All of Me film américain( Titre en Français : Solo pour 2 ) : Réalisation Carl Reiner
Une femme riche et excentrique mourante désire transférer son esprit dans le corps d’une jeune femme dont le père est employé d’écurie chez elle.
Cependant, l’opération foire. La dame malade , Edwina CUTWATER ( rôle tenu par Lily Tomlin) se retrouve dans le corps de son avocat. Corps qu’ils partagent à 2.
Elle occupe et maitrise les organes du corps se trouvant au côté droit ( pied et main droite) alors que l’avocat ROGER COBB ( rôle joué par Steve Martin) contrôle le bras et pied gauche.
Evidemment ca se complique au quotidien du fait qu’il faille coordonnées leurs gestes pour faire « bouger » aussi bien le pied gauche que droite pour marcher. Idem pour écrire et …pour aller aux toilettes. COBB étant droitier, donc il a besoin de la « participation » d’Edwina pour ses besoins sanitaires (pour ouvrir la braguette et toute la suite, en tant que droitier).
Tout se complique par la suite. Sans rentrer dans les détails du film que nous vous laisserons voir si l’occasion se présente.
Un film Paramount qui date de 1984 mais qui vaut le détour.
Même si le sujet du film semble relativement frivole. Il est même surréaliste ( parce que dans le film, changer de corps via un gourou venant d’on ne sait où mais vivant au Tibet apparemment : Ce changement de corps se fait en moins de 15 secondes et aussi facilement qu’on changerait de chemise. D’où l’absurdité du sujet mais le message étant plus profond : Il essaie de transmettre l’idée de vivre « sa vie », en profiter, « vivre avec soi et avec les autres » ( Dans ce cas, c’est exagéré puisque l’autre vit dans le même corps) mais au final, la richesse n’aura servi à rien à Edwin qui n’a jamais accompli de bien autour d’elle. Tout comme elle n’avait aucun ami.
Même chose pour COBB, musicien de jazz à ses heures perdues. Il se morfondait dans un cabinet d’avocat où le patron ne lui confiait que des missions de « messagers » ou de paperasses sans intérêt et sans pour aider « son prochain » : Cobb ayant voulu faire carrière en tant qu’avocat pour aider les pauvres. Au final, il aidait les riches à la demande de son patron
(Le cas d’Edwina, multimilliardaire)
Pour résumer : Une comédie surréaliste, sympa divertissante mettant en scène :Un avocat désespéré, une malade désespérée, une jeune fille au casier judiciaire lourd, un gourou qui ne parle pas et un musicien ( ami de COBB) qui ne voit pas mais a vite cru l’histoire de transfert sans poser de question et sans s’en étonner.
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alexander Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was an English stage and Hollywood film actor who became an American citizen in 1942. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and “dashing good looks”, Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood‘s definitive leading men.
Archibald Alexander Leach was born at 15 Hughenden Road, Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (née Kingdon) Leach (1877–1973) and Elias James Leach (1873–1935). An only child, Leach had an unhappy upbringing, attending Bishop Road Primary School.
CARY GRANT WITH AUDREY HEPBURN
His mother had suffered from clinical depression since the death of a previous child. Her husband placed her in a mental institution and told his 9-year-old son only that she had gone away on a “long holiday”. Believing she was dead, Leach did not learn otherwise until he was 31 and discovered her alive in a care facility. When Leach was 10, his father abandoned him after remarrying and having a baby with his new young wife.
Leach was expelled from the Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1918. After joining the “Bob Pender Stage Troupe”, Leach performed as a stilt walker and traveled with the group to the United States in 1920 at the age of 16 on the RMS Olympic, on a two-year tour of the country. He was processed at Ellis Island on July 28, 1920.
When the troupe returned to the UK, he decided to stay in the U.S. and continue his stage career. During this time, he became a part of thevaudeville world and toured with Parker, Rand, and Leach.
Still using his birth name, he performed on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis,Missouri, in such shows as Irene (1931), Music in May (1931), Nina Rosa (1931), Rio Rita (1931), Street Singer (1931), The Three Musketeers (1931), and Wonderful Night (1931). Leach’s experience on stage as a stilt walker, acrobat, juggler, and mime taught him “phenomenal physical grace and exquisite comic timing” and the value of teamwork, skills which would benefit him in Hollywood.
