Cary Grant (52 page)

A
fter the divorce Grant reverted to his reclusive ways, this time to avoid the opinions of everyone in the press and at his favorite watering holes as to why his marriage to Betsy Drake had failed. As usual, everyone both in print and out got it wrong. The majority insisted on making Drake a victim, even though it was she who had, publicly at least, initiated the divorce and come out of the marriage financially secure for the rest of her life. Grant was peeved that instead of focusing on her new-found freedom and wealth, publications like
Time
magazine chided him for being able to buy his way out of every bad marriage, claiming he had so much money he could join NATO. Discussion of his Jack Benny–like cheapness, a favorite topic of the press, never failed to make him wince.
Time
concluded its piece by insinuating that “he also has virtually every nickel he has ever earned.”

He took it as one more tired replay of the old “Cash and Cary” wisecracks that had plagued him ever since his second marriage to the heiress Hutton. It didn't help that he was, in truth, a notoriously stingy tipper, the surest way to turn any waiter into a press informant; or that he would give autographs only if the fan who requested one, even a child, paid him a twenty-five-cent
fee, money he claimed he saved up and gave to charity but actually pocketed for himself; or that he only took two hundred dollars with him to the Hollywood Park Race Track, which he always jokingly referred to as “a day at the races,” and he placed only two-dollar bets—“because,” he loved to tell anyone who asked, “they won't take a dollar-fifty. I've tried.”

Rather than continuing to read about himself every day in the gossip columns, Grant took to watching nightly series television, which is where he first laid eyes on actress Dyan Cannon. He was in bed early one Wednesday night, watching a 1961 TV series he liked called
Malibu Run,
which ran opposite NBC's
Wagon Train,
one of the top-rated shows in the country. Grant had no interest in the western, preferring Malibu to the old Chisholm Trail. This night he could not take his eyes off the young blond beauty guesting on the show. Dyan Cannon had been cast by the series producers off a Hollywood-produced daytime soap after they couldn't get Elizabeth Montgomery for the part.

After a few minutes Grant reached for his pad and made a note to call Stanley Fox and have him track Cannon down and offer her a part in his next film. The next day Fox found her agent, Adeline Gould, who told him that Cannon was, at the moment, making a picture in Rome. Fox said he wanted to set up a meeting between her and Grant “immediately,” something Gould said could be arranged if Grant was willing to buy Cannon a round-trip firstclass air ticket. Fox went to Grant, Grant said no, Fox went back to Gould, Gould said fine, Grant could see her when she returned. The fifty-eight-yearold actor then had to wait several weeks before a face-to-face meeting with the twenty-three-year-old Cannon could be arranged.

It finally happened at his small bungalow office at Universal. Even though Grant had left the company, every movie he had produced and starred in since
Operation Petticoat
was, by prior arrangement, distributed by UniversalInternational, which was also the distributor of his next film with Stanley Donen. Grant no longer cared who distributed his movies, or much about anything having to do with them. He had even closed down Grandon Productions (although he agreed to consider any acting parts on a film-to-film basis). Despite its enormous success, Grant no longer wanted to do anything except show up, say his lines, and go home. Donen then made a new deal with Universal that included Grant's continued use of a small office for both him and Grant—rent free, of course.

This is how Cannon remembers that first meeting with Grant: “I had just returned from Rome, where I had been subsisting on pasta and meatballs and having a glorious time. A very important Brazilian was in love with me… anyway, I went over to the Universal lot and my agent said, as long as we are here, let's go over and say hello to Cary Grant. Cary had seen me in a TV show and wanted me for a part in a movie. I said okay, and we spent about an hour and a half in his office. No mention of the picture he had wanted me for. And then when we walked out, I said to myself, I'm ready to die! I've met this gorgeous man, and if I die tonight my life is complete.”

