Archie Leach invented Cary Grant mid-Atlantic
Born Archibald Alec Leach in Bristol on 18 January 1904, Cary Grant polished a blended British-American accent and comic timing that made him classic Hollywood's suave template. The American Film Institute ranked him the second-greatest male Golden Age star in 1999.
His father Elias pressed clothes; mother Elsie sewed. Older brother John died of tuberculous meningitis just before age one, and Elsie's depression plus Elias's drinking darkened the house. When Archie was nine, Elias committed Elsie to Glenside Hospital, claiming a long holiday and later that she had died. Archie learned she lived only at thirty-one, shortly before Elias's death, and arranged her release in June 1935.
Christmas pantomimes and friendship with Bob Pender's acrobats pulled him onstage. Expelled from Fairfield Grammar on 13 March 1918, he rejoined Pender within days; his father co-signed a three-year training contract. On 21 July 1920 the troupe sailed the RMS Olympic—Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford aboard—and spent nine months at New York's Hippodrome doing twelve shows weekly. Grant stayed in American vaudeville as Rubber Legs, stilt-walked Coney Island ads, and drifted toward a mid-Atlantic accent.
Paramount-era crime parts such as Blonde Venus in 1932 and Mae West's She Done Him Wrong the next year came first. Renown arrived when he switched to romantic screwball turns—1937's The Awful Truth, then Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, and The Philadelphia Story around 1938–1940. Hitchcock later cast him four times, from Suspicion through Notorious, To Catch a Thief, and North by Northwest, sometimes against the light persona. Oscar nominations for Penny Serenade and None but the Lonely Heart preceded a 1970 Honorary Oscar and a 1981 Kennedy Center Honor. Five marriages included three elopements; daughter Jennifer arrived with Dyan Cannon. He quit films in 1966 for business seats including Fabergé and MGM, dying of a stroke in 1986 at eighty-two.
Source: Cary Grant
