So was he bi, gay or just the victim of constant rumors that amounted to nothing?
In the 2022 biography 'Cary Grant A Brilliant Disguise By: Scott Eyman' towards the end a conversation was recorded. It was between CG and some other (the name escapes my elder-brain) during which CG said something along the lines of 'I started out sleeping with men, then men and women, then ended up only sleeping with women'. Also recorded were the words of the delightful Dyan Canon 'I don't know where the gay rumours started- we fucked all the time'! Make of these as you will.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | March 17, 2023 1:58 PM |
All the modern biographers agree he was bi for real, but had issues in relationships with both men and women.
Probably Grant's happiest relationship was with Randolph Scott, when they were old they'd occasionally be seen out in Hollywood, holding hands under the table. But Grant kept trying to make it work with women, but it never worked, presumably his heart wasn't in it even if his dick was.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | March 17, 2023 3:29 PM |
Which biographers, r2?
by Anonymous | reply 3 | March 17, 2023 4:34 PM |
They were so handsome together. The perfect gay power couple.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | March 17, 2023 5:53 PM |
OP, the latter
by Anonymous | reply 5 | March 17, 2023 5:55 PM |
Both Carleton Carpenter and Dick Sargent said Grant hit on them when they were young actors starting out
by Anonymous | reply 6 | March 17, 2023 5:57 PM |
Cary Grant was a "victim" of nothing except the insane side of his beautiful genes and his own peevish, self-obsessed, cheap-ass vacancy.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | March 17, 2023 6:12 PM |
Well, someone has an ax to grind…..
by Anonymous | reply 8 | March 17, 2023 9:27 PM |
I read some of that book R1. I didn't finish it because Grant was revealed to be increasingly unappealing. And I'm a fan! It was interesting to see, in the beginning of his movie career, how he invented "Cary Grant" by copying other men, Douglas Fairbanks JR., Leo McCarey, who directed an early hit The Awful Truth. He created a very successful persona, which didn't really change for the rest of his career.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | March 17, 2023 9:56 PM |
As a young man, Archibald Leech chipped an upper central incisor and had it removed at a dental college. He had the upper teeth slowly squeezed together to fill the hole.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | March 18, 2023 5:48 AM |
He was a mincing fairy and everyone knew it.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | March 18, 2023 5:56 AM |
Jesus fucking Christ he was gorgeous—
Missing smashed in teeth and all.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | March 18, 2023 5:59 AM |
^^ he really was. The very definition of a movie star.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | March 18, 2023 6:50 AM |
Gay gay gay.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | March 18, 2023 8:12 AM |
A fucking homo.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | March 18, 2023 8:13 AM |
[quote] Cary Grant was a "victim" of nothing except the insane side of his beautiful genes and his own peevish, self-obsessed, cheap-ass vacancy.
What do you mean by 'vacancy'?
by Anonymous | reply 16 | March 18, 2023 8:22 AM |
For some reason though no one gets me hornier than a young Marlon Brando. I am not sure if there was anyone hotter than him at his prime.
And this thread reminds me of the crazy homeless guy in NYC who used to go around shouting - "I Fucked Tony Curtis up the Ass!" He was so insistent it makes you half-wonder if he did.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | March 18, 2023 8:41 AM |
Orlry-Kelly, the openly gay Hollywood movie clothing designer, was Cary Grant's roommate in NYC and sometimes lover. (This was in the late 1920s) . He wrote a tell-all autobiography not to be published until after his death. He names names and brings the receipts. I'm pretty sure you could take his anecdotes to the bank. I think Cary Grant was probably bisexual with a more pronounced feeling for men, but super ambitious and protective of his reputation, hence his marriages to women. He was a fine looking man who stayed good looking into old age. I think the biggest love of his life was Randolph Scott, and I'm sure that their relationship was broken up by their respective agents for the sakes of their careers. I think there's a deep sadness in the back of Cary Grant's expressions, even in all the zany comedies he made in the 40s and 50s, but even more so in his more serious films (see stills from Affair to Remember below) . If you can possibly get your hands on it, watch the documentary made about Orry-Kelly's life., called "Women he's undressed" , made in 2015.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | March 18, 2023 9:05 AM |
I don’t know, honey. He never sucked my dick.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | March 18, 2023 9:33 AM |
So OP had no ideas but had to post something, anything. So OP rehashes this dreadful beaten-to-death topic. So this is very DL.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | March 18, 2023 10:12 AM |
He's very beautiful for an Englishman. Very swarthy.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | March 18, 2023 10:19 AM |
I wouldn’t take Orry-Kelly’s word on anything.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | March 18, 2023 10:22 AM |
Too right, R22, he was an Oirishman.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | March 18, 2023 10:26 AM |
Cary Grant was beautiful and sexy, he had the best of both worlds, he lived a long life, left a legacy of wonderful films, he certainly had immense sex appeal into old age, he was still cute to the very end. .. :-)
by Anonymous | reply 24 | March 18, 2023 10:37 AM |
He had a very dysfunction childhood from what I remember reading. Wasn't his mother committed to an asylum because of mental health problems?