During the meeting Grant never brought up any film roles for Cannon, and after an hour and a half he cordially ended it. That night, however, he could not get the young and beautiful actress off his mind. The next day he called and asked her for a date. Cannon said yes, then called back and said no. He waited, then called, she said yes again, then called him back and said no. This went on until she finally agreed to have dinner with him. Cannon: “Cary called me the next day and we made a date, and I broke it. We made eight dates, and I broke them all. Something told me not to go. The ninth time he called me, two hours before we were to meet for lunch, and said, ‘You may not know it, but I'm a very busy man. I'm shooting a film. We've made a date, why don't you just keep it?’ So we had lunch, and when it was over, we shook hands, and I thought, well, I've had a dreamboat date with Cary Grant. The next day was for dinner, and he brought me home, and then outside the house I asked him to kiss me goodnight. I had never asked a man to do that. The next morning, at 8:15, my phone rang, and it was Cary saying he wanted me to turn on my radio to a station he wanted me to listen to. The program was called
Unity
and it was all about positive thinking. After that, every morning he would call me, and we'd listen to this program together. That's how it all began.”

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Samille (after her grandfather Sam) Diane Friesen, the daughter of a Baptist insurance broker and a Jewish mother, began her show business career as a singer at the Seattle reform temple. The five-foot-five blonde, nicknamed “Frosty” by her friends, attended the University of Washington, took a course in drama, entered a pageant, and won the Miss West Seattle title. She dropped out after two years and moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actress. Her first jobs were as a showroom
model, for which she earned $49.50 a week, and a beautician at Slenderella. In 1960, after going on hundreds of auditions, Samille was having lunch one day at Villa Frascati with two girlfriends when one of their boyfriends, assistant producer Mike Garrison, who happened to be producer Jerry Wald's assistant, promised to set up an audition for Samille with Wald.

Garrison kept his promise. Wald liked what he saw so much that he decided to invest in her future. He changed everything about her, even renaming her Cannon because he thought it sounded explosive, and got her her first real audition at 20th Century–Fox, for the title role in a planned upcoming
Harlow
bioflick. The audition did not go as well as either of them had hoped. Recalled Cannon, “I bombed right in front of Wald.” (The movie was postponed until 1965, with the part eventually going to Carroll Baker.)

Wald continued to push Cannon, and soon she was getting dozens of small parts in TV shows and B movies, most notably as Dixie in Budd Boetticher's feature
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond.
Made and distributed by Warner Bros., the film disappeared quickly, but not before Cannon caught the eye of film critic Pauline Kael, who described her performance as “comic-pornographic.” The mention by
The New Yorker
's film critic was enough to launch Cannon into the middle-time, where she was treading career water until summoned by Grant to his office at Universal.

They started dating immediately. Later on, Cannon would tell interviewers that she quickly became “smitten” with Grant and before long took to staying overnight at the house on Beverly Grove, where she quickly became familiar with his two primary idiosyncrasies—the way he liked to watch TV all the time and how he constantly urged her to “dress down,” to wear less makeup and perfume, which he said he disliked on women, and to let her hair “go natural.”

All the while Grant was being pursued by Jack Warner, who had just paid an unprecedented $5.2 million for the rights to
My Fair Lady,
the smash Broadway musical by Lerner and Loewe. For such a prestigious (and expensive) production, Warner decided that neither Rex Harrison nor Julie Andrews, the show's original stars, was big enough. As far as he was concerned, only Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn could ensure the film's financial success. To that end Warner approached Hepburn, offering her $1.1 million to play Eliza Doolittle. Hepburn, however, was hesitant to sign on,
and with good reason. Julie Andrews had become a legitimate show business phenomenon because of
My Fair Lady,
and everyone had assumed she would repeat her performance in the movie. Warner's bypassing of Andrews caused an uproar, and because of it Grant was reluctant to try to replace Rex Harrison, who happened to be a good friend of his. After months of pursuit by Warner, Grant officially passed on Warner's $1.5 million offer, telling him, “No matter how good I am, I'll either be compared with Rex Harrison, and I don't think I'll be better than he is, or I'll be told I'm imitating him, which isn't good for him, or for me. And not only will I not do it, but if you don't hire Rex, I won't even go see it.”

