48 Fun Facts About Cary Grant

Which birth name did Cary Grant slip into an ad-libbed line in His Girl Friday?

Archie Leach. His character warns that the last man to cross him that way was Archie Leach, shortly before he cut his throat: an in-joke about the name his studio had made him drop.

In which English city was Cary Grant born in 1904?

Bristol. He ran away from home there as a schoolboy to join a troupe of acrobats, sailed with them for America at 16 and stayed behind when the tour ended.

When Cary Grant was a boy his mother vanished from home; where had his father in fact sent her?

A mental institution. He was told she had gone away and grew up believing her dead; he was past thirty, and a film star, before he learned the truth and arranged her release.

Which actor mimicked Cary Grant's voice in Some Like It Hot, then co-starred with him in Operation Petticoat?

Tony Curtis. As a teenager he had joined the Navy's submarine service after seeing Grant in Destination Tokyo; in Operation Petticoat he at last served under him, aboard a pink submarine.

What skill did young Cary Grant train in with the Bob Pender Stage Troupe?

Stilt walking. Having stayed on in New York when the troupe went home, he earned five dollars a day, ten at weekends, striding about on stilts to advertise Steeplechase Park at Coney Island.

To which cause did Cary Grant give his entire fee for The Philadelphia Story in 1940?

British War Relief. Still a British subject in 1940, he insisted on top billing and a six-figure fee for the part, then gave the whole sum away.

In Bringing Up Baby, what kind of animal is the Baby that Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn chase around Connecticut?

A leopard. A tame one named Nissa played both Baby and the dangerous circus leopard it is mistaken for, with her trainer standing just off screen for every scene.

Which studio gave Cary Grant his first film contract and had him change his name?

Paramount. By Hollywood legend he borrowed 'Cary' from the character he had just played on Broadway and picked 'Grant' from a list of surnames the studio handed him.

Which 1939 Cary Grant adventure takes its title from a Rudyard Kipling poem?

Gunga Din. Grant plays one of three British sergeants in India; the water-carrier of the title, who dreams of being a soldier, dies sounding the bugle that warns the regiment of an ambush.

Which star claimed to have discovered Cary Grant by casting him in She Done Him Wrong (1933)?

Mae West. It was to Grant that she delivered her much-misquoted line, 'Why don't you come up sometime and see me?'; he had in fact already played a lead opposite Marlene Dietrich.

Which Italian co-star did Cary Grant fall for on The Pride and the Passion and hope, in vain, to marry?

Sophia Loren. He then had her cast opposite him in Houseboat, in place of his own wife, who had written the script; Loren married the producer Carlo Ponti instead.

Which 1935 Cukor film, his first with Katharine Hepburn, did Grant consider his career breakthrough despite flopping?

He played a raffish Cockney swindler on loan to RKO after Paramount had decided he was expendable.

Unusually for a 1930s film star, what did Cary Grant do when his first studio contract ran out?

Went freelance. Free of any one studio, he chose his own scripts, and in later years negotiated a share of his films' gross takings as well.

Which 1937 screwball comedy with Irene Dunne made Cary Grant a top Hollywood star?

The Awful Truth. Unnerved by director Leo McCarey's habit of improvising scenes, Grant tried to get off the picture in its first week; it made him a star and a convert to ad-libbing.

Which silent comedian was Cary Grant told to think of when playing the professor in Bringing Up Baby?

Harold Lloyd. The director had first wanted Lloyd himself for the absent-minded professor, and the round glasses Grant wears are a nod to him; the film lost money on release in 1938.

Who plays Cary Grant's ex-wife, whom he tries to stop marrying Ralph Bellamy, in His Girl Friday?

Rosalind Russell. Her reporter had been a man in the original play, The Front Page; the film's boldest change was to make the character a woman, and the editor's former wife.

Which two films brought Cary Grant his Best Actor Oscar nominations?

Penny Serenade and None but the Lonely Heart. Both were dramas, far from the comedies that made him famous, and he lost both times; his only Oscar was an honorary one in 1970.

Which Hitchcock film pairs Cary Grant with Ingrid Bergman?

Notorious. Censors would not pass a screen kiss longer than three seconds, so Hitchcock had the pair break off every few seconds to murmur and nuzzle, and stretched one embrace to two and a half minutes.

Who won the Best Actress Oscar opposite Cary Grant in Suspicion, the only acting Oscar ever won in a Hitchcock film?

Joan Fontaine. She plays a bride who comes to fear that her charming husband means to kill her, and on Oscar night she beat her own sister and rival, Olivia de Havilland.

Which composer did Cary Grant play in the 1946 musical biopic Night and Day?

Cole Porter. Porter cooperated with the film, which is largely fiction: under Hollywood's censorship code it could not so much as hint that he was gay.

What was the nickname of John Robie, Cary Grant's retired jewel thief in To Catch a Thief?

The Cat. Robie is a reformed cat burglar on the French Riviera who has to trap a copycat thief himself, because the police are sure he has gone back to his old trade.

Which actress played opposite Cary Grant in the 1957 romance An Affair to Remember?

Deborah Kerr. Their lovers agree to meet in six months at the top of the Empire State Building, a rendezvous that Sleepless in Seattle borrowed 36 years later.

What is the profession of Cary Grant's mistaken-identity hero in North by Northwest?

Advertising executive. Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent who does not exist, and is soon running for his life across a cornfield from a crop-dusting plane.

Which screen hero did his producers first hope Cary Grant would play, until he refused to sign for more than one film?

James Bond. Grant would commit to a single picture and the producers wanted a series, so the lead in Dr. No went to Sean Connery, who played the part seven times.