Leach became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, at which time he also legally changed his name from “Archibald Alexander Leach” to “Cary Grant”.
After appearing in several musicals on Broadway under the name Archie Leach, Leach went to Hollywood in 1931. When told to change his name, he proposed “Cary Lockwood”, the name of the character he had played in the Broadway show Nikki, based upon the recent film The Last Flight.
He signed with Paramount Pictures, where studio bosses decided that the name “Cary” was acceptable but that “Lockwood” was too similar to another actor’s surname. Paramount gave their new actor a list of surnames to choose from, and he selected “Grant” because the initials C and G had already proved lucky for Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, two of Hollywood’s biggest film stars.
I’m No Angel was a tremendous financial success and, along with She Done Him Wrong, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, saved Paramount from bankruptcy. Paramount put Grant in a series of unsuccessful films until 1936, when he signed with Columbia Pictures. His first major comedy hit was when he was loaned to Hal Roach‘s studio for the 1937 Topper (which was distributed by MGM).
The Awful Truth (1937) was a pivotal film in Grant’s career, establishing for him a screen persona as a sophisticated light comedy leading man. As Grant later wrote, “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point.” Grant is said to have based his characterization in The Awful Truth on the mannerisms and intonations of the film’s director, Leo McCarey, whom he resembled physically. As writer/director Peter Bogdanovich noted, “After The Awful Truth, when it came to light comedy, there was Cary Grant and then everyone else was an also-ran.”
Grant remained one of Hollywood’s top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Howard Hawks said that Grant was “so far the best that there isn’t anybody to be compared to him”.[15]David Thomson called him “the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema“.
Grant was a favorite of Hitchcock, who called him “the only actor I ever loved in my whole life”.
Besides Suspicion, Grant appeared in the Hitchcock classics Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief(1955), and North by Northwest (1959). Biographer Patrick McGilligan wrote that in 1965 Hitchcock asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain (1966) only to learn that Grant had decided to retire after making one more film, Walk, Don’t Run (1966);
Paul Newman was cast instead, oppositeJulie Andrews. Producers Broccoli and Saltzman originally sought Cary Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film and the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise.
Grant was the first actor to “go independent” by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled what an actor could or could not do. In this way, Grant was able to control every aspect of his career, at the risk of not working because no particular studio had an interest in his career long term.
He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times even negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross for To Catch a Thief while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it.
Grant poked fun at himself with statements such as “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant”, and in ad-lib lines—such as in the film His Girl Friday, saying, “I never had so much fun since Archie Leach died”. In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. According to a famous story now believed to be apocryphal, after seeing a telegram from a magazine editor to his agent asking “How old Cary Grant?” Grant reportedly responded with “Old Cary Grant fine. How you?
Cary Grant retired from the screen at 62 when his daughter Jennifer was born, in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanency and stability in her life.
While bringing up his daughter, he archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality room-sized vault he had installed in the house.
His daughter attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe’s bombing of Bristol in the Second World War (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, and cousin as well as the cousin’s husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Although Grant had retired from the screen, he remained active.
CARY GRANT – MARTIN LANDAU
In the late 1960s, he accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and his mere appearance at a product launch would almost certainly guarantee its success. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (now Delta Air Lines), andMGM.
He was a keen motoring enthusiast and, like many other Hollywood stars of the era, owned many notable cars. One of the first he owned was a 1929 Cadillac Cabriolet. His love of Cadillacs never waned and he later purchased a Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. Other cars that he owned included an MG Magnette and a Sunbeam Alpine series one roadster.
In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the United States in a one-man show, A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. Grant was preparing for a performance at the Adler Theatre in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of November 29, 1986, when he sustained a cerebral hemorrhage (he had previously suffered a stroke in October 1984). His wife did not know what was going on and she went to a local pharmacy to get aspirin. He died at 11:22 p.m. in St. Luke’s Hospital at the age of 82.
