Film historian and acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished—and beloved—actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today.
Born Archibald Leach in 1904, he came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was thirty-one years old. Because of this experience Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs.
Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest.
Drawing on Grant’s own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends, this is the definitive portrait of a movie immortal.
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“Was there ever a more fabulously charming, witty, stylish, and seductive movie star than Cary Grant? Scott Eyman’s biography peers under the hood of Hollywood’s most self-invented persona to explore the anxious, self-pitying, needy, and depressed narcissist lurking within. Eyman does so with empathy, critical admiration, and a deeply historical perspective that bring to life not just this remarkable performer but the golden age of Hollywood that he dominated.”
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Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Searchers and High Noon