by Anonymous | reply 25 | March 18, 2023 12:10 PM |
An older friend of mine spoke to him in a gay sauna in London back in the late 70’s.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | March 18, 2023 12:44 PM |
He's extraordinarily handsome, but for me, not at all sexy. There's no sexual heat from him. Compare him to his contemporaries; Clarke Gable, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, Spencer Tracy, men you can actually imagine getting sweaty in bed. Grant is sort of blank. No sexual heat with a lot of his co-stars, ok, maybe Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, but usually on screen Grant is sort of passive or neutral.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | March 18, 2023 12:48 PM |
R27I6 Yes, you are right. What is the word - dispassionate?
by Anonymous | reply 28 | March 18, 2023 12:49 PM |
Total fag.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | March 18, 2023 12:52 PM |
Mel Brooks tells a funny story about him in a documentary. That he showed up at his bungalow at one of the studios wanting to have lunch, and Mel couldn’t believe THE Cary Grant wanted to spend time with him. Then he showed up again the next day, and Mel was pleased. By the 3rd day he was hiding so he didn’t have to go to lunch again. The implication was all Cary did was talk about himself, and he wasn’t that interesting.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | March 18, 2023 12:59 PM |
Interesting comment, r27, i find him very attractive but completely get what you mean, and maybe that was the secret of his success, a cerise aloofness, an inability to let himself go. To me he is at his sexiness as the repressed professor in Bringing Up Baby.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | March 18, 2023 12:59 PM |
^certain, not cerise, or maybe both
by Anonymous | reply 32 | March 18, 2023 1:00 PM |
I am going to be at the hotel he stayed at before he died, and is rumored to haunt. I will ask him then.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | March 18, 2023 1:33 PM |
I’d grant Cary anything he wished.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | March 18, 2023 2:21 PM |
R25, the story I remember from a biography I read is that he was born out of wedlock to a dirt-poor married man and a mentally unstable woman. When he was a baby, his father brought him home to his wife, and basically told her that she had to bring up his bastard from an affair, and Cary/Archie didn't find out that his "mother" wasn't his biological mother until he was an adult, until then he'd never understood why she was utterly cold to him. He reportedly found out in the late 1939s, and there was tension on the set of "Gunga Din" because Victor McLaglen was anti-semitic and pro-Nazi, and Grant now knew his biological mother had been Jewish.
Grant kept his family secrets, and took care of the adoptive mother who'd treated him badly for as long as she lived, and continued to visit her like a dutiful son. Ajnd nobody will ever know if that was because he was motivated by a sense of duty or family feeling, or because it would have been bad for his image if he hadn't.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | March 19, 2023 4:07 AM |
Stop this hate. He ate cunt. Not boy ass.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | March 19, 2023 4:18 AM |
[quote] he certainly had immense sex appeal into old age
No, it ended in 1956.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | March 19, 2023 4:22 AM |
Very handsome and charismatic. And obviously gay.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | March 19, 2023 5:24 AM |
Yes, R39, as 'obviously gay' as Rock Hudson and George Nader and George Maharis.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | March 19, 2023 5:42 AM |
Barbara Hutton said he was her only husband that loved her, and the only one who didn't ask for money in a settlement.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | March 19, 2023 6:47 AM |
Cary Grant wore women's underwear to avoid a visible panty line, no straight man would do that
by Anonymous | reply 42 | March 19, 2023 7:51 AM |
R27, I feel the same way. Impossibly handsome, especially in the late '30s and '40s, but utterly lacking in sex appeal. He may have been the horniest man in Hollywood in real life, but on screen he came across to me as someone who could take or leave sex,. There's no smolder.
In a totally different class, but as a similar example: I had the same reaction to Tom Selleck as Magnum PI. I should have thought he was hot. He was everything I like physically, but somehow he seemed almost sexless. The funny thing is I've seen Selleck in a couple of pre-Magnum roles (The Washington Affair, Daughters of Satan), and he's pretty sexy. I guess it was the Magnum role that didn't turn me on ...? That and his lightweight voice. Couldn't stand his voice.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | March 19, 2023 11:28 PM |
Agree R43. He was charming but if you want a screen man of sex there's no one more masculine sexy than Sean Connery.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | March 20, 2023 1:58 AM |
He was a mess playing a throughly obnoxious pseudo-intellectual in this throughly pretentious movie.
