Cary Grant : A Biography

Rating:
Summary: Tall, dark, handsome and....a complicated enigma
Review: For generations of movie goers Cary Grant represented the glamour and glory of Hollywood mega-stardom. Grant (1904-1986) was the Bristol born son of a alduterous father and a mother who spent most of her years in an insane asylum (Cary thought for years that she was dead!).
Eliot spins the tale of the acrobatic Grant who left Britain for the golden dream of America. Along the way he starred in 73 movies including many classics. My favortie parts of the book deal with his work on such Hitchcock classics as "Suspicion:;
"Notorious"; "To Catch a Thief" and "Morth by Northwest". Grant
worked well with the best female stars in light comedy such as
Irene Dunne, Katherine Hepburn and the luminous Carole Lombard.
Grant had a quintet of wives: Virginia Cherrill; Barbara Hutton; Betsy Drake; Dyan Cannon and Barbara Harris. His daughter Jennifer was the product of his short marriage to Cannon.
Grant lived for years with Randolph Scott and was clearly bisexual.
Cary enjoyed racing, saving his money and being well dressed.
He also enjoyed countless amours with very young women.
Grant was not the perfection of manhood seen on the screen but a man with many personal problems from LSD use to contemplated suicide.
Eliot writes with verve and in a matter of fact manner making no authorial moral judgments on the boy from Bristol.
As long as movies exist so will the stardom of Cary Grant.
Marc Eliot's biography stands as the definitive account of the actor's life. It is well worth the time of those interested in the Golden Age of Hollywood. It is chock full of telling anecdotes about Grant and his peers. Recommended!

Rating:
Summary: "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant."
Review: "Even I want to be Cary Grant." What a perfect quote said by this wonderful man! This is an interesting story... a fast read and enjoyable!

You can't go wrong buying it!

Perfect girt for the lover of the old time movies and the stars!

Rating:
Summary: A true delight to read...
Review: As a great fan of Cary Grant as actor and person, this book is simply a true delight to read. Well written, documented and researched.

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Summary: Screen Legend's Urbane Façade Hid Lifelong Insecurities
Review: As any baby boomer knows, screen legend Cary Grant was the epitome of style and elegance throughout his thirty-plus-year acting career, yet he had a down-to-earth sensibility that endeared him to movie audiences unlike other continental types like Charles Boyer. Certainly not a scathing expose, this book takes an admiring look at the two sides of Grant, as he made the not-altogether-smooth transition from Cockney-born acrobat to Hollywood star. Although he seemed to maintain a permanent veneer of calm, he was quite a rule-breaking pioneer in his prime, on one hand, redefining what creative freedom meant in Hollywood by working outside the established studio system and then on the other hand, flaunting an 11-year, openly gay relationship with actor Randolph Scott. According to author Marc Eliot, such maverick tendencies did not sit well with him at times, as he felt the studios often conspired against him, robbing him of respect and a Best Actor Oscar, a lifelong obsession. Eliot provides an insightful glimpse into a man who never really thought he had talent and felt he held onto the coat tails of great directors like Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor to sustain his career. What a shame since one look at any of his best movies shows not only great acting prowess but a matchless and timeless charisma to which today's leading men can only aspire.

On the private side, Grant's purported bisexuality you would think would make for titillating copy, but it is presented in quite a matter-of-fact way, as I'm sure Grant would have approved had he lived during a more liberal time. Moreover, his subsequent and multiple marriages seem far less interesting than his close friendship with Howard Hughes; his WWII spy work on his then-wife, Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton; his experimentation with LSD in the fifties; and the happiness he found in fatherhood late in his life. But honestly, the best parts of the book relate to his amazing legacy of films, many but not all cherished classics. From "The Awful Truth" to "Bringing Up Baby" to "The Philadelphia Story" to "Notorious" to "North by Northwest", he was unavoidably sublime, and Eliot does a fine job recounting Grant's experiences in making all these movies. Almost as interesting is the list of films he reportedly turned down due to professional insecurity or excessive salary demands - "Roman Holiday", "Sabrina", "A Star Is Born", "Lolita", "My Fair Lady", to name a few classics. I will always remember Grant's touching modesty when he finally accepted an honorary Oscar in 1970 after a clever montage of clips that merely proved his greatness, an episode retold in the book. This is a treat for Hollywood cinemaphiles.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, Informative, Entertaining
Review: As far as self-defining populations, most readers of CARY GRANT: A BIOGRAPHY are going to be fans of the late film star. Insofar as decades have passed since his death, much that had been written about him during his lifetime now has been forgotten and, therefore, some of the information in this biography will strike many readers as new.

Accordingly, author Marc Eliot has done a workman-like job of assembling existing facts, and of discovering other facts heretofore unknown. The mass of original material he has sorted through, as stated in the bibliography and notes, is huge and impressive.

He goes into detail not before seen about Grant's earliest history, particularly Grant's first years after arriving in the United States from England. The author comes to some conclusions that are not firmly supported in fact, but which do seem reasonable as he presents them.

