WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.540 Welcome to the deep dive. So the man who basically 00:00:03.540 --> 00:00:06.719 invented the modern idea of Hollywood charm. 00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:09.720 Oh, absolutely. Right. The guy who literally 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:12.960 taught the entire world how a healthy, sparkling 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:15.480 romance should actually look on a movie screen. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:17.980 Yeah, the ultimate leading man. Exactly. Well, 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:19.940 he grew up believing his mother was dead only 00:00:19.940 --> 00:00:22.519 to find out over two decades later that she had 00:00:22.519 --> 00:00:25.359 actually been locked in an asylum by his own 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:28.140 father. It's just wild. It's mind blowing. So 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:30.750 today, for everyone We are not just talking about 00:00:30.750 --> 00:00:34.170 a movie star. We are deconstructing what might 00:00:34.170 --> 00:00:37.750 just be the ultimate psychological survival mechanism. 00:00:38.030 --> 00:00:39.609 Yeah, that's a great way to put it. We're looking 00:00:39.609 --> 00:00:42.549 at how a traumatized, impoverished boy named 00:00:42.549 --> 00:00:46.490 Archie Leach engineered this impenetrable armor 00:00:46.490 --> 00:00:49.369 made of pure charisma. And he called that armor 00:00:49.369 --> 00:00:52.189 Cary Grant. It really is the ultimate act of 00:00:52.189 --> 00:00:54.250 self -invention. I mean, when you picture Cary 00:00:54.250 --> 00:00:57.890 Grant, you imagine this custom tailored Savile 00:00:57.890 --> 00:01:02.149 Row suit. Yes. And a guy who just practically 00:01:02.149 --> 00:01:04.709 floats through life on this cloud of sophistication. 00:01:04.750 --> 00:01:06.730 Like he was just born that way. Right. Fully 00:01:06.730 --> 00:01:09.670 formed and completely unflappable. But the historical 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:13.670 record, it shows us a literal blueprint of how 00:01:13.670 --> 00:01:16.129 a person can construct an entirely new identity 00:01:16.129 --> 00:01:20.409 from scratch. Yeah. Primarily, he did it as a 00:01:20.409 --> 00:01:23.290 mechanism just to survive the absolute darkest 00:01:23.290 --> 00:01:26.030 circumstances imaginable. OK, let's unpack this, 00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:28.409 because to truly understand the sophisticated 00:01:28.409 --> 00:01:32.010 Cary Grant, we have to travel back to 1904. Back 00:01:32.010 --> 00:01:35.730 to England. Right. To a gritty, poor suburb in 00:01:35.730 --> 00:01:38.549 Bristol and really look at the deeply fractured 00:01:38.549 --> 00:01:41.370 world of Archie Leach. I mean, the contrast between 00:01:41.370 --> 00:01:44.730 his origins and his eventual persona is just 00:01:44.730 --> 00:01:46.750 staggering. It's almost unbelievable. His home 00:01:46.750 --> 00:01:49.069 life was essentially a baseline of continuous 00:01:49.069 --> 00:01:51.209 grief. Like his older brother, John, he died 00:01:51.209 --> 00:01:53.189 of gangrene before his first birthday, which 00:01:53.189 --> 00:01:55.969 is just a horrific, slow death. And his mother 00:01:55.969 --> 00:01:58.689 entirely blamed herself for it. Which just cast 00:01:58.689 --> 00:02:00.790 this massive shadow over the whole out. Oh, totally. 00:02:00.969 --> 00:02:03.010 Plus, his father was an alcoholic who was rarely 00:02:03.010 --> 00:02:05.890 present. And his mother, she suffered from severe 00:02:05.890 --> 00:02:09.490 clinical depression. It was a chaotic, profoundly 00:02:09.490 --> 00:02:14.150 unhappy environment for a kid. I mean, you have... 00:02:14.030 --> 00:02:17.150 A mother consumed by a grief she couldn't process, 00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:19.550 and a father seeking escape at the bottom of 00:02:19.550 --> 00:02:22.669 a bottle. Yeah. And then, when Archie was just 00:02:22.669 --> 00:02:26.289 nine years old, the pivotal trauma of his life 00:02:26.289 --> 00:02:29.530 actually happens. This part is just, it's so 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:32.789 heavy. It really is. His father placed his mother 00:02:32.789 --> 00:02:36.150 in a mental institution, Glenside Hospital. But 00:02:36.150 --> 00:02:38.409 he didn't tell Archie the truth. Right, he lied 00:02:38.409 --> 00:02:41.400 to his own son. Exactly. First, he told the nine 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:43.580 -year -old boy that his mother had gone on a 00:02:43.580 --> 00:02:46.900 quote, long holiday. And then later, he just 00:02:46.900 --> 