Cary Grant Read online

  Cary and Hitch, Hollywood's oddest couple, here having lunch on location in France, on the set of To Catch a Thief (1955). Each looked at the other and saw the reflection of his inner self, reflections that lit up and set the silver screen on fire throughout their four-picture, eighteen-year collaboration. (MacFadden Publishing/CORBIS)

  14

  “Cary Grant represents a man we know.”

  —ALFRED HITCHCOCK

  Whenever Randolph Scott was away, either visiting his wife Marion duPont in Virginia or working on location on a film, Grant spent his evenings dancing at the Trocadero with “the Brooks.” After the success of The Awful Truth, Grant was riding high, and his newfound fame and fortune helped, at least for the moment, to bring him out of his normally reclusive shell, as did his blossoming romance with Brooks. For her part, she fully expected an offer of marriage from Grant, one she would unhesitatingly accept, even if he stipulated that she had to give up her film career. In truth, it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice, as she didn't have much of a career beyond a steady stream of B movies, the dubious highlight of which was a couple of Charlie Chan flicks. For her, the only part that really mattered was that of Mrs. Cary Grant. The problem was that Grant had no intention of ever getting married again, and to gently discourage Brooks from going down that path, he insisted she keep looking for more movie work and promised to help her find better roles.

  Even before The Awful Truth had completed its initial theatrical run, Grant signed on to do the radio adaptation. In the absence of television, video, DVD, or cable, except for the very occasional rerelease, once a film ended its theatrical run, both domestically and overseas (where American movies remained unerringly popular), network radio adaptations provided its only significant additional source of funds.

  When Irene Dunne proved unavailable, Claudette Colbert took over as Lucy, and Grant arranged to have Brooks replace Joyce Compton in the supporting role of Dixie. They recorded the radio version shortly after the completion of the film for the Lux Radio Theater, a series on which Grant had by now become a regular. (The ongoing theatrical popularity of the film contractually forced Lux to delay its broadcast until sometime after the film was taken out of theaters to prevent moviegoers from listening to it “free” on the radio. Because of the film's unusually long theatrical run, the radio version wasn't aired until September 11, 1939, almost two years after the movie's initial release.)

  Grant also saw to it that Brooks got a small role in Allan Dwan's 1938 remake of Kate Douglas Wiggin's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, the rights to which producer Darryl F. Zanuck had purchased specifically for child star Shirley Temple. Coincidentally (it appeared), Randolph Scott was also cast in the film, as Tony, the radio producer who discovers little Rebecca's singing talents.

  This awkward miscasting did nothing to help Scott's floundering career. After spending years appearing in beside-the-point Paramount films, he had finally scored as Hawkeye in George Seitz's 1936 film version of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. But when Zukor could or would not find a suitable follow-up film for him, Scott took it as a sign that his days at the studio were numbered. Shortly afterward, along with dozens of other contract players, he was cut, a move that surprised no one. What was surprising was how quickly Zanuck signed Scott to a long-term contract with 20th Century–Fox, assuring the actor that he would soon be cast in “quality” roles. As it happened, this sudden change happened precisely at the same time Marion duPont sold her shares in Paramount and made a cash purchase of a significant amount of stock in 20th Century–Fox, enough to give her an all-but-controlling interest in the studio.

  Zanuck, meanwhile, as a “gesture of friendship” to Scott—who in turn was trying to help out Grant—managed to find a place for Brooks in the film.

  Zanuck's motives weren't entirely altruistic. He knew full well about Scott's close relationship with Grant, as did everyone in the industry, and he hoped his gesture would impress the suddenly very desirable star enough to make him want to join his best friend and Brooks as a permanent part of the Fox family.

  For his part, Grant was delighted that “the Brooks” was at last working on a big film, hoping it would keep her mind off the marriage awhile longer. Not that it made much difference: he had lately grown tired of “sharing,” and while she was occupied with the movie, for company he quietly began to socialize with other actresses, among them the pretty young bottle blonde Jean Rogers, whose main claim to fame had been playing Dale Arden opposite Olympic swimmer-turned-actor Buster Crabbe in the amazingly popular Flash Gordon Saturday morning serial.