The bulk of his estate, worth millions of dollars, went to his fifth wife, Barbara Harris, and his daughter, Jennifer Grant
In 2001, a statue of Grant was erected in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour in his city of birth, Bristol.
In November 2005, Grant came in first in the “The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time” list by Premiere magazine. Richard Schickel, the film critic, said about Grant: “He’s the best star actor there ever was in the movies.
Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch; March 16, 1926) is an American actor, comedian, singer, film producer, film director, screenwriter and humanitarian. He is known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio.
Lewis has received several awards for lifetime achievements from the American Comedy Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Venice Film Festival, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and been honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life
Lewis was born on March 16, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey to Russian Jewish parents His father, Daniel Levitch (1902–80), was a master of ceremonies
Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch; March 16, 1926) is an American actor, comedian, singer, film producer, film director, screenwriter and humanitarian. He is known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio.
Lewis has received several awards for lifetime achievements from the American Comedy Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Venice Film Festival, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and been honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life
Lewis was born on March 16, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey to Russian Jewish parents His father, Daniel Levitch (1902–80), was a master of ceremonies and vaudeville entertainerwho used the professional name Danny Lewis.
His mother, Rachel (“Rae”) Levitch (née Brodsky),was a piano player for a radio station. Lewis started performing at age five and would often perform alongside his parents in the Catskill Mountains in New York State.
By 15, he had developed his “Record Act” in which he exaggeratedly mimed the lyrics to songs on a phonograph.
He used the professional name Joey Lewis but soon changed it to Jerry Lewis to avoid confusion with comedian Joe E. Lewis and heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis. Lewis then dropped out of Irvington High School in the tenth grade. He was a “character” even in his teenage years pulling pranks in his neighborhood including sneaking into kitchens to steal fried chicken and pies. During World War II, he was rejected for military service because of a heart murmur.
Lewis initially gained attention as part of a double act with singer Dean Martin, who served as straight man to Lewis’ zany antics in the Martin and Lewis comedy team. The performers were different from most other comedy acts of the time because they relied on their interaction instead of planned skits. They quickly rose to national prominence, first with their popular nightclub act, next as stars of their own radio program.
All sixteen movies were produced by Hal B. Wallis. Attesting the comedy team’s popularity, DC Comics published the best-selling The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comics from 1952 to 1957. As Martin’s roles in their films became less important over time the partnership came under strain. Martin’s participation became an embarrassment in 1954 when Look magazine used a publicity photo of the team for the magazine cover but cropped Martin out of the photo.The partnership ended on July 24, 1956.
While both Martin and Lewis went on to successful solo careers, neither would comment on the split nor consider a reunion. They did however make occasional public appearances together up until 1961, but were not seen together again until a surprise television appearance by Martin on a Muscular Dystrophy Telethon in 1976, arranged by Frank Sinatra.
The pair eventually reconciled in the late 1980s after the death of Martin’s son, Dean Paul Martin, in 1987.
The two men were seen together on stage for the last time when Martin was making what would be his final live performance at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Lewis pushed out a birthday cake for Martin’s 72nd birthday in 1989 and sang “Happy Birthday” to him, and joking, “why we broke up, I’ll never know.”
Lewis tried his hand at releasing music during the 1950s, having a chart hit with the song “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody” (a song largely associated with Al Jolson and later re-popularized by Judy Garland) as well as the song, “It All Depends on You” in 1958. He eventually released his own album titled, Jerry Lewis Just Sings.
By the end of his contract with producer Hal B. Wallis, Lewis had several productions of his own under his belt. In 1959, a contract between Paramount Pictures and Jerry Lewis Productions was signed specifying a payment of $10 million plus 60% of the profits for 14 films over a seven-year period.
In 1960, Lewis finished his contract with Wallis with Visit to a Small Planet (1960), and wrapped up work on his own production, Cinderfella, which was postponed for a Christmas 1960 release, and Paramount, needing a quickie feature film for its summer 1960 schedule, held Lewis to his contract to produce one. Lewis came up with The Bellboy (1960). Using the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami as his setting—and on a small budget, with a very tight shooting schedule, and no script—Lewis shot the film by day and performed at the hotel in the evenings. Bill Richmond collaborated with him on the many sight gags. Lewis later revealed that Paramount was not happy financing a ‘silent movie’ and withdrew backing. Lewis used his own funds to cover the $950,000 budget.