00:02:48.719 simply claims she had died. Which is just an 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:51.259 unfathomable betrayal by a parent. I mean, imagine 00:02:51.259 --> 00:02:53.780 being nine years old and your anchor to the world 00:02:53.780 --> 00:02:56.340 just vanishes one afternoon. Right. And the only 00:02:56.340 --> 00:02:58.099 remaining parent looks you in the eye and flat 00:02:58.099 --> 00:03:00.419 out lies about it. Archie didn't find out his 00:03:00.419 --> 00:03:02.639 mother was actually alive until he was 31 years 00:03:02.639 --> 00:03:04.819 old. Which is crazy. Right. He was well into 00:03:04.819 --> 00:03:07.300 his Hollywood career by then. His later wife, 00:03:07.500 --> 00:03:10.060 Diane Cannon, summarized it perfectly. She just 00:03:10.060 --> 00:03:12.979 said his childhood was, quote, horrendous. And 00:03:12.979 --> 00:03:16.009 that trauma. You know, that sudden unexplained 00:03:16.009 --> 00:03:19.189 abandonment, it left this gaping psychological 00:03:19.189 --> 00:03:22.550 void. That void is the absolute bedrock of everything 00:03:22.550 --> 00:03:25.310 that follows. He basically spent the rest of 00:03:25.310 --> 00:03:29.310 his life trying to manage the sheer terror of 00:03:29.310 --> 00:03:31.949 being left behind. I'm struggling to reconcile 00:03:31.949 --> 00:03:34.909 this. You're telling me a kid whose mother was 00:03:34.909 --> 00:03:37.629 ripped away from him, a kid who had absolutely 00:03:37.629 --> 00:03:40.750 zero blueprint for human affection or a functioning 00:03:40.750 --> 00:03:44.590 marriage somehow invents the modern romantic 00:03:44.590 --> 00:03:46.830 comedy. It seems contradictory, right? It doesn't 00:03:46.830 --> 00:03:48.449 make any sense. I mean, it sounds like something 00:03:48.449 --> 00:03:50.370 straight out of the bleakest Charles Dickens 00:03:50.370 --> 00:03:53.129 novel. Usually that level of trauma produces 00:03:53.129 --> 00:03:56.169 a recluse or a hardened criminal or just someone 00:03:56.169 --> 00:03:58.430 completely closed off from the world. Yeah, that's 00:03:58.430 --> 00:04:00.719 the usual path. So how does someone the leap 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:05.120 to becoming this charismatic leading man? Like, 00:04:05.139 --> 00:04:06.979 what is the psychological bridge there? Well, 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:09.520 it's a brilliant question. And the bridge is 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:11.780 actually a desperate need for validation. If 00:04:11.780 --> 00:04:14.099 we look at his early drive toward the theater, 00:04:14.900 --> 00:04:17.100 it wasn't born out of some high -minded pursuit 00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:19.699 of art or, you know, love for Shakespeare. And 00:04:19.699 --> 00:04:22.660 he wasn't doing Hamlet. Exactly. It's an escape 00:04:22.660 --> 00:04:25.709 hatch. First, he physically needed to get out 00:04:25.709 --> 00:04:28.790 of a miserable house. Makes sense. But more importantly, 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:31.589 Grant himself later admitted that he was drawn 00:04:31.589 --> 00:04:33.990 to performing because of a deep -seated need 00:04:33.990 --> 00:04:37.290 to be liked and admired. Oh, wow. Yeah. When 00:04:37.290 --> 00:04:39.370 the unconditional love at home is suddenly erased, 00:04:40.009 --> 00:04:43.170 you seek a substitute. And for Archie Leitch, 00:04:43.399 --> 00:04:46.000 The substitute was the applause of an audience. 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:48.439 Because if they're clapping for you, they aren't 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:50.800 abandoning you. Exactly. That's the core of it. 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:53.439 And his escape route wasn't through, like, elite. 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:56.420 acting conservatory. No, not at all. He didn't 00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:58.779 study the Stanislavski method or anything. He 00:04:58.779 --> 00:05:01.779 literally built his way out through intense, 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:04.620 grueling physical discipline. Yeah, acrobatics. 00:05:04.779 --> 00:05:07.620 Right. At 14, he gets expelled from school, which, 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:09.860 by the way, historians strongly suggest he did 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:12.060 intentionally. Oh, almost definitely. Just so 00:05:12.060 --> 00:05:14.319 he could join the Bob Pender stage troupe. Right. 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.319 He became a Vaudeville acrobat. And this is a 00:05:17.319 --> 00:05:20.439 crucial distinction. He wasn't learning how to 00:05:20.439 --> 00:05:23.399 deliver a dramatic monologue. A tumbling. Yes. 