The Name Is Bond – Cary Bond!

Cary Grant with his friend and favourite co-star Grace Kelly – Princess Grace of Monaco

January 18, 1904 — Actor Cary Grant was born on this day. English by birth, by the 1960s he had starred in a number of Hollywood films as a suave, sophisticated, impeccably dressed leading man and seemed a natural choice to play James Bond in Dr No, the first film of the series.

Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman wanted him for the part and it was said that writer Ian Fleming had Grant in mind when he created the character of Bond.

But the actor said No. At the age of 58 he considered himself too old for the role and he was certainly not interested in making a series of films. So the part went to 32-year-old Sean Connery.

Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach in Bristol, home today of Brunel’s SS Great Britain, the world’s first great ocean liner, and the Matthew, a replica of the ship aboard which John Cabot sailed to America in the 15th Century.

Archibald Leach left school at the age of 14 because he wanted to join a troupe of travelling entertainers. They were known as the Pender troupe and in 1920 he went with them to the United States where their show, Good Times, ran for 456 performances on Broadway.

Leach began touring the US and after performing in a number of cities he decided to stay in the country. Eventually he took the lead romantic part in a musical called Nikki, which opened in New York in 1931. A newspaper reviewer predicted that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies".

Then came a Hollywood screen test and 27-year-old Leach was signed up by Paramount Pictures, though an executive demanded he change his name to "something that sounded more all-American, like Gary Cooper.” They were to agree on Cary Grant, and he became an American citizen in 1942.

Grant starred in a string of successful movies including The Philadelphia Story (1940, with Katharine Hepburn), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1943), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955 with Grace Kelly), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).

He was declared by Empire magazine in 1995 to be one of the “sexiest stars” in film history. In 2005 Premiere magazine ranked him as the Number One Movie Star of All Time, and the American Film Institute still puts him at Number Two (after Humphrey Bogart) in its list of the Greatest Screen Legends.

After Marlon Brando stormed to success in 1951 with A Streetcar Named Desire, Grant considered retirement because he believed Brando’s “Method” acting meant his own style was outdated.

He said later: “I have no rapport with the new idols of the screen, and that includes Marlon Brando and his style of ‘Method’ acting. It certainly includes Montgomery Clift and that God-awful James Dean.

“Some producer should cast all three of them in the same movie and let them duke it out. When they've finished each other off, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and I will return and start making real movies again like we used to.”

Nevertheless, Grant continued filming for another decade. Then in 1966 he became a father for the first time at the age of 62 when his fourth wife Dyan Cannon gave birth to their daughter Jennifer, prompting him finally to give up his acting career to become a full-time dad. Fatherhood, it seems, was more powerful than Brando’s negative influence.

As one thing led to another, Grant moved from the dressing room to the boardroom. He first became a director of the now-defunct cosmetics company, Fabergé, then, after proving to be a shrewd businessman he joined the board of Western Airlines and later became a director of MGM Studios.

Apart from his acting ability, Grant was celebrated for his dress sense. In 1960 Esquire magazine carried an article entitled The Art of Wearing Clothes. It said: “Although Grant, who is 56, favors such abominations as large tie knots and claims to have originated the square-style breast-pocket handkerchief, he is so extraordinarily attractive that he looks good in practically anything.”

In 1982 he and fellow actor Charlton Heston attended a dinner at 10 Downing Street with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom they both greatly admired. According to the IMDb website, Heston said afterward to his wife Lydia, "You know I sat next to Mrs. Thatcher." She replied, "That's nothing – I got to sit next to Cary Grant!”

Noted for his humour both on and off screen, Grant once had a message from a reporter asking, "How old Cary Grant?” The actor famously replied: “Old Cary Grant fine. How you?”

Sadly, he was not fine on the afternoon of November 29, 1986 when he was preparing to perform in his one-man show at a theatre in Iowa. Grant suffered a major stroke and within hours he was dead at the age of 82.

At the time of death, his estate was valued at $60 million (equivalent to about $151 million in 2021).

Published: November 29, 2021
Updated: January 19, 2023