During production Lewis developed the technique of using video cameras and multiple closed circuit monitors, which allowed him to review his performance instantly.
His techniques and methods, documented in his book and his USC class, enabled him to complete most of his films on time and under budget.
Lewis directed and co-wrote The Family Jewels (1965) about a young heiress who must choose among six uncles, one of whom is up to no good and out to harm the girl’s beloved bodyguard who practically raised her. Lewis played all six uncles and the bodyguard. On television, Lewis hosted two different programs called The Jerry Lewis Show. The first was a two-hour Saturday night variety show on ABC in the fall of 1963. The lavish, big-budget production failed to find an audience and was canceled after 13 weeks. His second program was a one-hour variety show on NBC from 1967 to 1969.
By 1966, Lewis, then 40, was no longer an angular juvenile, his routines seemed more labored and his box office appeal waned to the point where Paramount Pictures new executives felt no further need for the Lewis comedies and did not wish to renew his 1959 profit sharing contract. Undaunted, Lewis packed up and went to Columbia Pictures, where he made Three On A Couch (1966), then appeared in Way…Way Out (1966) for 20th Century Fox followed by The Big Mouth (1967), Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968) and Hook, Line & Sinker (1969).
In 1968, he screened Spielberg’s early film, Amblin’ and told his students, “That’s what filmmaking is all about.”
Lewis directed and made his first offscreen voice performance as a bandleader in One More Time (1970), which starred Sammy Davis Jr. (a friend of Lewis). He then produced, directed and starred in Which Way to the Front? (1970).
He would then make and star in the unreleased The Day the Clown Cried (1972), a drama set in a Nazi concentration camp.
Lewis rarely discusses the film, but once suggested that litigation over post-production finances prevented the film’s completion and release. However, he admitted during his book tour for Dean and Me that a major factor for the film’s burial is that he is not proud of the effort. In 1976, Lewis appeared in a revival of Hellzapoppin’ with Lynn Redgrave, but it closed on the road before reaching Broadway.
After an absence of 11 years, Lewis returned to film in Hardly Working (1981), a movie in which he both directed and starred.
In France, Lewis starred in both To Catch a Cop a.k.a. “The Defective Detective” (1984) and How Did You Get In?, We Didn’t See You Leave (1984). Lewis has stated that as long as he has control over distribution of those movies, they will never have an American release. Meanwhile, a syndicated talk show Lewis hosted for Metromedia in 1984 was not continued beyond the scheduled five shows. Lewis starred in the ABC televised drama movie Fight For Life (1987) with Patty Duke, then appeared in Cookie (1989).
Lewis had a cameo in Mr. Saturday Night (1992) while guest appearing in an episode of Mad About You as an eccentric billionaire. Lewis made his Broadway debut, as a replacement cast member playing the devil in a revival of Damn Yankees, choreographed by future movie director Rob Marshall (Chicago) while also starring in the film Arizona Dream (1994), as a car salesman uncle. Lewis then starred as a father of a young comic in Funny Bones (1995).
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Lewis
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
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In March 2006, the French Minister of Culture awarded Lewis the Légion d’honneur, calling him the “French people’s favorite clown” Lewis has remained popular in the country, evidenced by consistent praise by French critics in the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma for his absurd comedy, in part because he had gained respect as an auteur who had total control over all aspects of his films, comparable to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock.
Liking Lewis has long been a common stereotype about the French in the minds of many English-speakers, and is often the object of jokes in English-speaking world pop culture.
“That Americans can’t see Jerry Lewis’s genius is bewildering,” says N. T. Binh, a French film magazine critic. Such bewilderment was the basis of the book Why the French Love Jerry Lewis, by Rae Beth Gordon
In 2012, Lewis directed a musical theatre version of The Nutty Professor (with score by Marvin Hamlisch) at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville from July 31 to August 19 over the summer. Lewis appeared in the Brazilian film Till Luck Do Us Part 2 (2013), then next in a small role in the crime drama The Trust (2016). Lewis made a comeback in a lead role in Max Rose (2016).
