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Grant's personal life was
complicated, involving five marriages and speculation about his
sexuality.
At the beginning of his acting career, Cary Grant shared an attic
apartment
with the costume designer John Orry-Kelly and Charlie Spangles, and
although in this period Grant conducted relationships with a great
deal of women, this living arrangement caused innuendos.
In 1932 he met fellow actor Randolph Scott on the set of
Hot Saturday, and the two shared first an apartment in West
Hollywood, then a larger residence in Los Feliz.
Cary Grant met his first wife was actress Virginia Cherrill
at the premiere of Blonde Venus. After a whirlwind romance, they married on February 10,
1934 in England. Cherrill, who won cinematic immortality as the blind
flower girl in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, left acting
after their marriage.
When his marriage began to fail, it was
reported in some newspapers that he attempted suicide. Cary Grant
years later recalls; "I had been drinking... most of the day
before and on that day. I just passed out. The servant found me,
became alarmed, and called the cops. You know what whisky does when
you drink it all by yourself... It makes you very sad. I began
calling people. I know I called Virginia. I don't know what I said
to her, but things got hazier and hazier. The next thing I knew they
were carting me off to hospital."
The couple divorced just over a year later on
March 26, 1935; "My possessiveness and fear of losing her brought
about the very condition I feared: the loss of her."
After his brief marriage has ended, he and Randolph Scott rented a
seven bedroom Santa Monica beach house, frequently
visited by women (known
jocularly as
"Bachelor Hall") on and off for twelve years. Rumors ran rampant at
the time that Grant and Scott were lovers. Several gossip columnists
claimed, that the two young bachelors were "carrying the buddy
business a bit too far". Grant and Scott were so
amused by rumors of their having been boyfriends that they made
jokes about it. Scott even autographed a menu from a memorable
dinner party: "To my spouse, Cary -- Randy." If they were
confident enough to pull such stunts as that, for better or worse or
richer or poorer, it seems very doubtful that Cary Grant and
Randolph Scott were candidates for a same-sex marriage. Later on, the
house they shared was also occupied by Scott's wife, to whom he was
married for 43 years before his death in 1987.
After his divorce from Virginia Cherrill, Grant was reported in the press to be enjoying an
impassioned affair with the starlet Betty Furness and short after, a
much more serious relationship with Mary Brian, one of the most
attractive leading ladies of the `20s and `30s and his co-star in
The Amazing Adventure (The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss). For
the following two years, the fan magazines started to refer to
Phyllis Brooks, a leading lady in Hollywood "B" pictures from the
mid-30's to mid-40's, as the "next Mrs. Grant". "I'm going
to marry Brooksie", he told his friends, "and have all the children
we can. That's what life is all about." In August 1939, Phyllis
Brooks and Cary Grant got engaged, but things didn't work out as
planned; in the autumn of 1939 he broke up
with his fiancée Phyllis Brooks. (Brooks, fifty years later, still
referred to Grant as 'the love of my life'.
Back in 1939, on a cruise ship returning from England, he was
introduced to Barbara Hutton. In 1940 he met Barbara Hutton again in New York
and they got engaged on December 3, 1941. After becoming a
naturalized U.S. citizen in 1942, he married the Woolworth heiress
Barbara Hutton. Although the couple tried for a family, Hutton could
not conceive. Cary Grant did, however, became a surrogate father to her son Lance
Reventlow. Lance, born in 1937, became devoted to Grant, calling
himself 'Lance Grant' when he started school. The couple was derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary".
However Grant, one of the biggest movie stars of the day, did not
need her money nor to benefit from her name, and had insisted on a
pre-nuptial agreement. When he and Hutton divorced in 1945, Grant refused to accept a money
settlement from her and they remained friends. "Our marriage had
little foundation for a promising future. Our backgrounds — family,
educational and cultural — were completely unalike."
