Kingston Whig-Standard (04/Dec/1986) - Shattered Idols

Details

• article: Shattered Idols
• author(s): Laurel Bernard
• newspaper: Kingston Whig-Standard (04/Dec/1986)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, North by Northwest (1959), Notorious (1946), Suspicion (1941)

Article

Shattered Idols

CARY GRANT, referred to as the royalty of Hollywood, envied for his looks by aging men everywhere and apparently beloved by his peers, turns out to have started life as the child of an unhappy marriage and ended it as the survivor of four divorces.

From his obituaries, following his sudden death last weekend at the age of 82, we discover that this dapper, debonair hero of such films as Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story suffered from bouts of depression, tried psychiatric therapy involving LSD and was married five times: the shortest attempt, to Dyan Cannon, lasted 17 months; the final one, to 34-year-old Barbara Harris, only began in 1981.

It reminds you how little we know about public figures, and how often emotionally deprived people seem to turn to show business for fulfilment — only to end up providing a happiness to others that they cannot obtain themselves.

Last month, a book called Heroes and Villains was published about The Beach Boys. You would think that this ultimate surfer band, the creators of a sound that was synonymous with California dreams, must have been happy. In fact, according to the book, one band member spent four years in bed, chronically depressed, another became involved with Charles Manson and later married the illegitimate daughter of a third member as an act of spite. It throws a new light on the Reagans' refusal to let the band play at the Washington July 4 celebrations in 1983.

The early family life of the band members — The Beach Boys started out as three brothers, a cousin and a friend — was a horror story of physical and mental abuse.

In Cary Grant's case, it seems that his childhood years also left a mark that success could not erase: a 1983 biography of him is titled Haunted Idol.

Born in 1904 in Bristol, England, as Archibald Leach, he came home one day at the age of 10 to find his mother gone. She had been put in a mental institution and he did not see her again for 20 years. An only child with a withdrawn father, he had apparently been very close to her — she had taught him to sing and dance. At 14, he left school and eventually graduated through fairground and vaudeville acts to Hollywood.

In his films, Grant had an elusive, almost untrustworthy, quality. In the Alfred Hitchcock films Notorious, North By Northwest and Suspicion, the characters he played were capricious, even cruel in their treatment of women, and the professions of love were distinctly offhand. In his comedies, slapstick and social vulnerability softened the aloof self-possession. With his strange, half-cockney accent and irreverent spirit, he was the underdog whenever he walked into a room full of the kind of socialites found in Holiday or The Philadelphia Story.

He said in 1963, "I have spent the greater part of life fluctuating between Archie Leach and Cary Grant, unsure of either, suspecting each."

One can only hope that, blessed with health, riches and fame, Cary Grant eventually also enjoyed his life.