As was often the case, Grant had other, more private motives for turning down what would have likely been an Oscar-winning performance. To begin with, he still had an unusual British accent with cockney nuances that would have made him a laughingstock, as he naturally tended to sound closer to Eliza than Professor Higgins. Another reason was his longstanding refusal to play any part that too overtly reflected the circumstances of his real life. He was, at the moment, playing Higgins to Cannon's Eliza, mentoring her in everything from what she wore around the house to what roles she should play, who she should meet and be seen with, which parts she should take, and which she should turn down. The last thing he wanted to do was to attract any attention to the nature of their relationship, most notably the thirty-five-year difference in their ages, which he was sure everyone would misinterpret, or to have anyone interfere with the way he saw his relationship with Cannon—as a kind of dress rehearsal for fatherhood.

Rex Harrison went on to play Higgins, opposite Audrey Hepburn, and won the 1964 Best Actor Oscar.
^*

Later that fall Grant and Cannon flew to New York, where they checked into Grant's permanent suite at the Plaza. Cannon was scheduled to begin rehearsals for her Broadway debut in the comedy
The Fun Couple,
while Grant intended to work with the writers and Stanley Donen on
Donen's
Charade,
a pseudo-Hitchcockian thriller based on Peter Stone's original
Redbook
magazine short story “The Unsuspecting Wife.” Donen, with Grant's approval, had signed Audrey Hepburn as his costar, prior to her commencing work on
My Fair Lady.

In
Charade,
young Regina Lampert (Hepburn) returns home to Paris after a brief holiday in the French Alps to find her home ransacked, her husband murdered, and a quarter-million dollars in stolen money missing. Peter Joshua (Grant), a mysterious middle-aged man she met on her trip, suddenly shows up and offers to help solve the mystery. Meanwhile, three former associates of the late Mr. Lambert who had been involved in the acquisition of the stolen money also show up wanting their share. It is not until the end of the film that the mystery of who is who and what is what is solved, allowing Grant and Hepburn to live, presumably, happily ever after.

After a few weeks in the city working with the writers, Grant, unhappy about having to leave Cannon, reluctantly took off for Paris, the film's shooting locale. She promised to join him for the holiday break in her rehearsal schedule. True to her word, the day after Christmas she took a red-eye to France and spent the next several days alone with Grant in his Paris hotel suite. That New Year's Eve she and Grant were the guests of Audrey Hepburn and her then-husband, Mel Ferrer, at the castle they owned on the outskirts of Paris, where they dined on baked potatoes smothered with sour cream and caviar and drank expensive French champagne until dawn. Both would later remember that week as one of the most romantic they ever spent together. Two days later, on January 2, Cannon flew back to the States to resume playing her role on Broadway, while Grant stayed on to continue work on the film.

During production Grant took a weekend off and traveled to Bristol, and this time he was able to convince Elsie, who had just turned ninety, to check into a nursing home, all expenses paid, after promising he would keep the house in her name should she ever want to return to it. Just before he left for Paris, she told him to dye his hair. It was too white, she said, and if he didn't do something about it, he'd never find a suitable girlfriend.

Charade
opened at Radio City Music Hall on Christmas Day 1963, the twenty-sixth Cary Grant picture to open there. Despite mixed reviews, the film took in more than $170,000 in its first week of release. Nevertheless, it was hard to avoid the age factor. Critic Andrew Sarris wrote the inevitable emperor-has-no-clothes review, in which he said that while the film had its moments and was “consistently better than ordinary without ever being extraordinary,” it had “a plot that smelled of red herrings [and] the saddest news of the year is that Cary Dorian Grant is finally beginning to look his age.”

Grant agreed. Watching himself onscreen in
Charade
convinced him that he was simply too old for the kind of movies audiences wanted to see him in, no matter how much they were willing to pay for that privilege.

Not long after, the “pluperfect leading man,” as critic Charles Champlin described Grant, found himself at a Malibu party for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, watching Shirley MacLaine frugging with Nureyev to a rock quartet in the host's living room. “I don't know,” Grant said. “When I dance with a girl I like to hold her. That's the pleasure of it.”