsible, boyishly gay, and also curiously obscure," as the role appropriately demands. Later, Hitchcock said that instead of committing suicide, the ending of the film in which Grant is sentenced to prison rather than committing suicide "was a complete mistake." If you have a cynical ending, it makes the tale too straightforward." Suspicion, according to Geoff Andrew of Time Out, was "a supreme example of Grant's ability to be both charming and sinister."

Grant spent three weeks in the United States as part of a coalition to support the war effort and was photographed in hospital visiting wounded marines. He appeared in many routines of his own during these performances and often played the straight-man opposite Bert Lahr. The ten-minute propaganda short Road to Victory was released in May 1942, when he was 38, in which he appeared alongside Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Charles Ruggles. Grant played Leopold Dilg, a prisoner on the run in The Talk of the Town (1942), who escaped after being wrongfully found guilty of arson and murder. He hides in a house with characters portrayed by Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman, who then plots to have his freedom. Crowther applauded the script and noted that Grant played Dilg with a "casualness" that is only slightly worrying." He appeared in Mr. Lucky the following year, as a foreign correspondent opposite Ginger Rogers and Walter Slezak in the offbeat comedy Initially Upon a Honeymoon, in which he was lauded for his role as a reporter aboard a ship. Destination Tokyo (1943), a commercially successful submarine war film, was shot in only six weeks in September and October, leaving him exhausted; Newsweek's reviewer said it was one of his career's finest performances of his career.

Grant appeared in Frank Capra's dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, alongside Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, and Peter Lorre, playing the eccentric Mortimer Brewster, who belonged to a bizarre family with two murderous aunts and an uncle pretending to be President Teddy Roosevelt. Grant took up the role after it was originally intended to Bob Hope but she had to cancel due to scheduling conflicts. Grant found the macabre subject matter of the film difficult to deal with and believed that it was his lowest result of his career. He received his second Oscar nomination for a role opposite Ethel Barrymore and Barry Fitzgerald in the Clifford Odets-directed film None But the Lonely Heart, which was set in London during the Great Depression. In The Black Curtain, he appeared in the CBS Radio program Suspense late in the year, portraying a tormented character whose amnesia has influenced masculine order in society.

Grant played Cole Porter in the musical Night and Day (1946), after appearing briefly opposite Claudette Colbert in Without Reservations (1946). Scenes were often time demanding multiple takes, which made it difficult for the actors and crew alike. In the Hitchcock-directed film Notorious (1946), Grant plays a government agent hired by an American spy (Bergman) to invade a Nazi party in Brazil after World War II. During Grant and Bergman's film, they fell in love and shared one of the longest kisses in film history at around two-and-a-half minutes. Wansell explains how Grant's appearance "underlined how much his distinctive qualities as a screen actor had developed in the years since The Awful Truth."

Grant was charged with assault in the comedy The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (known in the United Kingdom as "Bachelor Knight"), opposite Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple in 1947. The film was praised by the critics, who praised Grant and Loy's slapstick appearances and chemistry; it became one of the best-selling films at the box office this year. In the comedy The Bishop's Wife, he co-starred David Niven and Loretta Young, portraying an angel sent from heaven to clearly establish the marriage between the bishop and his wife (Loretta Young). The film was a huge commercial and critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. It was "intelligently researched and skillfully executed" in Life Magazine, according to the magazine.

Grant starred neurotic Jim Blandings, the title-sake of the comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, with Loy in the following year. Despite the fact that RKO's money was not returned to RKO, Commonweal's Philip T. Hartung thought that Grant's role as the "frustrated advertising man" was one of his best screen portrayals. He appeared in "airy comedy" Every Girl Should Be Married, a "airy comedy" in which he played a bachelor trapped into marriage by Drake's conniving appearance. He finished the year as the country's fourth most well-known film actor. Grant appeared in scenes dressed as a woman in 1949, alongside Ann Sheridan in the comedy I Was a Male War Bride, in which he appeared as a woman, wearing a skirt and a wig. He was shot with viral hepatitis and hunger during filming, affecting the way he looked in the film. Roger Charlier's autobiography was based on his biography, and the film became the highest-grossing film for 20th Century Fox this year, with over $4.5 million in takings and being likened to Hawks' screwball comedies of the late 1930s. He was one of the highest-paid Hollywood actors by this time, earning $300,000 per film.

Grant's career was in the early 1950s, beginning in a stalemate. His work as a leading brain surgeon in a Latin American country in crisis, as well as as a medical-school instructor and orchestra conductor opposite Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk were poorly received. After twenty years of being successful, wealthy, and popular, Grant became tired of being Cary Grant, and he said, "Playing yourself, your authentic self, is the hardest thing in the world." Grant appeared in the comedy Room for One More in 1952, playing an engineer husband and wife (Betsy Drake) who adopted two children from an orphanage. He reunited with Howard Hawks to film Monkey Business, co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Despite the fact that the critic from Motion Picture Herald boasted that Grant gave a career's best with a "extraordinary and agile appearance," which was compared to Rogers', it received a mixed reception overall. On the debut of his career in Dream Wife in July 1953, Grant hoped that his supporting actress Deborah Kerr would save his career, but it was a huge and financial loss. Although Grant was given the leading role in A Star is Born, he did not want to play the role. He felt that his film career was over and that he had briefly left the field.

