18th January: Cary Grant

Today was the birthday of actor Cary Grant, born in 1904. Here are some things you may not have known about Cary Grant.

1. His real name was Archibald Alexander Leach, and he was born in Bristol. There is a statue of him in Bristol's Millennium Square.
2. He had an unhappy childhood - his father was an alcoholic and his mother was hostile to him. This may have been because he had an older brother who died before he was born and the loss of that child triggered clinical depression. His father had his mother committed to a mental institution when Archie was nine, and told her she'd gone on a long holiday, and later lied to him that she'd died.
3. His father took him to the theatre as a child, which they both enjoyed. His father used to go backstage to flirt with the showgirls. As a result, Archie, aged six, met a troupe of dancers called The Penders. He developed a particular bond with one of the dancers, Robert Lomas, who became his mentor. Archie began performing with the troupe at six, and later, when his father married again he left his son in the care of the dancers. When he was expelled from school, he joined them full time.
4. He trained as a stilt-walker.
5. When Archie was 16, the troupe toured America. Archie was so entranced by New York and Broadway that he decided to stay.
6. He was noticed by a film producer in 1931, when he appeared in a play called Nikki, in which he played a soldier called Cary Lockwood, opposite Fay Wray (who went on to star in King Kong). Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, wrote that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". This review got him an uncredited role as a sailor in Singapore Sue, a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. For Archie, the film was one day's work.
7. The following year, he had a screen test with Paramount Pictures and was signed up for $450 a week. This was when he changed his name. Archibald Leach sounded too British, the studio said, and wanted him to have a name "that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper". It was Fay Wray who suggested that he name himself after the character in the play which had turned out so well for him - Cary Lockwood. Cary was fine, but there was another character with a name similar to Lockwood so that wouldn't do. Archie chose the name Grant from a list of surnames given to him by the studio.
8. He almost quit Hollywood after his first film, This is the Night. He felt the character he played wasn't believable, because he didn't think anyone would accept his wife cheating on him so calmly. A friend persuaded him to stick it out.
9. He married five times - Virginia Cherrill, Barbara Hutton, Betsy Drake, Dyan Cannon (with whom he had a daughter, Jennifer) and Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years younger than him.
10. He never won an Oscar, although he was nominated twice, for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944). He did, however, receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1970.