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.560 He was learning pantomime, juggling, physical 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:28.279 comedy. He was learning how to fall down a flight 00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:30.319 of stairs and make it look funny without breaking 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:32.759 his neck. And he travels to the US with the troop 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:37.319 at age 16. And there is this amazing detail from 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:40.000 his transatlantic crossing on the RMS Olympic. 00:05:40.220 --> 00:05:43.199 The shuffleboard game. Yes. He actually plays 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:45.660 shuffleboard on the deck with Douglas Fairbanks. 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:48.139 The legendary silent film star. Right. Who was 00:05:48.139 --> 00:05:50.579 returning from his honeymoon at the time. And 00:05:50.579 --> 00:05:52.920 Fairbanks basically becomes his ultimate role 00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:55.899 model of American success. The blueprint. Exactly. 00:05:56.600 --> 00:05:58.579 So Archie decides to stay in America when the 00:05:58.579 --> 00:06:00.779 rest of the troupe goes back and he's hustling 00:06:00.779 --> 00:06:03.819 in Vaudeville. At one point, just to make ends 00:06:03.819 --> 00:06:06.980 meet, he is working as a stilt walker. On stilts. 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:09.399 Wearing a brake coat and a sandwich board at 00:06:09.399 --> 00:06:12.100 Coney Island. What's fascinating here is how 00:06:12.100 --> 00:06:15.220 this grueling blue collar vaudeville background 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:18.720 gave him absolute microscopic control over his 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:22.060 body. We watch Cary Grant on screen later in 00:06:22.060 --> 00:06:25.040 life and we just think his grace is a natural 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:27.480 inheritance. Like he was born moving like that. 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:30.699 But it wasn't. No, it wasn't. It was a highly 00:06:30.699 --> 00:06:34.199 tuned acrobatic performance. That famous cocked 00:06:34.199 --> 00:06:38.040 head, that specific, slightly ungainly, but elegant 00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:41.339 stride. Those were deliberate physical choices 00:06:41.339 --> 00:06:44.459 honed on Vagel stages, not at country clubs. 00:06:44.730 --> 00:06:47.569 I love thinking about him like a master watchmaker. 00:06:47.670 --> 00:06:49.670 Oh, that's a great analogy. Right. A watchmaker 00:06:49.670 --> 00:06:52.430 knows exactly what every single microscopic gear 00:06:52.430 --> 00:06:55.709 does inside the casing. Archie Leach knew exactly 00:06:55.709 --> 00:06:58.389 what every muscle in his body was doing at any 00:06:58.389 --> 00:07:00.709 given second. Exactly. Every single movement 00:07:00.709 --> 00:07:03.329 is calculated. It really explains why he stood 00:07:03.329 --> 00:07:06.230 out so much from the stiff, dramatic, highly 00:07:06.230 --> 00:07:08.990 theatrical actors of the 1930s. It was completely 00:07:08.990 --> 00:07:11.230 different. He had this dynamic agility. He was 00:07:11.230 --> 00:07:14.300 always in motion. And it wasn't just his even 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:16.720 his voice was a total invention. Oh, completely. 00:07:16.860 --> 00:07:19.660 He developed what we now call a transatlantic 00:07:19.660 --> 00:07:22.120 or mid -Atlantic accent. And a transatlantic 00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:24.439 accent isn't a real regional accent. No, not 00:07:24.439 --> 00:07:26.660 at all. Like, it's not like you go to a specific 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:28.620 town in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and 00:07:28.620 --> 00:07:31.100 people just naturally talk like them. No, it's 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:33.800 a completely engineered sound. Right. You see, 00:07:33.959 --> 00:07:36.180 in the early days of Hollywood, if you had a 00:07:36.180 --> 00:07:38.519 working -class cockney accent like Archie Leach 00:07:38.519 --> 00:07:41.899 did... you were immediately typecast. You played 00:07:41.899 --> 00:07:44.740 the brute. Right, the brute, the thug, or maybe 00:07:44.740 --> 00:07:47.300 the comedic relief butler. You never played the 00:07:47.300 --> 00:07:50.120 romantic lead. Right. So he systematically altered 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:54.180 his speech. He dropped the hard, rhotic Rs to 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:56.720 sound vaguely British and aristocratic. Okay. 