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Cary Grant was the first superstar I ever met. It was an odd
experience, walking into an office at Universal - this was in
1961 - and confronting a man who didn't know me but whom I'd
known for as long as I could remember. He'd just come out of a
long story conference, his hair was messy, he hadn't shaved for
a day or so, and his dark slacks and white shirt looked as
though he'd slept in them. Clifford Odets was a mutual friend -
he was still alive then - and he had asked Cary to see me, so we
talked about Clifford for a while, and I don't remember a word
of what was said. My mind was flooded with images from all the
Cary Grant movies I'd seen - and I had this uncanny desire to be
terribly honest and open with the man, at the same time
realizing this might easily put him off. It's a feeling I've had
with several movie stars I've met - knowing them so much better
than they could ever know me - and finding it impossible to
satisfactorily bridge the gap. All I could think about was how
like his movie self he was - the same charm, humor, the totally
uncalculated yet unmistakable air of mystery. I kept thinking,
"He's just like Cary Grant." The only difference I noticed was
that I'd never seen him laugh on the screen as he did in life -
because in person he really laughs, his eyes tear, and he really
laughs, his eyes tear, and he looks joyous.
It must have been a thrilling conversation from his point of
view - this kid staring at him and trying not to be completely
moronic. If he noticed, I certainly never did - he was
graciousness itself. I guess he was used to the reaction he was
getting from me - he'd been a star by then for about twenty-five
years - and must have encountered a lot of gawking. (He told me
some years later that people often come up and ask him to say
something - they want to hear him speak.)
Of course, it wasn't his celebrity that impressed me; I can
think of several stars who wouldn't have affected me one way or
another, but Cary Grant has always been among my three or four
favorite actors, and certainly one of a handful of the great
movie personalities. What sets him apart from all the rest,
however - something especially pertinent in this time when the
studio system has all but disappeared - is that Cary was the
first movie star to go free-lance. From the time his Paramount
contract ended in 1936, Grant was never again signed exclusively
with any studio. Therefore, unlike any other movie star (until
the early Fifties), he himself picked the scripts and the
directors he cared to work with; no executive assigned him to
pictures, he was not forced to do anything he didn't want to do.
Grant was responsible for his material, and formed the arch of
his career, shaped his movie persona through his own choices as
men like Bogart or Cagney or Tracy or Cooper were not free to
do. It's significant, in fact, that his unique characteristics
did not begin to be seen till after his Paramount tenure was
over. Until then, he was little more than a likable, slightly
awkward, perhaps too good-looking, and fairly conventional
leading man in a string of largely forgettable pictures. If some
remember him opposite Mae West in She Done Him Wrong or Marlene
Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's Blonde Venus (a couple of the
good Paramount assignments), it is because he is so surprisingly
unlike the Cary Grant that was to evolve.
We begin to notice the difference first in George Cukor's Sylvia
Scarlett in 1935, and two years later, already almost perfected,
in Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth. By 1938, with Cukor's Holiday
and Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby, the name Cary Grant became
synonymous with a certain character - a kind of cockney
brashness combined with impeccable taste and a detached and
subtle wit. What made him so desirable as a player and so
inimitable (and there've been many counterfeits through the
years) was a striking mixture of farceur's talents and matinee
idol's looks. Which other star could express anger by whinnying
like a horse (as he did first in Bringing Up Baby) and still
retain his masculinity? Who else could do a cartwheel to express
a love of life (as in Holiday) and make it seem so utterly
right? He had a way of saying the most lackluster line that
would make it seem witty (see something like Dream Wife
sometime).
He became such an accomplished master at comedy, both high and
low, that his dramatic talents have been generally overlooked.
However, the emotional depth and range of his work in films like
Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings or George Stevens' Penny Serenade
or Clifford Odets' None But the Lonely Heart should dispel any
doubts. Even a minor but likable melodrama like Richard Brooks'
first film, Crisis, is heightened considerably by the sense of
truth and the professional skill he brings to his role; he plays
a surgeon - watch him in the operation scenes and you will
believe he has done it a thousand times. Given the right script
and even an indifferent director, Grant's personality can
transform a film like Mr. Lucky into something altogether
memorable and deeply affecting. When all the elements are right,
his presence becomes an indispensable part of a masterpiece:
Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, His Girl Friday, Hitchcock's
North by Northwest, Notorious.
The ideal leading man, the perfect zany, the most admirable
dandy and the most charming rogue. Except perhaps in his
earliest years at Paramount, he was never allowed to die at the
end of a film and with good reason - who would believe it? Cary
was indestructible.
Yet, by 1966, he had never won an Academy Award. That year,
accepting the Oscar for co=writing a Grant vehicle called Father
Goose, Peter Stone was perfectly succinct: "My thanks to Cary
Grant," he said, "who keeps winning these things for other
people." Five years later, when the Academy finally gave him an
honorary award for his whole career (it was the evening's
highlight and the only TV appearance he's ever made), Grant gave
an especially gracious and spirited thank-you speech,
prominently mentioning several of the best directors he's worked
with. It was quite a list, and no accident either, but rather a
monument to his good taste as well as his ability - for he has
worked with more good directors than any other star in pictures:
Hawks (5 times), Hitchcock (4), Stanley Donen (4), Cukor (3),
McCarey (3), Stevens (3), Raoul Walsh, Frank Capra, Joseph L.
Mankiewicz, Blake Edwards, Garson Kanin.
Each man brought out different facets of Grant's fascinating
personality; I have asked several of them about certain
particularly delightful moments in their Grant films, often
getting the same reply: "That was Cary's" Hitchcock, whose
reputation at least (though I know it's not true) is of a
director who cares little for actors, told me, "One doesn't
direct Cary Gran, one just puts him in front of the camera."
Cary hasn't made a film since 1966, when he did Walk Don't Run,
in which he let Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar have the love
interest, while he played their matchmaker, a role that had been
done originally by Charles Coburn in the first version of that
story, The More the Merrier. It was not an unlikable movie, but
audiences didn't care to see him in that sort of part. There is
a moment in the movie when Cary gives Miss Eggar a glass of
champagne and a kiss on the hand that must have made everyone
yearn to see him go further - it was certainly the most romantic
bit in the picture. But Cary had decided he was too old to play
opposite young women, and, in fact, I would guess the relative
failure of Walk Don't Run prompted his unannounced exit from the
movies. If people only wanted him as a romantic figure and he
felt he was too old, the only thing to do was quit. How does one
convince him he's wrong?
I told Cary recently that I'd love to get him into a movie
again, and he answered jokingly that if ther was a role for an
old fellow in a wheelchair, maybe he'd do it. No matter that he
only looks about fifty years old, and that most women I know
(young or old) become slightly mooney at the mention of his
name. Nothing to be done - he is off in the international
business world, and fascinated by it, he claims. Perhaps he is
happy, but the movies have lost someone quite irreplaceable. Too
soon. He can argue that he's done everything in pictures, and of
course he has, but I do wish he were still at it. Personally,
I'd give anything to have him in a movie, as I know many
directors would, and I'm sure audiences would not be unhappy to
have that special style and unique sophistication before them
again. He must be to them, as he was to me that first time I met
him, an old and dear friend. We miss him.
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