Star of the Month: Cary Grant

Born in England with the name Archibald Leach, a young member of a traveling comedy troupe took the name Cary Grant when he broke into the movies. Early in his career Grant was a leading man for Mae West and he was the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland (1933). Then in the late 30s he came to more prominence in romantic and screwball comedies such as Topper, The Awful Truth, Holiday, and Bringing up Baby. In 1939 he was in two more dramatic classics Gunga Din and Only Angels Have Wings. He continued to perform comedic roles in the 1940s in His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story. However, 1941 marked his first collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in Suspicion, and they would go onto work together in Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and of course North by Northwest (1959). Later in his career Grant had a well established debonair persona and he would continue to use it, well into the 1960s. Grant was a wonderful physical comedian and I really enjoyed him in The Awful Truth. I think his two greatest films however are Notorious because he plays against type and then North by Northwest because it is simply an epic thriller.