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:01.319 But he flattened his As to sound American. It 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:03.800 was a purely practical survival mechanism. It 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:06.319 was a vocal mask so he could just book more jobs. 00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:08.160 Exactly. It wasn't about being pretentious. It 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:11.019 was about bypassing the rigid class system of 00:08:11.019 --> 00:08:13.819 the time. The accent, the walk, the char... It's 00:08:13.819 --> 00:08:16.899 literally all Archie Leach assembling the armor 00:08:16.899 --> 00:08:20.079 of Cary Grant piece by piece. And that same street 00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:22.720 smart hustle, that survival instinct he learned 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:25.579 walking on stilts at Coney Island, it didn't 00:08:25.579 --> 00:08:28.500 just make him physically agile. No. It made him... 00:08:28.250 --> 00:08:30.990 incredibly sharp in business. OK, here's where 00:08:30.990 --> 00:08:34.769 it gets really interesting, because he didn't 00:08:34.769 --> 00:08:38.370 just invent a persona. He revolutionized how 00:08:38.370 --> 00:08:41.190 the entire Hollywood machine operated. He really 00:08:41.190 --> 00:08:43.230 did. To understand this, we have to look at the 00:08:43.230 --> 00:08:46.590 1930s studio system. So he eventually signs with 00:08:46.590 --> 00:08:48.350 Paramount and they make him change his name. 00:08:48.370 --> 00:08:50.870 He actually suggests the name Kerry Lockwood, 00:08:51.009 --> 00:08:53.850 which is close. Yeah. But the studio executives 00:08:53.850 --> 00:08:57.350 ultimately settle on Kerry Grant. Anyway, he 00:08:57.350 --> 00:08:59.590 struggles for a bit in minor roles until Mae 00:08:59.590 --> 00:09:02.090 West actually demands him as her co -star. Or 00:09:02.090 --> 00:09:04.750 she'd done him wrong in 1933. Right, and that 00:09:04.750 --> 00:09:08.110 puts him on the map. But the massive, earth -shattering 00:09:08.110 --> 00:09:11.870 industry pivot happens in 1936. Grant becomes 00:09:11.870 --> 00:09:14.250 the very first freelance actor in Hollywood. 00:09:14.370 --> 00:09:17.289 Which is huge. He flat out refuses to renew a 00:09:17.289 --> 00:09:19.509 restrictive studio contract. We really need to 00:09:19.509 --> 00:09:21.769 pause and emphasize how unprecedented that was. 00:09:21.929 --> 00:09:25.230 Yeah. The studio system in the 30s wasn't like 00:09:25.230 --> 00:09:28.049 modern Hollywood. Not at all. Studios like MGM, 00:09:28.470 --> 00:09:30.750 Paramount, and Warner Brothers, they operated 00:09:30.750 --> 00:09:33.350 like feudal lords. If you were under contract, 00:09:33.570 --> 00:09:36.269 they literally owned you. They dictated your 00:09:36.269 --> 00:09:38.850 roles, your press appearances, who you dated. 00:09:38.850 --> 00:09:41.909 Who you dated. Yes, your entire public image. 00:09:42.409 --> 00:09:46.090 And if you refused a terrible script, they suspended 00:09:46.090 --> 00:09:49.590 you without pay. And because it was an oligopoly, 00:09:49.950 --> 00:09:52.549 no other studio would hire you. You were trapped. 00:09:52.830 --> 00:09:55.419 Completely. It was a walled garden. and actors 00:09:55.419 --> 00:09:58.899 were highly paid indentured servants. So by walking 00:09:58.899 --> 00:10:01.539 away from the guaranteed contract, Grant was 00:10:01.539 --> 00:10:03.960 taking a massive terrifying risk. He could have 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:05.820 been blacklisted. He could have been sent right 00:10:05.820 --> 00:10:08.080 back to Vaudeville. He essentially open -sourced 00:10:08.080 --> 00:10:10.779 himself. In a world where the studios were these 00:10:10.779 --> 00:10:13.860 massive closed -off monopolies like Apple or 00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:17.259 Microsoft today, Cary Grant made himself the 00:10:17.259 --> 00:10:19.299 independent software that every single studio 00:10:19.299 --> 00:10:21.700 desperately wanted to install. That's a perfect 00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:24.080 way to look at it. And his financial acumen was 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:26.539 just staggering. Because he was an independent 00:10:26.539 --> 00:10:28.679 contractor, he started negotiating for a share 00:10:28.679 --> 00:10:30.720 of the gross revenue for his films. Which was 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:33.059 completely unheard of. Right. Actors