For two moviegoing generations, Cary Grant was class—an effortless embodiment of gentlemanly grace and humor. But Cary Grant's greatest achievement was in creating himself and the irresistible character he became.
March 31, 1997
McCann, an instructor at King's College, Cambridge, and the author of previous film books (Woody Allen: New Yorker and Rebel Males: Clint, Brando, and Dean) opens with a disturbing event in his subject's youth. In 1913, when Archibald Alexander Leach was nine, he came home from school one day to be told his mother had gone away for a short holiday. The truth was that his father had put Elsie Leach in a mental institution. Only after his father's 1935 death, did he learn his mother was alive, and the two were reunited. But by that time Archie Leach was Cary Grant, a Hollywood celebrity who had already made the first 20 of his 72 feature films. His screen presence was so Olympian that when he died in 1986, the New York Times wrote, "Cary Grant was not supposed to die." More than a dozen previous books about the actor are available, but McCann's well-researched addition is particularly valuable for its careful investigation of old canards. Dispelling myths, analyzing comedy techniques and rehashing anecdotes, the author sweeps through all corners of the actor's life-therapy, LSD use, the failure of several marriages, "yet to be proven" activities as a WWII spy on behalf of England and persistent rumors of homosexuality. Still, the book's outstanding centerpiece is "Inventing Cary Grant," in which McCann investigates the accents, role models, fashion choices and acting styles which led Leach to cultivate and polish his chosen persona. First serial to the Boston Globe. Photos.