  Grant's attraction to Rogers, like all his relationships with starlets, lacked a measurable lust factor, but he was genuinely amused by her bright and outgoing manner. She was a great talker, and he loved her hilarious stories about the making of the good-natured if totally ridiculous Flash Gordon episodes, particularly about the limited acting abilities of Crabbe, in real life a very good friend of Scott's.

  As it happened, Grant had first met Rogers through Scott, while Scott was making Rouben Mamoulian's High, Wide, and Handsome at Paramount before his contract expired. Scott's costar was Dorothy Lamour, and as the two principals were paired romantically onscreen, the studio manufactured one of its publicity “romances” between them. (Rumors of their ongoing liaison lingered for years, but as Lamour confirmed years later, it was purely a product of the studio's PR department.) On her arranged dates with Scott, Lamour often brought along her good friend Rogers to accompany the everpresent Grant whenever Brooks wasn't available.

  While Scott was away shooting location scenes for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Grant began to think about moving out of the beach house for good. Both he and Scott had solid careers, which meant, among other things, that they had almost no opportunity to spend significant time alone together, as one or the other seemed always off making a movie.

  Besides, Grant now had lots of money, so there was no longer any possible financial reason, if there ever had been, to share a house. (While no one in the business ever bought that excuse, it still gave them a cover for the general public.)

  Grant turned to Howard Hughes for advice, and Hughes, without hesitation, told him it was time to make the break with Scott. What did he need it for, Hughes asked, given the constant rumors and the trouble it caused.

  Grant had to agree. Scott was and always would be his soulmate, but something had changed, and it wasn't just their careers, although fame had certainly become a wedge between them. The closeness was gone now, the private laughter, the intimate feeling that they were a team, two against the world. Grant missed that with Scott since he'd gotten married and knew it would never again be like it once was.

  When Hughes's friend director Howard Hawks was looking for someone to costar opposite Hughes's on-again, off-again lover Katharine Hepburn for a new project at Columbia, he suggested to Hawks that he consider Grant for the role.

  Despite each of their many other romances, Hughes was still interested in Hepburn. He had still not reached his long-term goal of owning a major Hollywood studio, and he believed his best way to achieve that was by riding to power on Hepburn's Academy Awarded back. As for her, she had plans, as well. Visions of career independence required the kind of funds Howard Hughes could deliver. In that sense they were birds of a feather.

  The picture was Bringing Up Baby, a last-minute project for Hawks after his planned version of Gunga Din for RKO had unexpectedly fallen through. After working on the Gunga Din script with Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and later on with his good friend (and fellow industry union activist) Academy Award screenwriter Dudley Nichols,* Hawks had gotten MGM to agree to loan out Robert Montgomery and Spencer Tracy to play two of the three British soldiers. He then put all his remaining chips on acquiring the services of Clark Gable for the third but came up empty.

  Louis B. Mayer's MGM, still in chaos after the early, unexpected, shocking death of its “boy wonder” head of production, Irving Thalberg, at the ag
e of thirty-seven, was not about to lend out its biggest star to a rival studio.

  Hawks had counted on his friendship with Thalberg that dated all the way back to the early 1920s, when they were both starting out in motion pictures. After Thalberg's passing the new head of RKO, Sam Briskin (a former production head at Columbia and another longtime friend of Hawks), shelved the Gable-less Gunga Din and urged Hawks, who had made what everyone considered the seminal screwball, Twentieth Century (1934), to find a comedy instead, something without a lot of expensive action sequences that he could quickly put into production.

  If Hawks was disappointed, he didn't show it. Known for his tight-lipped, nonconfrontational style, he dutifully dipped into RKO's pool of potential properties and found a script in the studio's reading department, with an attached report that called its dialogue “hilarious and the possibilities of comic situations limitless.” The story, Bringing Up Baby, by writer Hagar Wilde, had first appeared in the April 10, 1937, issue of Collier's magazine. After one reading, Hawks chose to make a movie out of it because, he said later on, it had made him laugh out loud. Briskin then had RKO buy the rights for the negotiated sum of $1,004.

