Rob Sheffield Quote

CARY GRANT IS THE MCCARTNEY OF MOVIE STARS—HIS STORY has much to tell us about Paul’s. They share a spiritual connection, beyond their pronunciation of Judy. (Paul described his hey Judy-Judy-Judy ad libs as Cary Grant on heat.) They dazzled Americans as the ultimate English dream dates—yet both were self-inventions, street guys who taught themselves to pose as posh charmers. Both grew up working-class in hardscrabble industrial cities; both lost their mothers at a young age. (Grant, whose real name was Archibald Leach, was nine when he was told his mother had gone on a trip; more than twenty years later, after he was famous, he learned she was locked up in an institution and got her released.) Both dropped out of school to fight their way into the sleaziest sewers of show biz—Grant joined a troupe of traveling acrobats, which must have been an even rougher scene than the Reeperbahn—yet to them it was a world of freedom and excitement. But both found lasting fame by turning on the charm for Americans who saw them as dapper gentlemen. Everyone wants to be Cary Grant, Grant once said. Even I want to be Cary Grant.