got a flat 00:10:33.059 --> 00:10:36.100 weekly salary back then. The idea of an actor 00:10:36.100 --> 00:10:38.379 taking a percentage of the box office profits 00:10:38.379 --> 00:10:41.700 was considered absurd by studio heads. The numbers 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:45.500 are mind blowing. Let's look at the 1955 movie 00:10:45.500 --> 00:10:48.460 To Catch a Thief. A classic. Grant negotiated 00:10:48.460 --> 00:10:51.320 10 percent of the gross. And gross is the magic 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:53.759 word in Hollywood. Oh, absolutely. That means 00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:56.639 first Dasha revenue before the studio hides the 00:10:56.639 --> 00:10:59.399 profits with their weird accounting tricks. He 00:10:59.399 --> 00:11:02.159 ended up making over seven hundred thousand dollars 00:11:02.159 --> 00:11:05.539 for that one film. Wow. Meanwhile, the director, 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:07.919 the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, who essentially 00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:10.700 created the film, made less than fifty thousand 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:13.539 dollars for producing and directing it. The disparity 00:11:13.539 --> 00:11:16.700 is insane. It is. And Grant later becomes an 00:11:16.700 --> 00:11:19.720 active board member for Fabergé and MGM. Oh, 00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:21.519 yeah. He was very involved. He wasn't just a 00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:23.519 celebrity figurehead smiling for the cameras. 00:11:23.580 --> 00:11:26.340 He was flying around the world, sitting in boardrooms, 00:11:26.500 --> 00:11:28.320 looking at balance sheets. He's a businessman. 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:31.299 But, you know, was this freelance move just about 00:11:31.299 --> 00:11:33.759 the money or was there a psychological angle 00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:36.220 here? Like, was it about fiercely protecting 00:11:36.220 --> 00:11:40.139 this Cary Grant persona he had built? Well, If 00:11:40.139 --> 00:11:42.940 we connect this to the bigger picture, it was 00:11:42.940 --> 00:11:45.620 entirely about control. You have to remember 00:11:45.620 --> 00:11:49.100 the traumatized nine -year -old boy who had absolutely 00:11:49.100 --> 00:11:53.419 zero control over his life, his home, or his 00:11:53.419 --> 00:11:57.879 family. By leaving the studio system, Grant took 00:11:57.879 --> 00:12:00.509 absolute control over his destiny. He could choose 00:12:00.509 --> 00:12:03.330 his directors, he sought out masters like Hitchcock 00:12:03.330 --> 00:12:05.750 and Howard Hawks, and he could perfectly curate 00:12:05.750 --> 00:12:07.830 his own image. He was the boss. He understood 00:12:07.830 --> 00:12:10.350 better than anyone that Cary Grant was a highly 00:12:10.350 --> 00:12:12.830 lucrative corporate brand and Archie Leach was 00:12:12.830 --> 00:12:15.429 the CEO. I love that. He wasn't gonna let some 00:12:15.429 --> 00:12:17.669 out -of -touch studio executive mismanage his 00:12:17.669 --> 00:12:20.029 life's work. Having that total control over his 00:12:20.029 --> 00:12:22.509 career allowed him to experiment. Because he 00:12:22.509 --> 00:12:25.450 was the boss, he created a completely new kind 00:12:25.450 --> 00:12:28.370 of leading man masculinity that totally subverted 00:12:28.370 --> 00:12:31.019 the macho tough -guy tropes of the era. Completely 00:12:31.019 --> 00:12:33.179 subverted them. Think about the other huge stars 00:12:33.179 --> 00:12:35.340 at that time. You've got John Wayne, Clark Gable. 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:38.620 Right. They were aggressive, domineering, traditionally 00:12:38.620 --> 00:12:41.899 hyper -masculine. Cary Grant goes in the complete 00:12:41.899 --> 00:12:44.600 opposite direction. He really does. He dominated 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:46.620 screwball comedies like bringing up Baby and 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:49.840 His Girl Friday, but he also took on these incredibly 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:53.100 dark, morally ambiguous roles with Hitchcock, 00:12:53.460 --> 00:12:56.629 like in Suspicion and Notorious. The renowned 00:12:56.629 --> 00:12:59.710 film critic Pauline Kael wrote a brilliant analysis 00:12:59.710 --> 00:13:02.230 on this exact dynamic. What did she say? She 00:13:02.230 --> 00:13:05.149 noted that Grant projected a non macho masculinity. 