  In typical screwball fashion, the “plot” of Bringing Up Baby is thread-thin and hopelessly entangled: a convoluted role-reversal romance in which the female character chases the male, who appears oblivious to her feminine charms and increasingly bold sexual overtures. David Huxley, a shy, intellectual paleontologist, becomes the object of a heated sexual pursuit by Susan Vance, a rich society girl who, unbeknownst to him, has an aunt ready to give a million-dollar endowment to the museum where he works, an endowment he desperately needs to finish his life's work—the restoration of a gigantic dinosaur's skeleton. The day before he is to marry his iceberg assistant, David meets Susan, who falls in lust with him at first sight. Their relationship takes them down the zany screwball path to true love after another star turn by Asta the dog, who steals a crucial and priceless dinosaur bone (the “intercostal clavicle” that David needs to complete his hall-size reconstruction), the desperate attempt that follows to recover it, a couple of symbolic leopards (one domesticated, one wild) roaming throughout the Connecticut farm where much of the film takes place, the most jovial jailup in the history of motion pictures, and an ending that literally pulls the entire film together by the tips of its fingers.

  While Bringing Up Baby was being turned into a screenplay by Dudley Nichols, Hawks began casting. His first choice to play Susan, the rich young niece, was easy: he wanted Carole Lombard, who had done such a magnificent job for him in Twentieth Century. But strictly for economic reasons, RKO's Pandro Berman, in charge of casting for the studio, insisted that Katharine Hepburn star in the film. (Berman had just been put in charge of the studio's A pictures after a disheveled RKO's financial situation worsened, forcing Briskin to resign midway through Bringing Up Baby's production.) Despite her uneven box office record, the Academy Award winner still had three films left on her contract with RKO, and Berman (at the private urging of Howard Hughes, who stayed in the background so as to avoid clashing with his friend Hawks) still believed that with the right roles, costars, and directors she could become the studio's biggest star.

  Having to use Hepburn presented a series of unforeseen problems for Hawks, mainly involving the cost of making the film. Originally budgeted at half a million dollars, that figure was revised upward to $750,000 to cover Hepburn's guaranteed salary. She received $72,000 up front (with large bonuses if the film went beyond its original shooting schedule), 5 percent of the gross between $600,000 and $750,000, 7.5 percent up to $1,000,000, and a then unheard-of 11 percent of the gross from there to eternity. Because of these provisions, Hawks would have to make up the money in production and shoot at a very economical pace—meaning fast, something he did not like to do.

  More difficult was the casting of the male lead, a standard-issue milquetoast who, despite his boring scientific preoccupation, had somehow to give off enough sustained sexual heat to make it believable that Susan would so feverishly and relentlessly pursue him. Hollywood had no shortage of actors who had perfected meekness onscreen, most notably Harold Lloyd, the bespectacled screen comedian who, of the three great silent clowns (Chaplin and Keaton being the other two), had made the most successful transition to sound. Hawks was interested in Lloyd for the part, but Berman said no, RKO was not going to put Hepburn into a romantic comedy opposite Harold Lloyd, a milquetoast yes, a leading man most definitely no.

  Ronald Colman was someone else Hawks liked, but Berman rejected him as well. Robert Montgomery, Fredric March, and a young and upcoming Ray Milland all got the green light from Berman, but all turned the part down because none of these A-list stars was willing to risk his paycheck working for a studio whose finances were as shaky as RKO's.

  Then, at Hughes's suggestion, Hawks began to look seriously at Cary Grant, especially when he discovered that Grant had a nonexclusive fourpicture deal with RKO but had yet to shoot a single foot of film there. The more Hawks thought about it, the more he liked the idea. At a meeting attended by Grant, Frank Vincent, Hawks, Berman, Briskin, and Nichols, Vincent insisted that Grant, if he took the part, had to get $75,000, as well as bonuses that matched all of Hepburn's. The demand infuriated Briskin for its sheer outrageousness—he well knew that Grant's RKO four-picture deal was for an agreed-upon $50,000 per film. But Vincent was prepared to have his client walk, and Berman wanted the already seriously delayed production to begin as soon as possible, so before everyone left the room, Berman offered Grant the part on the terms he wanted, and Grant accepted.

  Vincent knew what he was doing. He had indeed negotiated Grant's fourpicture deal with RKO at $50,000 per picture, but that was before his smashing success in The Awful Truth. Now that Grant was a top star, he wanted, and got, what he had originally asked for—and what Briskin had turned down—at the time of the original contract: $75,000 a picture. It was lost on no one that this made Grant the higher paid of the film's two stars.

