It’s September and now that the kids are back in school, we are taking this opportunity to learn more about the one and only Cary Grant.
Born Archibald “Archie” Leach in Bristol in 1904, he got his start working for a magician and eventually joining a traveling troupe that brought him to the US at age 16. (Source) That led him to the vaudeville circuit and then to a series of unsuccessful stage plays until he was cast as the romantic lead in Nikki opposite Fay Wray. That role led to the movies and he made his feature film debut in 1932’s This Is the Night. Over the next decade he worked with Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Irene Dunne, and Katharine Hepburn. In 1941, Cary Grant earned his first Oscar nomination for Penny Serenade, and first worked with the legendary Alfred Hitchcock.
To kick off our month of Cary Grant, this week we’re starting with his first Hitchcock film, Suspicion from 1941. As our co-host Lauren Humphries-Brooks explains, “Suspicion is probably the most contentious for casting Cary Grant as a maybe-murderer who falls under suspicion from his wife (Joan Fontaine, who won an Oscar for her portrayal).”
Grant stars as Johnnie Aysgarth, a charming but perpetually broke gambler who meets Fontaine’s Lina in a first class compartment on a train. When he can’t pay the fare, she helps him out, unwittingly inviting danger into her life. She marries Johnnie before learning he expects to live off her income and eventual inheritance. But when that turns out not to be the pay out he was hoping for, Lina’s suspicions grow as she starts to think her husband might murder her for the life insurance.