00:13:05.909 --> 00:13:08.129 She actually called him the most publicly seduced 00:13:08.129 --> 00:13:10.450 male the world has ever known. Which is such 00:13:10.450 --> 00:13:12.649 a fascinating way to phrase it. He's the one 00:13:12.649 --> 00:13:14.970 being chased. Precisely. He wasn't the aggressor. 00:13:15.029 --> 00:13:17.570 He was witty. He was receptive. And he often 00:13:17.570 --> 00:13:20.090 allowed the female leads like Katharine Hepburn 00:13:20.090 --> 00:13:22.990 or Rosalind Russell to drive the action and basically 00:13:22.990 --> 00:13:25.580 run circles around him. Yeah. Because he wasn't 00:13:25.580 --> 00:13:27.539 traditionally dominant, it actually made him 00:13:27.539 --> 00:13:30.360 more glamorous and far more desirable to audiences. 00:13:30.799 --> 00:13:33.220 It was a modern, egalitarian kind of romance. 00:13:33.539 --> 00:13:36.740 And he was constantly poking fun at himself. 00:13:37.159 --> 00:13:39.820 Like in his Girl Friday, he ad -libs a line where 00:13:39.820 --> 00:13:42.019 he's describing a terrible fate and he literally 00:13:42.019 --> 00:13:45.409 says, The last man who said that to me was Archie 00:13:45.409 --> 00:13:48.049 Leach, just a week before he cut his throat. 00:13:48.389 --> 00:13:50.970 That's brilliant. It's an inside joke with himself. 00:13:51.429 --> 00:13:54.169 And in Arsenic and Old Lace, there's a gravestone 00:13:54.169 --> 00:13:56.610 in the background that straight up reads Archie 00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:59.570 Leach. Oh, wow. I mean, here's a guy who is arguably 00:13:59.570 --> 00:14:02.210 the most handsome man in any room he walks into, 00:14:02.250 --> 00:14:04.509 but he's totally willing to play the near fool. 00:14:04.649 --> 00:14:07.669 Yeah. Look at leading men today. So many of them 00:14:07.669 --> 00:14:10.769 are terrified of looking silly or losing their 00:14:10.769 --> 00:14:13.809 cool on screen. They have clauses in their contracts 00:14:13.809 --> 00:14:15.710 about how many times they can be punched in a 00:14:15.710 --> 00:14:18.049 fight scene. It's true. Why wasn't Cary Grant 00:14:18.049 --> 00:14:20.049 afraid of looking ridiculous? Because he knew 00:14:20.049 --> 00:14:22.350 he was playing a character. His real ego wasn't 00:14:22.350 --> 00:14:25.129 on the line. Oh. When Cary Grant slipped on a 00:14:25.129 --> 00:14:28.070 banana peel or wore a ridiculous feathery robe 00:14:28.070 --> 00:14:31.090 in Bringing Up Baby. That robe is iconic. It 00:14:31.090 --> 00:14:33.450 is. Yeah. But it wasn't Archie Leach looking 00:14:33.450 --> 00:14:36.289 foolish. It was the avatar he created. Right. 00:14:36.289 --> 00:14:38.769 George Kukor, who directed him multiple times, 00:14:39.210 --> 00:14:41.389 noted that Grant's appeal was that he didn't 00:14:51.590 --> 00:14:58.889 That quote is so revealing. It's funny on the 00:14:58.889 --> 00:15:01.350 surface, but deeply melancholic when you sit 00:15:01.350 --> 00:15:04.710 with it. It really is. Because playing the flawless 00:15:04.710 --> 00:15:08.049 Cary Grant for decades took a profound psychological 00:15:08.049 --> 00:15:11.679 toll. When the director yells cut, who actually 00:15:11.679 --> 00:15:14.399 goes home. Right. The historical record shifts 00:15:14.399 --> 00:15:17.220 in his later years. And we see how the private 00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:19.299 Archie Leach was still trying to heal the wounds 00:15:19.299 --> 00:15:22.039 that his public persona couldn't fix. His personal 00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:24.659 life was incredibly complex. Very complex. He 00:15:24.659 --> 00:15:27.139 had five marriages, all ending in divorce, except 00:15:27.139 --> 00:15:29.799 for his final marriage to Barbara Harris. And 00:15:29.799 --> 00:15:31.679 his relationships were the subject of intense 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:34.259 public and biographical scrutiny. Naturally. 00:15:34.340 --> 00:15:36.259 He was searching for a stability he never had. 00:15:36.700 --> 00:15:39.200 For instance, he lived off and on for 12 years 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:42.440 with the actor Randolph Scott. Right, and biographers 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:45.129 and historians still heavily debate. this era 00:15:45.129 --> 00:15:47.590 of his life. They do. Some friends and Hollywood 00:15:47.590 --> 00:15:51.049 insiders insisted it was a deeply romantic relationship 00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:53.250 while his own daughter strongly maintains it 00:15:53.250 --> 00:15:55.830 was strictly platonic and flat out denies he 00:15:55.830 --> 00:15:58.230 was bisexual. Yeah, there's a lot of conflicting 00:15:58.230 --> 00:16:00.789 accounts. And he also lived early on with the 00:16:00.789 --> 00:16:03.809 costume designer, Ori Kelly. But regardless of 00:16:03.809 --> 00:16:05.850 which historical account you lean toward regarding 00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:08.809 the specifics of his romantic life, the undeniable 00:16:08.809 --> 00:16:11.649 through line is a deep inner turmoil. Absolutely. 