In an October 6, 2016 interview with Inside Edition, Lewis acknowledged that he may not star in any more films given his advanced age, while admitting, through tears, that he was afraid of dying as it would leave his wife and daughter alone.] In December of that year, he expressed interest in making another film.
Lewis has been married twice:
Patti Palmer (née Esther Grace Calonico), a former singer with Ted Fio Ritomarried October 3, 1944, divorced September 1980[
SanDee Pitnick; married February 13, 1983; a 32-year-old Las Vegas dancer; married in Key Biscayne, Florida
He has six sons (one adopted) and one daughter (adopted):
Ronald Steven “Ronnie” Lewis (born December 1949 [adopted])
Scott Anthony Lewis (born February 22, 1956)
Christopher Lewis (born October 1957)
Anthony Lewis (born October 1959)
Joseph Lewis (born January 1964, died October 24, 2009 [from a narcoticsoverdose])[36]
With SanDee Pitnick
Danielle Sara Lewis (adopted March 1992)
Lewis has suffered from a number of illnesses and addictions related both to aging and a back injury sustained in a comedic pratfall from a piano while performing at the Sands Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip on March 20, 1965.
The accident almost left him paralyzed. In its aftermath, Lewis became addicted to the painkiller Percodan for thirteen years
He says he has been off the drug since 1978.] In April 2002, Lewis had a Medtronic “Synergy” neurostimulator implanted in his back which has helped reduce the discomfort. He is now one of the company’s leading spokesmen.
In the 2011 documentary Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis, Lewis said he suffered his first heart attack while filming Cinderfella in 1960.
In December 1982, Lewis suffered another heart attack. En route to San Diego from New York City on a cross-country commercial airline flight on June 11, 2006, he sustained a minor heart attack .
It was discovered that he had pneumonia as well as a severely damaged heart. He underwent a cardiac catheterization and two stents were inserted into one of his coronary arteries, which was 90% blocked. The surgery resulted in increased blood flow to his heart and has allowed him to continue his rebound from earlier lung problems. Having the cardiac catheterization meant canceling several major events from his schedule, but Lewis fully recuperated in a matter of weeks.
In 1999, Lewis’ Australian tour was cut short when he had to be hospitalized in Darwin with viral meningitis. He was ill for more than five months. It was reported in the Australian press that he had failed to pay his medical bills. However, Lewis maintained that the payment confusion was the fault of his health insurer. The resulting negative publicity caused him to sue his insurer for US$100 million
In September 2001, Lewis was unable to perform at a planned London charity event at the London Palladium.
He was the headlining act, and he was introduced, but did not appear. He had suddenly become unwell, apparently with heart problems. He was subsequently taken to the hospital. Some months thereafter, Lewis began an arduous, months-long therapy that weaned him off prednisone and enabled him to return to work. On June 12, 2012, he was treated and released from a hospital after collapsing from hypoglycemia at a New York Friars’ Club event. This latest health issue forced him to cancel a show in Sydney.
Muscular dystrophy activism
Throughout his entire life and prolific career, Lewis was a world renowned humanitarian who has supported fundraising for research into muscular dystrophy. Until 2011, he served as national chairman of and spokesman for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) (formerly, the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America).
Lewis began hosting telethons to benefit the company from 1952 to 1959, then every Labor Day weekend from 1966 to 2010, he hosted the live annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. Over nearly half a century, he raised over $2.6 billion in donations for the cause.
On August 3, 2011, it was announced that Lewis would no longer host the MDA telethons and is no longer associated with the Muscular Dystrophy Association
On May 1, 2015, it was announced that in view of “the new realities of television viewing and philanthropic giving”, the telethon was being discontinued.
] In early 2016, Lewis made an online video statement for the organization on its website, in honor of its rebranding, marking his first appearance in support of the Muscular Dystrophy Association since his final Labor Day Telethon in 2010 and the ending of his tenure as national chairman in 2011.
