By Elliott West
“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant. Let me expand a bit. I sense that you may feel that I am free of problems. Let me assure you that I have the same anxieties and insecurities as anyone in this auditorium – maybe more.”
Cary Grant
Introduction
The sense of family and belonging is important to every human being but when it is missing, it can have damaging and lasting effects on the individual. So can be said of a certain Archie Leach or as we knew him, the Hollywood film star, Cary Grant. Debonair and oozing with sex appeal on the celluloid screen, Grant’s background was so much further from the truth of it. Born in Edwardian Bristol in 1904, Archie was a child who should be seen and not heard. A silent observer who cowered on the stairs, listening to his parents in the front room and was punished for dropping any food on the floor by not only making him eat what he had dropped but also being banished from the table, forced to eat the rest of his plate, cross-legged on the wooden floor. His mother Elsie would follow up her punishment by throwing words of warning at her son, saying that food was precious and should never be wasted. A stickler for manners and a trait that Cary would later turn into a compulsive disorder.
Archie felt trapped in a terrace house where money wore thin and poverty enveloped his existence. His father Elias, a tailor’s presser, brought little capital to the table and what he did, he preferred to spend on pouring alcohol down his throat. It was a fractious environment where his mother had to make do, working her fingers to the bone as a seamstress and forever worrying about where their meal would come from. An atmosphere fuelled by the death of his brother who had contracted gangrene and died after trapping his finger in a door. Archie’s only escape was school but in the end, he would always have to return to that uninviting front door that would remain in his thoughts and dreams for the rest of his life.
Abandonment
“A sadness of spirit that affected everything I did. I always felt that my mother rejected me.”
Cary Grant
The arguments became more frequent and the voices raised, Elias became weary of his wife’s constant gripes. Unknown to Archie, his mother suddenly disappeared when he was at school, committed to a local Bristol asylum for hallucinations and voices in her head. His father signed the committal papers and left her in a room full of screaming people, alone and confused. Dragging his son down the street, Archie was rejected by his family and friends before his grandmother finally took him in after being persuaded with monetary gain. Spun with a lie that his mother Elsie had gone away to a seaside resort and later died, Archie was left with the cold and glaring eyes of his grandmother who saw him as a hindrance. A child with puppy dog eyes that unnerved her. His mother was gone and so was his trust in women.
The Thrill of the Theatre
A young Archie would sneak away to the theatre, visiting the Bristol Hippodrome. The bright lights and the roar of applause fascinated him, drawing him, an escape from the here and now. Coming across the Pender Troupe one day, he asked the troupe leader if he could join at the age of 14. He was told to come with a letter of authority from his father because of his age. His father had by this time vanished, unknown to Archie that he had another woman in Southampton.Leach forged a letter from his father and returned to the troupe. Turning up for one rehearsal, his father was waiting for him, ready to drag him away but was persuaded with the sniff of money to let his son stay.
This would be the green light that Archie needed in his life, the promise to tour the country, do a colourful circus act and even the possibility of going to America. His dream would be fulfilled when they boarded a ship bound for New York in 1920. A tour would ensue and when it ended, Archie decided to stay, given his return trip money home if he decided otherwise. Setting up in digs that he hid from the landlady as he was behind with the rent, Leach scoured the stage advertisements to try and find work. Rejected for his accent and an appearance that didn’t fit the part.
A chance meeting with George Burns while trying to earn a crust by using his looks to charm ladies who did lunch, would lead to an offer of an audition and rave reviews as he perfected a new suave accent. Screen tests would follow and it was then that Archie became Cary Grant, taking his stage name from a combination of a theatre role and a surname randomly selected from a Hollywood phone book. Spotted by Mae West, he would go on to star with her as her leading man in the 1933 film ‘She Done Wrong’ after a more minor role in the 1932 film, ‘Blonde Venus’ with Marlene Dietrich. He would go on to star in numerous films including collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock. A director who saw the darker side of Cary and the Archie behind the Grant mask. The film ‘Notorious’ being an example and the sheer paranoia in ‘North by North West’. A film about a man running away from himself, blighted by mistaken identity. An actor who was offered the role of James Bond and a contract for four Bond movies. He turned it down, refusing to have to play the same character four times.
Being Cary Grant
Finding his mother again after his father confessed she was still alive, was supposed to be a new chapter in his life. However, moving her from the asylum to a new home didn’t change the strained relationship they had. Elsie was controlling and wanted Cary to herself, constantly trying to get him to ditch his search for love and live with her instead. This ultimately affected Cary’s relationships. He punished the women in his life for his mother’s absence. Four failed marriages would ensue with Grant only able to embrace the concept of marriage but unable to love his wives. He felt stifled and prone to outbursts. One may have thought that by marrying his fourth wife, Dyan Cannon, things may have changed. However, he too became possessive and was unable to embrace the success of her film career and even got rid of her dog when their daughter Jennifer was born. A marriage that would only last from 1965-68.
The Changing Moment
“My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I’ve come to think that the reason we’re put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don’t think my films will last very long once I’m gone. But another human being. That’s what’s important”.
Cary Grant
Up until the birth of his daughter, Cary hid in his character, refusing to release his inner pain. Using LSD and therapy to regress and attempt to heal, it was ultimately his divorce from Dyan that caused him to be released. His mother had died at the age of 96 in 1973, his father, earlier from liver disease in 1935 and Cary could now be the person that he hadn’t been all his life, a man and a father, escaping the shackles of what he called a “wasted life” and close to happiness. A rebirth. He realised that he caused pain to his mother too. What followed is truly emotional. Having retired from acting in 1966, Cary poured his love into bringing up his daughter Jennifer through her regular visits and telling the truth through his one-man stage show, ‘A Conversation with Cary Grant’. Cary and Archie became one, he was no longer haunted by that scared child that he was and ultimately had inner peace. He also found love with Barbara Harris who became his life soulmate and whom he married in 1981. Cary passed away in 1986 after suffering a second stroke whilst preparing for one of his stage shows. He later slipped into a coma at St Luke’s Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. He was 82. A man who had a simple funeral with his ashes scattered from a helicopter by his loved ones across the ocean. A true Hollywood great who suffered far too long with his ghosts and demons.