Eliot comes out firmly in support of the long-standing theory that Grant was a homosexual--or, more likely, bisexual. The author also presents evidence that, in his early and hungry days in New York, Grant had worked as a male escort. Eliot also claims that the actress Mae West, in her day, had run an escort service there, and he conjectures that Grant may have worked for her.

Some of Eliot's conclusions seems flimsy and unsupported, while others are plausible.

On page 72 of the hardcover version, Eliot offers a description of Grant's famous cleft chin that is one of the funniest things ever printed; almost certainly, unintentionally as funny as the passage ends up reading. Yet, on reflection, there is a certain truth and sense to Eliot's thesis.

Other issues are a bit sloppy, including some of the prose, which would have benefited by good editing. Particularly puzzling was the anecdote about how much Frank Sinatra and Grant had hated each other on the first movie they did together, in light of the strong friendship Eliot later credits these men with establishing. As an author, Eliot owes it to his readers to connect these two stages of their relationship, from hatred to friendship, and this discrepancy never is acknowledged.

What makes CARY GRANT: A BIOGRAPHY especially good reading is the story of the creation of the motion picture industry, which Grant entered at an early stage of that industry's development. In consequence, the story of Cary Grant and his emergence as a movie star inescapably becomes the history of the modern entertainment business. As a result, this biography is peppered with names long forgotten, and these inclusions clearly enrich the book as a whole.

CARY GRANT: A BIOGRAPHY is a must-read for all fans of this actor, as well as for anyone with a keen curiosity about Hollywood in its heyday.

Rating:
Summary: An Astounding Off the Screen Life
Review: Cary Grant, even the name makes me want to go pull out the video of North by Northwest. When told "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant," he replied "So do I."

His movie life is well known. He appeared in 75 films between 1932 and 1966. And all of us have our favorites. The screen persona, the voice, all are well known.

Much less well known is his private life: his eleven year 'relationship' with Randolph Scott, his five marriages, a 10-year LSD habit, alleged suicide attempts and connections to the FBI. Beyond this, he was a brilliant actor whose elegant charm lives on. He came to Hollywood just at the end of the studio-run star system and was instrumental in challenging the system. He became enough of a star that he could ignore the studios, paving the way for the actors that followed. (Probably because of this he never got an Oscar for any of his films.) ased on four years of research, this is certain to become the definitive Cary Grant biography.

Rating:
Summary: Who knew Cary Grant was an FBI agent? Seriously!
Review: The book is superficial but still worthwhile since it's crammed with facts and annecdotes and much entertainment. I'd been completely unaware of Grant's sideline as an FBI agent spying on his second wife whom he married, more or less, at Edgar J. Hoover's behest. Interesting cover (see above) -- there's a marvelous photo of Grant sitting cross-legged beaming as he does into the camera, followed by this text: "A Biography." Grant's actual name doesn't appear on the dustjacket cover (well, other than the spine), it's assumed his visage etc. is that famous. And, of course, it is.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: This book was very well written for a biography, the research the author did was clearly very extensive and provides interesting facts and tidbits. Some of the book does appear to be speculative, like Grant's friendship with Mae West and his alleged deal with Edgar Hoover so he wouldn't have to join World War II. Overall, this book was throughly enjoyable. My one problem with it was the author's very occasional but somewhat strange descriptions of people, like the one about Grant's chin. Either way, I would recommend this book, especially for anyone interested in Grant or the golden age of Hollywood.

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Summary: How Archibald Alex Leach Became Cary Grant
Review: This is the best biography of Cary Grant available. So many movie biographies tend to cover only one aspect of an actor: either the artistic/creative side, or a messy personal life or the cultural world that produced the star. Marc Elliot has performed a delicate balancing act of focusing equally on Cary Grant's film career, the movie studio era and his chaotic personal life.

Gary Grant lived a dramatic and full life from his birth in England in 1904 to his death in 1986. He was instrumental in dismantling the Hollywood studio system and paid for his independence by being passed over repeatedly for an Oscar win (though he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1970). It didn't help that his brilliance for light comedy was not valued by a Academy that has awarded only three overtly comedic Best Actor wins in the last century. He was nominated only twice (in the 1940's) for "Penny Serenade" and for "None but the Lonely Heart" but was passed over for "North By Northwest", "The Awful Truth", "Bringing Up Baby" and so many others.

Mr. Eliot covers Cary Grant's numerous romances & marriages and tell a good story of the classic films that Grant starred in over a forty year career. His anecdotes are entertaining and it is clear that he likes his subject. You will not be bored by this biography or the life that it covers.




Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: This was a quick read and overall it was a sympathetic and informative portrait of one of the all time greatest stars. There were many stories that I had heard before. But I think Eliot is a good biographer and he is definitely trying to tell Cary Grant's interesting and controversial life story without making it a puff piece or a hatchet job. A poor Englishman from the wrong side of the tracks with a sad family history he became the epitome of elegance and sophistication, an amazing transformation, although the book shows that he was troubled by his past all along. You come away from this book realizing that the part of Cary Grant movie star was the greatest acting job that Cary Grant ever did.