Theater chain
In 1969, Lewis agreed to lend his name to “Jerry Lewis Cinemas”, offered by National Cinema Corporation as a franchise business opportunity for those interested in theatrical movie exhibition. Jerry Lewis Cinemas stated that their theaters could be operated by a staff of as few as two with the aid of automation and support provided by the franchiser in booking films and in other aspects of film exhibition.
A forerunner of the smaller rooms typical of later multi-screen complexes, a Jerry Lewis Cinema was billed in franchising ads as a “mini-theatre” with a seating capacity of between 200 and 350. In addition to Lewis’s name, each Jerry Lewis Cinema bore a sign with a cartoon logo of Lewis in profile.
Initially 158 territories were franchised, with a buy-in fee of $10,000 or $15,000 depending on the territory, for what was called an “individual exhibitor”. For $50,000, the Jerry Lewis Cinemas offered an opportunity known as an “area directorship”, in which investors controlled franchising opportunities in a territory as well as their own cinemas.
The success of the chain was hampered by a policy of only booking second-run, family-friendly films. Eventually the policy was changed, and the Jerry Lewis Cinemas were allowed to show more competitive films, but after a decade the chain failed. Both Lewis and National Cinema Corp. declared bankruptcy in 1980.
Jerry’s House
In 2010, Lewis met with 7-year-old Lochie Graham who shared his idea for “Jerry’s House”, a place for vulnerable and traumatized children. The Australian charity hope2Day is raising funds to build the facility in Melbourne, Australia.
PARAMOUNT CHANNEL : CARY GRANT Wikipedia sources: Cary Grant (born Archibald Alexander Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was an English stage and Hollywood film actor who became an American citizen in 1942. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and “dashing good looks”, Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood’s definitive leading men. Notorious (1946), The…
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alexander Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was an English stage and Hollywood film actor who became an American citizen in 1942. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and “dashing good looks”, Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood‘s definitive leading men.
Archibald Alexander Leach was born at 15 Hughenden Road, Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (née Kingdon) Leach (1877–1973) and Elias James Leach (1873–1935). An only child, Leach had an unhappy upbringing, attending Bishop Road Primary School.
CARY GRANT WITH AUDREY HEPBURN
His mother had suffered from clinical depression since the death of a previous child. Her husband placed her in a mental institution and told his 9-year-old son only that she had gone away on a “long holiday”. Believing she was dead, Leach did not learn otherwise until he was 31 and discovered her alive in a care facility. When Leach was 10, his father abandoned him after remarrying and having a baby with his new young wife.
Leach was expelled from the Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1918. After joining the “Bob Pender Stage Troupe”, Leach performed as a stilt walker and traveled with the group to the United States in 1920 at the age of 16 on the RMS Olympic, on a two-year tour of the country. He was processed at Ellis Island on July 28, 1920.
When the troupe returned to the UK, he decided to stay in the U.S. and continue his stage career. During this time, he became a part of thevaudeville world and toured with Parker, Rand, and Leach.
Still using his birth name, he performed on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis,Missouri, in such shows as Irene (1931), Music in May (1931), Nina Rosa (1931), Rio Rita (1931), Street Singer (1931), The Three Musketeers (1931), and Wonderful Night (1931). Leach’s experience on stage as a stilt walker, acrobat, juggler, and mime taught him “phenomenal physical grace and exquisite comic timing” and the value of teamwork, skills which would benefit him in Hollywood.
Leach became a naturalized United States citizen on June 26, 1942, at which time he also legally changed his name from “Archibald Alexander Leach” to “Cary Grant”.
After appearing in several musicals on Broadway under the name Archie Leach, Leach went to Hollywood in 1931. When told to change his name, he proposed “Cary Lockwood”, the name of the character he had played in the Broadway show Nikki, based upon the recent film The Last Flight.
He signed with Paramount Pictures, where studio bosses decided that the name “Cary” was acceptable but that “Lockwood” was too similar to another actor’s surname. Paramount gave their new actor a list of surnames to choose from, and he selected “Grant” because the initials C and G had already proved lucky for Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, two of Hollywood’s biggest film stars.