In 1955, Grant agreed to star opposite Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, starring John Robie, a retired jewel robber living in the French Riviera. During the production, Grant and Kelly enjoyed their time together, it was one of Grant's most enjoyable experiences. Kelly found Hitchcock and Kelly to be extremely professional, and later said that Kelly was "probably the finest actor I've ever worked with." Grant was one of the first actors to leave his studio job without renewing his deal, effectively ending the production process, which almost completely controlled all aspects of an actor's life. He chose which films he would appear in, had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times negotiated a percentage of the gross proceeds, which was unusual at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the famed To Catch a Thief film, while Hitchcock received less than $100,000 for directing and directing it. Although the general film's reception was mixed, Grant's role was lauded for his work, with critics focusing on his suave, beautiful appearance in the film.

Grant starred opposite Kerr in the romance An Affair to Remember in 1957, playing an international playboy who becomes the object of her affections. Schickel considers the film to be one of the period's most iconic romantic pictures, but argues that Grant was not entirely successful in attempting to supersede the film's "gushing sentimentality." Grant appeared in The Pride and the Passion alongside Sophia Loren this year. He had expressed an interest in playing William Holden's character in The Bridge on the River Kwai at the time, but later found that it was not possible due to his dedication to The Pride and the Passion. The film was shot on location in Spain and was frustrating, with co-star Frank Sinatra annoying his colleagues and leaving the company just after a few weeks. Despite Grant's affair with Loren during filming, Grant's attempts to convince Loren to marry him on setback, with him expressing indignation after Paramount cast her opposite him in Houseboat (1958) as part of her contract. During the building of Houseboat, the sexual tension between the two guys was so strong that the producers found it nearly impossible to make. Grant appeared in Indiscreet, a romantic comedy starring a wealthy financier (Bergman) who appears to be a married man in 1958. He developed a closer relationship and gained new admiration for her as an actor during the shoot. Schickel said that the film was perhaps the best romantic comedy film of the period, and that Grant himself had declared that it was one of his personal favorites. Grant received his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role, and the year as the most popular film actor at the box office.

Grant appeared in the Hitchcock-directed film North by Northwest in 1959, playing an advertising executive who is embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. It was warmly received by the critics and was regarded as one of the best films of all time, like Indiscreet. Grant's success was praised by Weiler, who wrote in The New York Times, who said that he was "ever more at home than in this role as the advertisement-man-on-the-lam" and that he "was never more at home than in this role of the advertising man-on-the-lam" and handled the role "with professional vigor and dignity." Grant wore one of his most iconic suits in the film, a fourteen-gauge, mid-gray, subtly plaid worsted wool one custom-made on Savile Row. In the comedy Operation Petticoat, Grant spent the year as a US Navy submarine skipper opposite Tony Curtis. Grant's comedic appearance in this film was seen as a classic example of how to get people's laugh without lines, according to the reviewer from Daily Variety who wrote, "The majority of the gags play off him." It's his reaction, blank, sparkled, etc., that is often underplayed, that incites or unleashes the humour. Deschner rated the film as the highest earning film of Grant's career at the US box office in 1973, earning $9.5 million.

In 1960, Grant appeared in The Grass Is Greener, which was shot in England at Osterley Park and Shepperton Studios, opposite Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Jean Simmons. Although Grant took great delight in "mocking his aristocratic character's over-refined tastes and demeanors," McCann says, the film was panned and was seen as his worst since Dream Wife. Grant appeared in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink in 1962, starring suave, wealthy businessman Philip Shayne romantically involved with an office employee, portrayed by Doris Day. He invites her to his Bermuda flat, but her guilty conscience takes precedence. Critics praised the film, which received three Academy Award nominations and the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Picture, as well as a two-time Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor. Deschner ranked Grant's second highest grossing film of his career.

Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had initially applied for Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962), but the producers decided against it because Grant would only be committed to one film, and the producers had to choose someone else who might be a franchise after James Mason refused to commit to three films. Grant appeared in his last primarily suave, romantic role opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade in 1963. Grant found the experience of working with Hepburn "wonderful" and believed that their close friendship was evident on camera, but Hepburn was worried that he'd be chastised for being older than her and portrayed as a "cradle snatcher" during the filming. "It's the film's canny flirtatiousness that makes it such enthralling entertainment," author Chris Barsanti writes. Grant and Hepburn are the same as pros, like the pros. The film, which has been well received by critics, is often described as "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made."

Grant went from a suave, charismatic screen actor to a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose in 1964. The film was a huge commercial success, and following its debut at Radio City at Christmas 1964, it took over $210,000 at the box-office in the first week, breaking the previous record set by Charade. Walk, Don't Run (1966), a comedy co-starring Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar, was shot on location in Tokyo and set against the 1964 Tokyo Olympics' housing shortage. "Though Grant's personal presence is indispensible, the role he plays is almost wholly redundant," Newsweek said. Perhaps the inference to be taken is that a man in his 50s or 60s has no place in romantic comedy other than as a catalyst. If so, the chemistry is wrong for everybody." Grant had been requested to appear in Torn Curtain that year but was disappointed to learn that he had decided to leave.

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