50 Fun Facts About Cary Grant

What was Cary Grant's birth name?

He ad-libbed the line 'the last man who said that to me was Archie Leach' in His Girl Friday, and legally became Cary Grant only when naturalised in 1942.

In which English city was Cary Grant born in 1904?

A statue by Graham Ibbeson stands in the city's Millennium Square, and the biennial Cary Comes Home Festival started there in 2014.

What did Cary Grant's father tell him had happened to his mother when the boy was nine?

She had actually been placed in a mental institution; Grant did not learn she was alive until he was 31 and arranged her release in 1935.

How old was Cary Grant when he discovered his mother was still alive?

His father confessed the lie shortly before his own death; Grant visited her regularly afterwards, including after filming Gunga Din.

From which institution was the 14-year-old Archie Leach expelled in March 1918?

Explanations included being found in the girls' lavatory; he rejoined the Pender acrobatic troupe three days later.

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

He later stilt-walked in a greatcoat and sandwich board to pull crowds onto Coney Island's boardwalk for Steeplechase Park.

Which Hollywood couple were aboard the RMS Olympic when 16-year-old Cary Grant sailed to America in 1920?

He played shuffleboard with Fairbanks, who became his first role model for 'masculine glamour'.

What nicknames did Grant pick up in vaudeville because he was sometimes mistaken for an Australian?

He was later cast as an Australian in the 1927 musical Golden Dawn for $75 a week; his mid-Atlantic accent came from years in British and American music halls.

Which studio signed the 27-year-old Grant in December 1931 and made him change his name?

B. P. Schulberg wanted something 'more all-American like Gary Cooper', and they settled on Cary Grant.

What role did Cary Grant play in his 1932 feature debut, This Is the Night?

He disliked the part and threatened to quit Hollywood until Variety called him a 'potential femme rave'.

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

I'm No Angel is credited with saving Paramount from bankruptcy and got Grant a raise from $450 to $750 a week.

In which language did Grant and director Josef von Sternberg argue on the set of Blonde Venus?

He played a wealthy playboy opposite Marlene Dietrich in the 1932 film.

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.

What did Cary Grant claim to be, uniquely in Hollywood, after leaving his studio in 1936?

His first freelance film bombed, but he then signed joint contracts with RKO and Columbia that let him pick his own stories.

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

Director Leo McCarey reportedly disliked him but encouraged him to improvise; The Atlantic later called what followed 'the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures'.

Which silent comedian did Howard Hawks tell Grant to think of when playing his role in Bringing Up Baby?

The 1938 film with Katharine Hepburn and a leopard lost RKO over $350,000 but earned rave reviews.

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

Howard Hawks' 1940 comedy is famous for its overlapping dialogue and Grant's ad-libs.

For which two films was Cary Grant nominated for the Best Actor Oscar?

He never won a competitive Oscar; the 1970 honorary award was inscribed 'for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting'.

How many films did Cary Grant make with Alfred Hitchcock?

Suspicion, Notorious, To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest; the darker roles in the first two stretched his usual persona.

Which co-star in Suspicion did Grant find 'temperamental and unprofessional'?

Hitchcock later said he disliked the film's conventional happy ending; it was the first of his four with Grant.

Which manic character with two murderous aunts did Cary Grant play in Arsenic and Old Lace?

Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre co-starred in the 1944 dark comedy.

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

The troubled shoot needed multiple takes; the next year he made The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer with Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple.

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

He called Grace Kelly 'possibly the finest actress I've ever worked with', and the Riviera shoot was one of the happiest of his career.

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

The same year he made The Pride and the Passion in Spain with Sophia Loren, with whom he had an affair.

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

His mid-grey worsted suit in the film, custom-made on Savile Row, became one of the most famous in cinema.

Which role did Broccoli and Saltzman first want Cary Grant for, before dropping the idea over his one-film limit?

James Mason would only agree to three films, so they went looking for someone who could carry a franchise.

In which 1963 film did Cary Grant worry he would be seen as a 'cradle snatcher' opposite Audrey Hepburn?

He called working with her 'wonderful' and knew afterwards that Hollywood's Golden Age was over.

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

It broke Charade's opening-week record at Radio City with over $210,000 in ticket sales.

What was Cary Grant's final film, shot in Tokyo during the 1964 Olympics housing shortage?

Released in 1966, it co-starred Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar.

Why did Cary Grant retire from the screen in 1966?

He called her his 'best production' and answered any comeback talk with 'fat chance'.

How many times was Cary Grant married?

Three of the weddings were elopements; his longest marriage was to Betsy Drake, from 1949 to 1962.

What nickname did the press give the actor and heiress Barbara Hutton after their 1942 marriage?

She had inherited $50 million from her grandfather F. W. Woolworth; Grant refused any settlement in a prenup to avoid looking like a gold-digger.

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

They met at Paramount in 1932; whether the relationship was romantic remains a matter of biographical dispute.

Roughly how many LSD therapy sessions did Cary Grant undergo, starting in the late 1950s?

Radiologist Mortimer Hartman treated him; Grant said the drug made him 'truly, deeply and honestly happy' for the first time.

On what date did Cary Grant become a naturalised US citizen and legally take his stage name?

He was 38, and gave his middle name as Alexander rather than Alec on the paperwork.

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

He met his fifth wife, Barbara Harris, at a Fabergé conference at London's Royal Lancaster Hotel in 1976.

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

'No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has,' Sinatra said; Grant had been at odds with the Academy since 1958.

How much younger than Cary Grant was his fifth wife, Barbara Harris, whom he married in April 1981?

Prince Rainier of Monaco said Grant had 'never been happier' than in his last years with her.

In which Iowa city did Cary Grant suffer his fatal stroke on 29 November 1986?

He was at the Adler Theater for A Conversation with Cary Grant, a show of film clips and audience questions he had toured for four years.

Where did the American Film Institute rank Cary Grant among male stars of Hollywood's Golden Age in 1999?

In a 1995 Time Out poll of more than 100 directors he came second only to Marlon Brando as favourite actor.

Which honour did Cary Grant receive in 1981?

A theatre on the MGM lot was renamed the Cary Grant Theatre in 1984, the year he turned 80.

Which self-deprecating line is the actor famous for?

He said he was drawn to acting by 'a great need to be liked and admired'.

How many years old was Cary Grant when he died?

The New York Times wrote that 'Cary Grant was not supposed to die'; he had suffered a mild stroke in October 1984 before the fatal one.

The retired Grant briefly appeared in which icon's 1970 Las Vegas concert film?

The film was Elvis: That's the Way It Is; otherwise Grant kept his word about never returning to the screen.

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

He was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for the MGM-distributed film after The Toast of New York flopped.

In The Bishop's Wife (1947), Grant plays what kind of being sent to fix David Niven's marriage?

Loretta Young played the wife of the title.

Which 1957 William Holden film did Grant want to make but had to pass on?

The Pride and the Passion was shot in Spain, with co-star Frank Sinatra irritating the production.

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

The two had earlier made Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings and His Girl Friday together.

What was the occupation of Grant's father, Elias Leach, in Bristol?

His mother Elsie worked as a seamstress; the family lived at 15 Hughenden Road in Horfield.

What happened to Grant's remains after his death in 1986?

At his own request no funeral was held.