8 Things You Didn't Know About Cary Grant

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Any conversation about the most iconic leading men from Hollywood’s Golden Age must begin with one name: Cary Grant. For decades, the British actor with the perfectly suave, mid-Atlantic accent epitomized the kind of elegance, class, charisma and charm that only seemed to exist on the silver screen. Talented and versatile to the extreme, he could ace both screwball comedy (The Awful Truth and His Girl Friday), big-hearted romance (An Affair to Remember) and taut suspense (North by Northwest, Notorious) without losing a shred of his sophistication. No wonder Grant, who died in 1986 at age 82, once famously joked that sometimes he wished he were Cary Grant.

Behind that polished character was a troubled man often conflicted by his past. Few really knew him. But with the new four-part series Archie (premiering Dec. 7 on the streaming service BritBox), fans will finally get to see the full portrait. Starring Harry Potter actor Jason Isaacs in the title role, it chronicles Grant—born Archibald Alec Leach—as he goes from blue-collar boy from the backstreets of Bristol, England, to marquee star. In between, he wed five times—most memorably for three years to Heaven Can Wait actress Dyan Cannon (played by Laura Aikman), with whom he had his only child, Jennifer, in 1966. Archie, in fact, is based on Cannon’s 2011 memoir, Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant. (Philomena director Jeff Pope adapted it.)

“I really want people to understand what he had been through as a child so that they could more easily understand his behavior as an adult,” says Cannon, 86, who serves as an executive producer along with Jennifer, 57. “There was a big gap in his life and he covered up his feelings a lot.” Still, she says there was a reason he remains a one-of-a-kind legend: “When he walked into a room, he just had that ‘it’ factor. There was real magnetism. And he was the biggest star in the world for his time.” Here’s a tribute to the icon and the man.

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8 Things You Didn't Know About Cary Grant

1. He had a traumatic childhood.

Born in Bristol, England, in 1904, Cary Grant’s childhood was tumultuous at best. His parents didn’t get along. His father, Elias, a clothing presser, left his family to take up with another woman. When Grant was 9, he was told that his mother, Elsie, was dead. In truth, she had been committed to a psychiatric institution—a fact Grant wouldn’t learn for decades. “He was abandoned,” Cannon says. She adds that Grant didn’t talk about his early years until the two visited Bristol during their marriage: “I asked him why he was so down and slowly but surely the story came out. I was staggered by what I heard.”

2. He left home to join the circus.

Yes, Grant really did leave home to join the circus. In The Pender Troupe of traveling performers, he trained as an acrobat, stilt-walker, juggler and mime—all of which would serve him well later as a comedic screen presence. By age 14, he found himself on the RMS Olympic en route to New York City. His daughter still can’t get over it: “I look at my son who just turned 15 and to think that my dad was this age and on his own in New York trying to make his way? It’s just amazing. He turned all that anger and fear from his childhood into courage.”

3. He renamed himself after a character he played.

He left NYC as Archie Leach; he landed in Hollywood and became Cary Grant. (The name “Cary” was taken from a recent character he had performed on stage, while “Grant” was chosen because of its generic origins.) Under the new moniker, he quickly became a rising star. His first movie: the 1932 comedy, This Is the Night, in which he played an Olympic javelin thrower. By the end of the decade, he’d star in classics like Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story and Gunga Din. By the way, although he was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), Grant never won a competitive Oscar. He received an honorary Oscar, presented to him by Frank Sinatra, in 1970.

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4. He reconnected with his estranged mother as an adult.

At age 30, Grant learned that his mother was still alive and had been institutionalized at the Bristol Lunatic Asylum. They soon reconnected and forged a new relationship. Even now, Jennifer says that she prioritized telling Elsie’s story in Archie. “There are books that said my grandmother went crazy and that really pressed on a nerve,” she says. “The truth is that her life was taken away by my grandfather.” And per Cannon, who met her in the 1960s while filming a movie in London, she was “strong-willed and determined to live.” Elsie Leach died in 1973.

5. He phoned Dyan Cannon's agent to connect with the actress (his future wife).

Grant and Cannon’s affair to remember began in 1961 when he spotted the ingenue actress on the short-lived TV series Malibu Run. The three-time divorcée was on the phone with her agent by the end of the show. However, as depicted in Archie, it took a beat before the two—separated by a 33-year age difference—officially coupled up. “I never understood why he kept pursuing me because I kept saying no,” she recalls. "He was older than my father!” But, true to form, he soon won her over: “I’d never experienced anyone like him. He had that presence. It was like I was hit with a stun gun.” They eloped in 1965 in Las Vegas; shortly after their honeymoon, Cannon learned she was pregnant.

6. His marriage to Cannon was tumultuous.

After falling for her husband’s charming screen-idol image, Cannon soon began to see his much crueler private side. He was prone to temper tantrums. He started controlling and criticizing her. He abused LSD as a cure for his troubles. He even gave away her beloved dog, Bangs, without her permission out of overprotection for the baby. (“You can imagine what that was like for me,” she says.) The couple had barely been married two years when Cannon filed for divorce. Reliving the split on Archie “was difficult because that was a very vulnerable period of my life,” she says. “It took years for my heart to heal.”

7. He turned down acting for fatherhood.

In 1961, Grant turned down the role of James Bond. Following 1966’s Walk, Don’t Run, the 62-year-old turned down acting altogether. For his Act III, he took an executive role for the Fabergé cosmetics company and embraced first-time fatherhood. “We had a lot of what I like to call ‘slow time’ together,” Jennifer says. Think backgammon, playing cards, reading the newspaper and talking about current events and taking drives to Palm Springs. (Still, she does note that dad and daughter once partied backstage at an Elton John concert!). Despite his retirement, “We didn’t go out a lot because anywhere we went, he attracted a crowd,” she says. “It was hard to get from the parking lot to the restaurant without 30 people wanting an autograph. It was still tricky for him to navigate the world because he was such a big star.”

8. He was content at the end of his life.

During his final years, Grant—now married to his fifth wife, Barbara Harris—started hosting a series of Q&A sessions with fans called A Conversation with Cary Grant. Ever so slowly, he began opening to the public and accepting himself. He was prepping for a show in Davenport, Iowa, in November 1986 when he died of a stroke. “I did get a sense that he was content at the end of his life,” says Jennifer, who was 20 at the time. “But I had the sense he was happy my whole life. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t without ups and downs. Nobody is untouchable. You know, he was a human being. And he was absolutely lovely.”

Stream Archie on BritBox starting on Dec. 7

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