  The meeting appeared to settle everything, except for one last detail. That night Grant told Vincent that he had not yet decided to take the picture. The always unflappable Vincent said fine and told Grant to take his time deciding what he wanted to do. Grant then spent several days alone at the beach house in a total funk, avoiding calls from everyone while he wrestled with himself over whether he could play the part well enough to sustain the kind of success he had had with The Awful Truth. He still believed his performance as Jerry Warriner had been either a fluke, a lucky confluence, or a collaborative jackpot. Any way he looked at it, it was something he could take no real credit for (and never did), and he was afraid to make a movie that was too stylistically similar in which his performance would not be as good.

  Two full weeks passed without a commitment from Grant, until the softspoken Hawks persuaded the actor to do the film by promising to personally guide his performance every step of the way. Hawks then suggested to Grant that he look at some of the films of Harold Lloyd. Grant did and was so taken with the comedian's style of acting that he actually copied it, almost gesture for gesture, in putting together his interpretation of David Huxley, down to thick black horn-rimmed glasses, one of Lloyd's cinematic trademarks.

  Filming of Bringing Up Baby began September 23, 1937. Although she was a highly trained stage actress, Hepburn had had little experience playing comedy, and like Grant relied heavily on Hawks for guidance. His one demand was that both his stars deliver their lines at top speed. With Hepburn running full steam—she had most of the dialogue—and Grant wearing large framed glasses that all but hid his face, Berman was disappointed with the early rushes and demanded “more glamour” from both stars.

  Despite her energy and speedy recitations, Hepburn was having difficulty finding the comic rhythm of her character. To help her, Hawks hired Walter Catlett, a veteran vaudeville comic who had spent years with the Ziegfeld Follies in New York, to try to get Hepburn to stop “acting” funny and start being
funny, by playing the scene's logical flow, such as it might be, and allowing the laughs to come from the audience's recognition of the sheer silliness of the situations.

  At the same time, Grant, again to the surprise of no one more than himself, excelled in the role of Huxley, due in large measure to endless meetings, not with Hawks, but with Hughes, who patiently and meticulously helped Grant discover every nuance of his character's part. With Hughes's encouragement, Grant came up with many of the most famous set pieces of the film, which he would bring to the set early and rehearse before the perennially late Hawks showed up. Among them is the scene in which Grant, dressed in a woman's bathrobe, responds to the question of why by declaring, with all the proper exasperation, “I've gone gay all of a sudden!”

  The famous torn-tuxedo routine, which led to the torn-dress sequence (where Grant's top hat covers Hepburn's rear end and she remarks, “Will you please stop doing that with your hat?” followed by their memorable “lock-step” out of the ballroom), was a comic bit that Grant came up with and later claimed was based on something he had actually seen at the Roxy Theater in New York City while sitting next to the head of the Metropolitan Museum and his wife. At one point the man stood up to allow the woman to go to the bathroom, only to discover his fly was open. As he attempted to close it, he caught her dress in the zipper, and the two had to “lock-step” their way to the manager's office for a pair of pliers to get themselves uncoupled. Hawks marveled at the bit and, risking the ire of the Hays Office, used it in the movie.

  Another Grant-inspired moment happened when, during a take, Hepburn's heel broke. Grant whispered to her, “I was born on the side of a hill,” a line that she immediately repeated. That scene also remained in the finished film.

  The best moment of all, however, comes at the end, when Hepburn finds herself atop the delicate scaffolding, reaching for Grant. The power of this scene is enhanced by Grant's great physical prowess, which encouraged Hepburn to play the scene herself, in a single take, without a stunt double. Grant carefully rehearsed Hepburn's moves over and over, teaching her how to do the “circus grip” of the wrists he had learned as a boy and prepare her body for the big hoist. When Hepburn slips off the scaffold at the last minute, he grabs her by the wrist, and there she hangs suspended between the skeletal reconstruction below and the object of her deepest (and highest) affections above. It is an inspired moment, the uncertain dangling of mankind between the primitive past and the hopeful future, with the sanctity of life defined as mysteriously and magically as it is in the touch of Michelangelo's two fingertips atop the Sistine Chapel.* When Grant confidently hoists her to safety, it is a moment not only of comic triumph but of pure cinematic grace; Susan's physical rescue becomes a metaphor for both her and Huxley's emotional redemption.