Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

I’m Jans your Mnemonic Man and today's episode will be on the second greatest actor of all time according to the American Film Institute, Cary Grant.

Born as Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, in Bristol, England Cary Grant became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. His childhood was anything but normal, with his mother’s depression and subsequent absence, along with his father’s abuse of alcohol.

As a result, he ran away from home and joined the circus where his performing, led him to act in Broadway plays, then eventually to Hollywood where he made his film debut with a minor role in, “This is the Night” in 1932.

He was known for his suave, sophistication, charm, and wit which was malleable to any role. Whether it was a romance such as “An Affair to Remember,” suspense such as “North by Northwest,” or a comedy such as “His Girl Friday” Grant transitioned with ease and confidence.

Grant was a contract player for Paramount Pictures but when his contract expired, he decided to freelance which allowed him to work at any studio which was unusual at the time and only possible through his success at the box office.

Along with this he had a very colourful love life having been married a total of five times bearing one child, Jennifer Grant with Dyan Cannon. He retired relatively early with several big-name directors unable to draw him out of retirement.

Today’s mnemonic will be on Cary Grant’s top 6 movies.

So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cary_Grant_1947_(cropped).jpg

Wikipedia Summary

Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach;[a] January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was an English and American actor. Known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men.

He was nominated twice for the Academy Award, received an Academy Honorary Award in 1970, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.[4][5] He was named the second greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute in 1999.[6]

Grant was born into an impoverished family in Bristol, where he had an unhappy childhood marked by the absence of his mother and his father's alcoholism. He became attracted to theatre at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome.[7]

At 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there.[8] He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.

Grant initially appeared in crime films and dramas, such as Blonde Venus (1932) and She Done Him Wrong (1933), but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), and The Philadelphia Story (1940).

These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time.[9] Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939), the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), and the dramas Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Penny Serenade (1941), and None but the Lonely Heart (1944), the latter two for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Grant had a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). For the suspense dramas Suspicion and Notorious, Grant took on darker, morally ambiguous characters, both challenging Grant's screen persona and his acting abilities.

Toward the end of his career he starred in the romantic films Indiscreet (1958), Operation Petticoat (1959), That Touch of Mink (1962), and Charade (1963). He is remembered by critics for his unusually broad appeal as a handsome, suave actor who did not take himself too seriously, and in comedies was able to toy with his dignity without sacrificing it entirely.

Grant was married five times, three of them elopements with actresses Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), and Dyan Cannon (1965–1968). He had daughter Jennifer Grant with Cannon. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests, representing cosmetics firm Fabergé and sitting on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He died of a stroke in 1986 at the age of 82.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cary_Grant]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cary_Grant_%26_Eva_Marie_Saint_North_by_Northwest_Still.jpg

Mnemonic

Cary Grant – Top 6 Movies Mnemonic – Name CHANT

(Picture the Cary Grant Fan club chanting “Archie” a truncated version of his original name Archibald)

1. North by Northwest (1959)

2. Charade (1963)

3. His Girl Friday (1940)

4. An Affair to Remember (1957)

5. Notorious (1946)

6. To Catch a Thief (1955)

Five Fun Facts

1. Grant had a disturbing and tumultuous childhood. His parents didn’t get along. His father was an alcoholic and ended up leaving the family for another woman. When he was nine, he was told that his mother, Elsie was dead. Where in fact, she was committed to a Psychiatric institution for clinical depression, which Grant only found out about decades later.

2. Now with all this turmoil he did what any kid would do and ran away and joined the circus in the Pender Troupe of travelling performers. He trained as an acrobat, stilt-walker, juggler, and mime, which no doubt gave him a solid base for performing in the future.

3. Grant was an extremely generous man donating his entire salary for the movie “Arsenic and Old Lace” which was $100,000, to the U.S. War Relief Fund, as well, as his entire fee for “The Philadelphia Story” this time to the British war effort, for which he was awarded the King’s Medal by King George VI.

4. It seems that everyone wanted to be like Cary Grant. Christopher Reeve who played “Superman,” said that he based his portrayal of Clark Kent on Cary Grant in the early part of his career. John Cleese named his character in “A Fish Called Wanda” Archie Leach, Grant’s real name. While Ian Fleming is said to have modelled his James Bond character partially with Cary Grant in mind. Just another fun fact in regards to James Bond. Cary Grant was actually offered the role of James Bond in “Dr. No” in 1962. He did however decline the role believing he was too old at the age of 58 to play the hero.

5. Grant was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actor, one for “Penny Serenade” in 1941, and the second one for “None But the Lonely Heart” in 1944. He did however win an Oscar eventually when he picked up an Honorary Academy Award in 1970.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Audrey_Hepburn_and_Cary_Grant_1.jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. What is Cary Grant’s real name?

Q.2. How many times did Cary Grant get married?

Q.3. Name two films Cary Grant did with Alfred Hitchcock?

Bonus Q. Who did Cary Grant fall in love with on the set of “The Pride and the Passion” in 1957? Hint: Initials are SL

Mnemonic Recap

Cary Grant – Top 6 Movies Mnemonic – Name CHANT

(Picture the Cary Grant Fan club chanting “Archie” a truncated version of his original name Archibald)

1. North by Northwest (1959)

2. Charade (1963)

3. His Girl Friday (1940)

4. An Affair to Remember (1957)

5. Notorious (1946)

6. To Catch a Thief (1955)

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. What is Cary Grant’s real name?

A. Archibald Alec Leach

Q.2. How many times did Cary Grant get married?

A. 5 times. Virginia Cherrill, Betsy Drake, Dyan Cannon, Barbara Hutton, and Barbara Harris

Q.3. Name two films Cary Grant did with Alfred Hitchcock?

A. Notorious, North by Northwest, Suspicion, and To Catch a Thief

Bonus Q. Who did Cary Grant fall in love with on the set of “The Pride and the Passion” in 1957? Hint: Initials are SL

A. Sophia Loren. Sources say, that when he found out that Sophia Loren was in the movie, apparently, he broke his arm on purpose, so he could be in the cast!

Word of the Week

vinaceous

[ vahy-ney-shuhs ]

adjective

of the colour of red wine

Example

Eva Marie Saint starred alongside Cary Grant in North by Northwest wearing a vinaceous coloured dress.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]

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