Cary Grant

British-American actor (1904–1986)

Fame67.9
Momentum1.9
Wikipedia232.7K

Source-basedFalling

Lived 1904–1986, aged 82United States

United States

ActorsActor

Wikipedia
86 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1904–1986
Aged 82
Known for
North by Northwest
1959

Summary

Updated 2026-08-27

He made charm look easy — an accent that split the Atlantic, timing that could carry a screwball comedy or a Hitchcock thriller, and the rare trick of playing with his dignity without losing it. The man born Archibald Leach became the template for what a movie star could be.

Biography

About

Archibald Leach left Bristol at 16 with a vaudeville troupe, running from an impoverished home, an alcoholic father, and a mother who wasn't there. He worked the American stage through the 1920s, then landed in Hollywood in the early 1930s and remade himself entirely. Crime films and dramas came first — Blonde Venus, She Done Him Wrong — but the screwball comedies made him: The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, pictures that still define the genre. He took on Hitchcock four times between 1941 and 1959, playing darker, morally ambiguous men in Suspicion and…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Cary Grant

Cary Grant

said1980

On The Awful Truth we just clicked. She'd been a weepie star and comedy was strange to her.

— On Irene Dunne, in a 1980 interview/profile by James Bawden in ; as quoted in Conversations with Classic Film Stars (2016) by Bawden and

Cary Grant

said1980

The film I most cared about was a flop. None But the Lonely Heart was the only time I played a character very near myself, a man unsure of himself, a drifter, a rake.

— Evidently from the same 1980 James Bawden interview; as quoted in "Cary Grant's Star Never Lost its Glow" by Bawden, Toronto Star (December

Cary Grant

said11 Jun 1978