Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise

I love Scott Eyman’s biography of Cary Grant. The emphasis is on how the actor melded Archie Leach with Cary Grant. Some results were positive, some negative, and overall it was stress inducing for the human trying to coordinate it.

Eyeman’s bio is balanced, very readable, and never salacious. He deals with Grant’s sexuality, avoids gossip, and lets readers draw their own conclusions. He talks about Grant’s way with money, which is either frugal or tightfisted, depending on your perspective.

Grant comes across as independent, grounded, ambitious, in search of himself, intelligent, kind and empathetic, elegant.

It’s a great book for reading on the couch on a cold weekend. Interesting, engaging, a real pleasure to read all the way through. I recommend it for Cary Grant fans, anyone interested in movies, and to those who enjoy reading about the interior journey of a life, in this case I’d say a successful journey.

It’s hard to separate the quality of the book from what I learned about my schoolgirl crush, Cary Grant. I confess this is the first biography of him I remember reading, and certainly the first I’ve read through my current lens.

Cary Grant was not always a good person. In the past, I may have viewed him as a product of his time and given him a pass, but there’s a lot to ignore. I’m more likely to offer him grace based on his turbulent, traumatic childhood.

Regardless of how you feel about Grant’s attitudes and treatment of women (I will hereafter think of him as Mr. Spankypants), Scott Eyman has created a very readable account of his life, highlighting his achievements as well as his failures, largely glossing over (though he could have ignored it more) rumors of his homosexuality or bisexuality (in 2020, who really cares? and why is it any of anyone’s business?). I was fairly familiar with his body of work, so enjoyed learning more about his personal life, houses, style, etc. His insecurities are dealt with quite a bit, and he emerges as a rather sad person, until his final years.

I enjoyed this time travel back to midcentury Hollywood, though I preferred my unenlightened misconceptions about my old Hollywood idol. #CaryGrant #NetGalley

This thoughtful portrait of a man who became bigger than life yet at his core was like many of us; I found uplifting and almost impossible to stop reading. The subject -Cary Grant- is of course captivating, but I found the flow of the writing wonderful and a truly rewarding time reading. I will certainly leave this book strategically placed in my house for visitors to see. It’s a great one!

Overall an enjoyable bio which brings Cary Grant back to life as a human being rather than a movie star. The anecdotes are amusing and evoke a different era when Hollywood was more civilized and actors werent political buffoons ranting and pretending to be intelligent. My only complaints are that the author comes across as pompous and glib; as if he were the arbiter of good taste. His opinions at times are condescending. Then he can be mawkish and sentimental. There were friendships glossed over( Roz Russell) and others of lesser importance extolled over and over again. The same carelessness was evident in his bio of Stewart and Fonda. But a fun escape from this dreary 2020.

Scott Eyman has written the definitive biography of Cary Grant. Even more fascinating, he has done this with the elegance and grace that befits the unforgettable Mr. Grant. There is no one today who could replace this actor AND the man. Hollywood doesn’t exactly remind one of dignity and class in any age particularly this modern age. But it is wonderful to remember that there was a time in which a Cary Grant reigned. Mr. Eyman avoided the ugly and corrected the misperceptions so popular when writing about icons of the past. Every page of this outstanding book was a delightful revelation.
Thank you Mr. Eyman for telling the story of this actor who entertained audiences so elegantly and was a gentleman to the end.

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