I’m No Angel was a tremendous financial success and, along with She Done Him Wrong, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, saved Paramount from bankruptcy. Paramount put Grant in a series of unsuccessful films until 1936, when he signed with Columbia Pictures. His first major comedy hit was when he was loaned to Hal Roach‘s studio for the 1937 Topper (which was distributed by MGM).
The Awful Truth (1937) was a pivotal film in Grant’s career, establishing for him a screen persona as a sophisticated light comedy leading man. As Grant later wrote, “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point.” Grant is said to have based his characterization in The Awful Truth on the mannerisms and intonations of the film’s director, Leo McCarey, whom he resembled physically. As writer/director Peter Bogdanovich noted, “After The Awful Truth, when it came to light comedy, there was Cary Grant and then everyone else was an also-ran.”
Grant remained one of Hollywood’s top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Howard Hawks said that Grant was “so far the best that there isn’t anybody to be compared to him”.[15]David Thomson called him “the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema“.
Grant was a favorite of Hitchcock, who called him “the only actor I ever loved in my whole life”.
Besides Suspicion, Grant appeared in the Hitchcock classics Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief(1955), and North by Northwest (1959). Biographer Patrick McGilligan wrote that in 1965 Hitchcock asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain (1966) only to learn that Grant had decided to retire after making one more film, Walk, Don’t Run (1966);
Paul Newman was cast instead, oppositeJulie Andrews. Producers Broccoli and Saltzman originally sought Cary Grant for the role of James Bond in Dr. No but discarded the idea as Grant would be committed to only one feature film and the producers decided to go after someone who could be part of a franchise.
Grant was the first actor to “go independent” by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system, which almost completely controlled what an actor could or could not do. In this way, Grant was able to control every aspect of his career, at the risk of not working because no particular studio had an interest in his career long term.
He decided which films he was going to appear in, often had personal choice of directors and co-stars, and at times even negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross for To Catch a Thief while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it.
Grant poked fun at himself with statements such as “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant”, and in ad-lib lines—such as in the film His Girl Friday, saying, “I never had so much fun since Archie Leach died”. In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. According to a famous story now believed to be apocryphal, after seeing a telegram from a magazine editor to his agent asking “How old Cary Grant?” Grant reportedly responded with “Old Cary Grant fine. How you?
Cary Grant retired from the screen at 62 when his daughter Jennifer was born, in order to focus on bringing her up and to provide a sense of permanency and stability in her life.
While bringing up his daughter, he archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a bank-quality room-sized vault he had installed in the house.
His daughter attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the Luftwaffe’s bombing of Bristol in the Second World War (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt, and cousin as well as the cousin’s husband and grandson), and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.
Although Grant had retired from the screen, he remained active.
CARY GRANT – MARTIN LANDAU
In the late 1960s, he accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and his mere appearance at a product launch would almost certainly guarantee its success. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working.
He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (now Delta Air Lines), andMGM.
He was a keen motoring enthusiast and, like many other Hollywood stars of the era, owned many notable cars. One of the first he owned was a 1929 Cadillac Cabriolet. His love of Cadillacs never waned and he later purchased a Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. Other cars that he owned included an MG Magnette and a Sunbeam Alpine series one roadster.
In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the United States in a one-man show, A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. Grant was preparing for a performance at the Adler Theatre in Davenport, Iowa, on the afternoon of November 29, 1986, when he sustained a cerebral hemorrhage (he had previously suffered a stroke in October 1984). His wife did not know what was going on and she went to a local pharmacy to get aspirin. He died at 11:22 p.m. in St. Luke’s Hospital at the age of 82.
The bulk of his estate, worth millions of dollars, went to his fifth wife, Barbara Harris, and his daughter, Jennifer Grant
In 2001, a statue of Grant was erected in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour in his city of birth, Bristol.
In November 2005, Grant came in first in the “The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time” list by Premiere magazine. Richard Schickel, the film critic, said about Grant: “He’s the best star actor there ever was in the movies.
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