Cary Grant saw Betsy Drake for in 1947, while she was playing in the London company of the American
play, Deep Are the Roots. She was born to money (the
granddaughter of Chicago's Drake Hotel founder), she grew up in
Paris, New York, Chicago, Washington, but the family had lost their
fortune in 1929 stock-market crash. Grant and Drake met aboard the
luxury liner Queen Mary traveling from England back to the United
States. Formally introduced to each other by actress and fellow
passenger Merle Oberon, they became friends and soon were
romantically involved. At the time, Drake was a stage actress from
America with no film credits to her name, but Cary Grant was
intrigued by her evident talent and charm. When Grant returned to
Hollywood after the trip, he convinced Dore Schary, head of
production at RKO, to sign Betsy Drake to a contract. Not
surprisingly, Every Girl Should Be Married became one of Grant's
next film projects and he convinced Schary to let Drake be his
co-star despite her lack of on-screen experience. Initially, the
role was intended for Barbara Bel Geddes and Drake resisted having
such a high profile silver screen debut, but Grant convinced her
that she was ready. He wanted so much for her to shine in the
picture that he used his substantial influence on everyone of
importance from the producer to the director to screenwriter Don
Hartman. Grant made sure he had a say in anything that concerned
Drake's performance from lighting to dialogue. In fact, he may have
gone overboard.
According to Charles Higham and Roy Moseley, authors
of Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart, "Cary watched every move Betsy made
on the set, endlessly checking her out, imitating her cruelly in
scenes, and at times encouraging her - mistakenly - to imitate
Katharine Hepburn's mannered playing. Betsy seemed to take on Cary's
own fussiness, and soon studio publicists would be complaining that
she was excessively concerned over her appearance on the screen.
Self-conscious over her thinness, she refused to pose in a bathing
suit." Released with fanfare as RKO's big Christmas offering,
Every Girl Should Be Married was a financial success.
Cary
Grant and Betsy Drake were married one year after the film’s release. Drake was Grant’s third wife and the marriage lasted almost 13
years, which was the longest of Grant’s five marriages. In spite of
their mutual desire for a family, the couple remained childless
during their marriage.
Grant spotted Dyan Cannon on the short-lived
TV adventure ''Malibu Run'', in 1961. In true Hollywood fashion he
was on the phone with her agent by the end of the program. Their
engagement began much like a screwball comedy: The dashing leading
man was so nervous about popping the question that he crashed his
car while parking in her garage. Cary Grant, 61, and Dyan Cannon,
26, eloped on July 22, 1965, in Las Vegas' Dunes Hotel. Following
the ceremony, they flew to Grant's hometown of Bristol, England, to
tell his mother that he had wed for the fourth time. While
successfully eluding the press in the States, the newlyweds were not
as lucky in the U.K. The Royal Hotel was swarming with reporters and
at three in the morning, the duo fled out a back window.
While Cary
Grant's last movie, Walk, Don't Run was filmed in Japan,
Cannon learned she was pregnant -- she gave birth to their daughter
Jennifer on Feb. 26, 1966. However, the marriage was troubled from the
beginning, and they separated
within 18 months. Cannon later spoke of her "Pygmalion relationship"
with Grant. He advised her on clothes, make-up and career. Cary
wanted to stay at home whereas Cannon preferred to socialize. The divorce, finalized on March 21, 1968, was bitter
and messy, and the custody disputes over their daughter went on for
years. Although eventually, they re-established their friendship, Grant was for some
time after their divorce, very bitter about Cannon's behavior.
Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton first met in 1976, when Grant
arrived at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in West London, where Fabergé
held its annual trade show. Grant noticed Hutton, the hotel's public
relations officer, and started an ardent friendship with her. After
two years of friendship, Harris and the 46-year older Grant began to
plan a common future.
Cary Grant's fifth wedding took place in
his Beverly Hills home on 15 April 1981, with only his daughter
Jennifer, his lawyer Stanley Fox and wife, the judge and his wife
present. Grant's last marriage was a quiet and happy one.
He had
finally found a relationship that worked. |
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