Cary Grant biography

He had a gift for both physical humor and comic timing.

Grant made some of his greatest films around this time; such comedies as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne and The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart have become classics. In many of his roles, Grant played a similar type—a man with wit and polish. He did, however,

occasionally try to defy the audience's expectations of him. He played a potentially lethal husband opposite Joan Fontaine in the 1941 thriller Suspicion, which marked his first film with director and master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. In Penny Serenade (1941), Grant balanced humor with grief as a husband who experiences both joy and heartbreak in his marriage. His work in the film netted him an Academy Award nomination.

His greatest dramatic leap was in 1944's None but the Lonely Heart. Directed and co-written by Clifford Odets, the film featured Grant as a wandering prodigal son who returns home to help his sick mother (Ethel Barrymore). He picked up his second Academy Award nomination for this now mostly forgotten film. It was reportedly one of his personal favorites, saying "the part seemed to fit my nature better than the light-hearted fellows I was used to playing."

By the early 1940s, Grant became one of the first actors to land status as a free agent, choosing not to be under contract to one of the many film studios that ruled Hollywood at the time. Instead, he picked his own parts, becoming increasingly selective about what roles he'd take. One of his first decisions as a free agent was to appear in another Hitchcock film—1946's Notorious. Starring opposite Ingrid Bergman, Grant played an American agent on the trail of some neo-Nazis. Around this time, Grant also appeared in several comedies, including 1947's The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer and 1949's I Was a Male War Bride.

Later Films

Two of Grant's most memorable later roles had him once again working with the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. He played a reformed criminal accused of a robbery he didn't commit in 1955's To Catch a Thief. In the film, Grant starred opposite Grace Kelly. Hitchcock then put Grant through his paces in 1959's North by Northwest. As an advertising man who gets mixed up in murder and espionage, his character is on the run from sinister forces and battling for his life for much of the movie.

Grant also teamed up with Audrey Hepburn for the 1963 humorous and romantic thriller Charade, which gently poked fun at the genre. For his final film, Walk Don't Run (1966), he had moved from romantic lead to mature matchmaker in this comedy. Grant retired from filmmaking after this movie.

Final Years

After walking away from acting, Grant still appeared in public. He became a director of the Fabergé company and served as the fragrance firm's brand ambassador, traveling around to promote its products.

Grant received numerous honors for his contributions to film in his later years, including a special Academy Award in 1970 for his "unique mastery of the art of screen acting." In 1981, he earned the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor for Career Achievement in the Performing Arts alongside such greats as Helen Hayes and Count Basie.