Cary Grant

Rating:
Summary: Movie star. Quick, who do you think of? Cary Grant.
Review: Especially if your over 50. He looked, played & acted as the movie star he was. Women loved him. Men would have loved to be him. He was more often seduced than the seducer which was part of his charm. He never forgot who he was & where he came from: Archie Leech from Bristol, England. He was amiable & apolitical yet had a streak of independence & courage that led him to be one of the first stars to break with the studio system. That allowed him to be a free agent & pick the movies he wanted to do. It didn't always work out. Sometimes, the movies stank & he was the best thing in them. But most of his movies were money makers & that was really the only thing that counted. He was admired for his independence. He could be difficult to work with but was not tempermental. He was a professional working to perfect his craft as he liked to put it. This obsession with perfection did not work with the women he loved & he left four failed marriages in his wake. This failing apparently never occurred to him.
He didn't have to be pushed into old man roles & retired on his own terms. A class act.

Rating:
Summary: Glorious
Review: A sublime biography.McCann writes with a rare maturity,blending information and insight with the kind of elegant effectiveness associated with his subject.A delight from start to finish.

Rating:
Summary: Uneven but very good overall
Review: I had recently read a horrible bio of Jimmy Stewart (by a different author) and I was afraid that this Cary Grant bio would be just as bad. But it is an intelligently written book, and best when recounting Cary Grant's young adult-hood (leading up to his getting into the movies) and the drama surrouding his mother. It also, in a very thorough and detailed manner, unravels the events that lead to rumors of bisexuality, which were untrue. Lesson - Never cross a tabloid journalist and never be the fastest gun (or the biggest leading man) in the west. The book is a little less interesting when it deals with Cary Grant's film career itself, though it picks up when dealing with Mr. Grant's mid-life crisis (for lack of a better word) but never fleshes that out as much as I'd like. I could have used more anecdotes regarding the shooting of individual pictures. There are plenty of those but I never felt as if the making of any one picture was rendered satisfactorily. Too frequently, I think, the book falls back on quotes from some star or other carrying on about Cary Grant in a rhapsodic manner. When the author digs up and weaves together details, he's masterful. When he falls back on mere Entertainment Tonight-styled rhapsodizing, he's less interesting. But that rhapsodizing stuff couldn't account for more than 1/7 of the book. Of course, there is a limit to how much CAN be known, so my critique might be somewhat unfair. One consequence of being sharp and honest as a biographer, is that you can't just make stuff up when you find a hole in the facts.

Rating:
Summary: High quality writing, which makes for a terrific reading
Review: I like this book, because it is written by a man, who knows his craft. Nowadays, everyone seems to write biographies, but not everyone succeeds. Presence of humor throughout this book goes to show that CG had a very special sence of humor, that we can all enjoy from reading about him. Then, of course, there are the pictures... Who can resist a book full of CG's pictures?... After all he has been unanimously voted "the most dashing man of Hollywood". Overall, this book talks in depth about CG's life, from his Bristol childhhod to the last years in America. Many quotes from the man himself (as well as from people, who knew him in Hollywood) are also inlcuded.

Rating:
Summary: As good as it gets.
Review: I was well and truly bowled over by this brilliant biography of a great star.First of all,it told me all I wanted to know about the life and career of this fascinating individual.Second,it made me appreciate his performances with even more enthusiasm than before.Third,it put him in his proper historical and ural context.Fourth,it clarified and corrected all of the misconceptions and myths that have been circulated by earlier books,articles and gossip.Finally,it made me think,it made me laugh and it made me smile.It deserves all the praise it is getting.

Rating:
Summary: Over-Detailed And Difficult To Stick With
Review: I wish I could say I wasn't disappointed in this book, since I was looking forward to a well-researched and engrossing book on a screen legend. However, I had to force myself to finish reading it and came away with very little enjoyment and appreciation for the subject. Very nearly ONE THIRD of the book (the latter portion) is not textual biography, but a glossary, filmography and voluminous footnote after footnote after footnote of data supporting the main body (2/3) of the book. Far too many distracting footnotes referenced on virtually every page of the book were significantly annoying, and in many instances a point was belabored ad infinitum. Many key points of detail and anecdotes relating to admired, classic CG movies weren't present, while others were - sorry - rather beaten to death. Supporting photographs were limited and failed to include more than good shots of the subject at a small, select time of his life. I expected a more linear, cohesive, colloquial narrative unencumbered by redundent grammatical 'precision.' The book was obviously well-researched, but extreme detail does not always do the subject or the audience justice.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ ON CARY GRANT!
Review: If you want to find out everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - about Cary Grant then this is the book for you. All other books, including the latest biog, are glitzy and frothy and tell you nothing you hadn't already read if you are a big fan. Also some are not as revelationary as they would like to think.
If you are a serious fan then you can't beat this book.

Rating:
Summary: a super book
Review: Ignore that review that claims the index of this book takes up a third of the contents:it's no more than 4 pages.Some people!Anyway,I found this a great read.It gets to the essence of the man's appeal.Appreciates his art.Honours his memory.My copy is well-thumbed and much-borrowed.

Rating:
Summary: Graceful and with substance - like it's subject¿
Review: Indeed a very worthwhile read for Grant fans, film scholars, and biography readers in general. It is neither a white-wash nor hatchet job of the actor. It is honest, straightforward, and engaginly written. A model biography.

Rating:
Summary: A class apart!
Review: Like the subject,this is a one-off:clever,elegant,wise,funny,cultured,unpretentious and absolutely brilliant at what it does.Full of insight,packed with telling details,Grant would,secretly,have been proud of this.