00:16:11.789 --> 00:16:14.029 The mask was perfect, but the man wearing it 00:16:13.899 --> 00:16:17.620 was in pain. The trauma from his childhood and 00:16:17.620 --> 00:16:19.980 the repeated failure of his marriages weighed 00:16:19.980 --> 00:16:23.960 so heavily on him and in the late 1950s he takes 00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:26.500 a rather drastic step to confront this. Yeah 00:16:26.500 --> 00:16:29.000 this part blew my mind. He underwent around 100 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:32.000 sessions of LSD psychotherapy with a radiologist 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:34.980 named Mortimer Hartman. Okay so what does this 00:16:34.980 --> 00:16:38.100 all mean? We picture Cary Grant in that perfectly 00:16:38.100 --> 00:16:40.419 tailored suit, commanding a room with a martini 00:16:40.419 --> 00:16:42.519 in his hand. Right. And now we have to reconcile 00:16:42.519 --> 00:16:45.279 that image with him dropping acid in a doctor's 00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:48.279 office in the 50s. It sounds crazy today. How 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:50.679 does that even happen? Well, it's important to 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:53.000 understand the medical context of the late 1950s. 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:56.379 OK. This was long before LSD became a counterculture 00:16:56.379 --> 00:16:58.759 symbol associated with the 60s hippie movement. 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:01.960 Oh, right. Woodstock hadn't happened yet? Exactly. 00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:06.650 At this time, LSD was legal. and being explored 00:17:06.650 --> 00:17:09.670 in legitimate psychiatric settings, particularly 00:17:09.670 --> 00:17:12.569 among the Hollywood elite, as a potent tool for 00:17:12.569 --> 00:17:15.349 psychoanalysis. Interesting. The theory was that 00:17:15.349 --> 00:17:18.269 it could break down massive ego defenses and 00:17:18.269 --> 00:17:20.789 allow patients to access repressed childhood 00:17:20.789 --> 00:17:24.130 trauma. And Archie Leach had built the most fortified 00:17:24.130 --> 00:17:27.990 ego defense in human history, the Cary Grant 00:17:27.990 --> 00:17:30.960 persona. Precisely. He needed a psychological 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:33.660 sledgehammer to break through it. Does this show 00:17:33.660 --> 00:17:36.519 how desperate he was to finally merge the fractured 00:17:36.519 --> 00:17:39.400 Archie Leach and the perfect Cary Grant? I think 00:17:39.400 --> 00:17:41.799 it shows exactly that. He was exhausted from 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:44.440 playing the role. Grant credited these intensive 00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:46.960 sessions with literally saving him. Really? Yeah, 00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:49.299 he said it helped him, as he put it, wipe the 00:17:49.299 --> 00:17:52.059 slate clean. He realized he had been unconsciously 00:17:52.059 --> 00:17:54.200 punishing his wives for his mother's abandonment. 00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:57.589 Oh, wow. That's deep. He said he had to get rid 00:17:57.589 --> 00:18:00.529 of his own hypocrisy and vanity to find true 00:18:00.529 --> 00:18:03.349 happiness. And this raises an important question 00:18:03.349 --> 00:18:06.829 about the limits of success. Yeah. You can have 00:18:06.829 --> 00:18:09.109 all the box office gross in the world. You can 00:18:09.109 --> 00:18:11.769 have millions of adoring fans and you can have 00:18:11.769 --> 00:18:14.390 total financial control of your industry. But 00:18:14.390 --> 00:18:17.970 it's not a time machine. Exactly. None of that 00:18:17.970 --> 00:18:20.069 fixes the nine year old boy whose mother was 00:18:20.069 --> 00:18:22.869 inexplicably taken away. The applause couldn't 00:18:22.869 --> 00:18:25.460 cure the abandonment. And it seems his ultimate 00:18:25.460 --> 00:18:28.319 healing wasn't found on a movie screen or even 00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:31.339 in a doctor's office, but in stepping away completely. 00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:34.940 Right. At age 62, while still incredibly bankable 00:18:34.940 --> 00:18:38.299 and popular, he retired from acting. Cold turkey. 