In which Audrey Hepburn film did Cary Grant, 25 years her senior, have the script changed so that she pursued him?

Charade. Grant turned 59 during the shoot and feared looking like a cradle snatcher, so lines were added in which his character jokes about his age and she does the chasing.

In Father Goose (1964), Cary Grant swapped his suave persona to play what?

A grizzled beachcomber turned coastwatcher. The role turned his polished image inside out, unshaven and in rags on a Pacific island, and the screenplay won an Oscar; the title plays on his radio code name, Mother Goose.

Which comedy, set in Tokyo during the 1964 Olympics, was Cary Grant's final film?

Walk, Don't Run. At 62 he left the romance to a younger couple and played their matchmaker; the title quotes the first rule of race walking, that a competitor must never break into a run.

In 1966, the year Cary Grant made his last film, which event did he say had changed his life?

The birth of his daughter. Jennifer, born when he was 62, was his only child; he called her his best production and met any talk of a comeback with 'fat chance'.

Which wife bore Cary Grant's only child?

Dyan Cannon. She was the fourth of his five wives; the marriage was over within three years, and she later told its story in a memoir called Dear Cary.

The press dubbed Cary Grant and which heiress 'Cash and Cary' after their 1942 wedding?

Barbara Hutton. She had inherited a Woolworth fortune, but Grant took none of it: he asked for nothing when they divorced three years later, and the two stayed friends.

With which fellow actor did Cary Grant share a beach house nicknamed 'Bachelor Hall'?

Randolph Scott. The two young contract players set up house together in 1932 and went on sharing homes, on and off, for a decade or more; biographers still dispute whether they were more than friends.

Which drug did Cary Grant take in about 100 supervised therapy sessions from the late 1950s?

LSD. It was still legal, and Grant credited the sessions with bringing him peace of mind at last; he praised the drug in interviews and once lectured on it at UCLA.

Which tycoon was best man at Cary Grant's 1949 wedding to Betsy Drake?

Howard Hughes. He organised the ceremony too, a private wedding on Christmas Day; the marriage lasted until 1962, the longest of Grant's five.

On which cosmetics company's board did Cary Grant actively serve after retiring from film?

Fabergé. It was no honorary seat: he attended board meetings and toured the world promoting the firm, and its private plane let him fly to wherever his daughter was living.

Who presented Cary Grant with his honorary Academy Award in 1970?

Frank Sinatra. A close friend, he handed Grant the only Oscar of his career, an honorary one; Grant had been nominated twice without winning and had by then been retired for four years.

Which former child star plays the teenager with a crush on Cary Grant in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer?

Shirley Temple. Her 17-year-old's infatuation lands Grant's artist in front of her elder sister, a judge played by Myrna Loy, and he ends up squiring the girl around until it wears off.

What was Cary Grant about to do in Davenport, Iowa, when he died?

Give a stage show. At 82 he was touring 'A Conversation with Cary Grant', a one-man evening of film clips and audience questions; he fell ill during rehearsal at the theatre and died that night.

Which actor did the American Film Institute rank first in 1999, one place above Cary Grant, among Hollywood's greatest male legends?

Humphrey Bogart. Grant came second on the institute's list of screen legends although, unlike Bogart, he never won a competitive Oscar for any of his seventy-odd films.

Which award did Cary Grant receive in 1981, alongside Count Basie and Helen Hayes?

The Kennedy Center Honors. The tribute for a lifetime in the performing arts found him fifteen years into retirement, having turned down repeated offers to make another film.

Which co-star in To Catch a Thief did Cary Grant call possibly the finest actress he had ever worked with?

Grace Kelly. The year after the film came out she married Prince Rainier and gave up acting; Grant stayed close, visiting her in Monaco several times a year until her death in 1982.

On which national monument do Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint flee their pursuers at the climax of North by Northwest?

Mount Rushmore. Studio mock-ups of the presidents' faces were intercut with shots of the real thing; the film's United Nations scene was shot on the sly after officials refused permission.

Cary Grant, by then retired, is glimpsed in the audience of which star's 1970 Las Vegas concert film?

Elvis Presley. Grant is among the celebrities filmed arriving for opening night in Elvis: That's the Way It Is, the nearest he came to a screen comeback after quitting films in 1966.

In which 1937 comedy did Cary Grant play a ghost alongside Constance Bennett, his first big comedy hit?

Topper. Grant and Bennett play a rich, reckless couple who wreck their roadster, wake up as ghosts and set about loosening up a stuffy old friend, the Topper of the title.

In which 1947 Christmas film does Cary Grant play Dudley, an angel who answers a prayer for guidance?

The Bishop's Wife. David Niven's bishop prays for help paying for a new cathedral; the angel who turns up has other plans, and spends his time charming the bishop's neglected wife.

Which 1957 war film did Cary Grant pass up to make The Pride and the Passion?

The Bridge on the River Kwai. David Lean's film went on to win seven Oscars, Best Picture among them, while the Napoleonic epic Grant chose instead proved a troubled shoot in Spain.

Which director reunited with Cary Grant for the 1952 comedy Monkey Business?

Howard Hawks. Grant plays an absent-minded chemist hunting for an elixir of youth; a laboratory chimpanzee mixes the real thing by accident and tips it into the water cooler.

Which co-star won the Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story while top-billed Cary Grant went unnominated?

James Stewart. He believed the award was really making amends for his loss with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the year before, and Grant was bitterly disappointed to be passed over.

After Cary Grant died in 1986, which of his own requests was honoured?

No funeral at all. His body was flown home to California without ceremony, a quiet exit for a star who had guarded his privacy all his life.