00:18:38.460 --> 00:18:40.539 He just walked away. He walked away from the 00:18:40.539 --> 00:18:42.859 empire he built to raise his only child, his 00:18:42.859 --> 00:18:45.539 daughter Jennifer. He stated clearly that creating 00:18:45.539 --> 00:18:48.059 another human being was vastly more important 00:18:48.059 --> 00:18:50.230 than making films that wouldn't last. And there 00:18:50.230 --> 00:18:52.470 is a poignant, almost heartbreaking detail about 00:18:52.470 --> 00:18:55.009 how he raised her. What's that? He built a bank 00:18:55.009 --> 00:18:57.849 -quality room -sized vault in his house to meticulously 00:18:57.849 --> 00:19:00.829 preserve the artifacts of her childhood. A literal 00:19:00.829 --> 00:19:05.529 vault. Every drawing, every toy, every report 00:19:05.529 --> 00:19:08.450 card was locked away and protected. See, that 00:19:08.450 --> 00:19:11.190 detail hit me so hard. Because the artifacts 00:19:11.190 --> 00:19:14.390 of his own childhood... His photos, his toys, 00:19:14.730 --> 00:19:16.910 his proof that he was once a boy with a family. 00:19:16.970 --> 00:19:19.670 They were destroyed during the World War II bombing 00:19:19.670 --> 00:19:23.430 of Bristol. His past was literally incinerated. 00:19:23.690 --> 00:19:26.730 So by building that vault, he was making absolutely 00:19:26.730 --> 00:19:29.569 sure that his daughter would never lose the physical 00:19:29.569 --> 00:19:31.910 proof of her early life, the way he lost his. 00:19:32.109 --> 00:19:34.950 He was finally able to be the present fiercely 00:19:34.950 --> 00:19:37.509 protective parent that he never had. The ultimate 00:19:37.509 --> 00:19:39.970 healing was taking off the Cary Grant mask for 00:19:39.970 --> 00:19:42.609 good, so he could just be a father. That's beautiful. 00:19:42.609 --> 00:19:44.309 He didn't need the world to love him anymore. 00:19:44.309 --> 00:19:46.490 He just needed to love his daughter. It makes 00:19:46.490 --> 00:19:48.710 you look at his entire life completely differently. 00:19:48.890 --> 00:19:51.849 Every suave smile on screen was a victory over 00:19:51.849 --> 00:19:54.430 an unbearable sadness. It really was. And bringing 00:19:54.430 --> 00:19:57.210 this back to you, listening right now, it really 00:19:57.210 --> 00:19:58.930 makes you think about the masks we all put on. 00:19:58.970 --> 00:20:01.069 Oh, definitely. Think about your work voice or 00:20:01.069 --> 00:20:03.029 that networking persona you project when you 00:20:03.029 --> 00:20:05.529 walk into a room of strangers. Or social media. 00:20:05.730 --> 00:20:08.319 Exactly. We curate our lives on social media 00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:11.279 to look unflappable. We all have a bit of our 00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:13.900 own Cary Grant that we engineer to hide our own 00:20:13.900 --> 00:20:16.960 archy leech insecurities. It's a universal human 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:19.319 defense mechanism. We all want to be perceived 00:20:19.319 --> 00:20:22.700 as competent and unbothered. Grant just executed 00:20:22.700 --> 00:20:25.420 that defense mechanism on a global cinematic 00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:27.880 scale with higher stakes than any of us could 00:20:27.880 --> 00:20:30.420 imagine. Exactly. He just happened to build a 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:32.799 mask so beautiful that the whole world fell in 00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:35.640 love with it. So we want to leave you with a 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:37.799 final thought to mull over today as you go about 00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:40.400 your routine. OK. Did Archie Leitch ultimately 00:20:40.400 --> 00:20:42.799 kill off his own trauma by literally becoming 00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:46.460 someone else? And if so, is creating a flawless, 00:20:46.940 --> 00:20:49.539 highly controlled persona the ultimate form of 00:20:49.539 --> 00:20:52.000 method acting? Or is it actually the ultimate 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.099 form of therapy? That is something that will 00:20:54.099 --> 00:20:55.700 definitely linger with you the next time you 00:20:55.700 --> 00:20:57.779 see him charming his way out of trouble on screen. 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:00.480 You're watching a master class in survival. Thank 00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:02.990 you for joining us on this deep dive. Next time 00:21:02.990 --> 00:21:05.470 you picture that civil rosu and that effortless 00:21:05.470 --> 00:21:08.410 charm, just remember the terrified acrobat underneath 00:21:08.410 --> 00:21:10.930 walking on stilts at Coney Island, trying with 00:21:10.930 --> 00:21:13.750 all his might to build a life. Take care, everyone.