The trailer suggests it's to be a comedy but he's playing an egomaniacal whacko-guru like Frank Lloyd Wright or John Harvey Kellogg.
The movie is as painful as Mankiewicz at his worst.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | March 21, 2023 7:50 AM |
[quote]his own peevish, self-obsessed, cheap-ass vacancy.
R7 nails it. Beyond his terrific acting skills and Hollywood persona, he was a nightmare of a classic, self-obsessed, selfish luvvie.
[quote]He wrote a tell-all autobiography not to be published until after his death. He names names and brings the receipts.
R18 clearly hasn't read Orry-Kelly's book at all. It's the very opposite of a tell-all. Very discreet.
In his autobiography Richard Blackwell, the fashion figure who was actor at RKO as 'Dick Ellis', said he'd slept with both Grant and Scott, preferring the latter. Jerome Zerbe, who took the now famous publicity photos of Grant and Scott in their house, also said he'd had them both. Zerbe's photo archive was purchased by the gay Koch brother and donated to Yale.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | March 21, 2023 8:00 AM |
[quote] Richard Blackwell … said he'd slept with both Grant and Scott.
OK, I can top that. I slept with Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington!
by Anonymous | reply 47 | March 21, 2023 8:05 AM |
Gay or Just British?
by Anonymous | reply 48 | March 21, 2023 8:06 AM |
The solid Scotty Bowers also said he'd fucked them both. So lots of people in Hollywood knew the score, but the bullshit overrides everything. A lot of later biographers rely on the generally solid Charles Higham without acknowledgement.
As for Darwin Porter and Boze Hadleigh – I wouldn't trust a word written by either. The latter's Wikipedia entry is constantly rewritten to hide mention of disputable aspects of his work.
Below is the link to Blackwell's biography with the entry on Grant and Scott.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | March 21, 2023 8:13 AM |
Def bi at the very least.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | March 21, 2023 8:18 AM |
Effortlessly charismatic. Hollywood is utterly charmless today.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | March 21, 2023 10:43 AM |
Here is a bit of the documentary, with many excerpts of Orry-Kelly's writing mixed in with analysis, interviews, and discussions with others.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | March 22, 2023 4:43 AM |
He and Gene Kelly would sing in the rain
by Anonymous | reply 53 | March 22, 2023 5:04 AM |
I read somewhere years back that Grant could have been a great executive at the studios had he chosen to pursue that at any time. He was an incredibly sharp operator and knew what he was doing with complex contracts. He got the better of some of the toughest negotiators in the business in his time.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | March 22, 2023 5:23 AM |
R10. Cary Grant chipped a front tooth so he had it REMOVED and had the rest of his teeth squeezed together so you couldn't tell?!! Wasn't there anything easier to do?
by Anonymous | reply 55 | March 22, 2023 5:39 AM |
Jennifer Grant apparently knows of all her fathers' love affairs before she was born when he was 62!
by Anonymous | reply 56 | March 22, 2023 7:55 AM |
He was handsome but had zero sex appeal.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | March 22, 2023 1:18 PM |
"with many excerpts of Orry-Kelly's writing"
Nope. Not at all. If you check the memoir you'll see they made a shitload up to suggest that a very discreet memoir was anything but. I don't doubt Grant and Kelly were sometime fuck buddies, but I hate it when original non-fiction material is 'nudged' for dramatic purposes.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | March 22, 2023 2:24 PM |
Jennifer Grant, speaking with The Guardian on her father's rumored past: "Perhaps earlier in his life he had an affair [with a man]. I’ll never know, but if he did, fantastic. I hope he enjoyed it.”
by Anonymous | reply 59 | July 6, 2023 12:42 AM |
Gay and gorgeous and Jewish. He was forced to marry women and have a child to preserve his professional career.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | July 6, 2023 12:45 AM |
He was a great movie star who starred in classic films
by Anonymous | reply 61 | July 6, 2023 12:46 AM |
He was a classic pussy hound.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | July 6, 2023 12:53 AM |
R2 story of my life.
by Anonymous | reply 63 | July 6, 2023 12:55 AM |
I think the LSD was all about trying to reprogram himself as a heterosexual man. Part of me suspects that Morrissey has tried something similar.
by Anonymous | reply 64 | July 6, 2023 12:58 AM |
Handsome as fuck his whole life.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | July 6, 2023 12:58 AM |
I'd jump into that pool with my clothes on. I wouldn't hesitate.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | July 6, 2023 1:31 AM |
Randolph Scott looked like he was hung like a horse.
by Anonymous | reply 68 | July 6, 2023 1:34 AM |
Hottest and most attractive couple of all time. No one more attractive.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | July 6, 2023 1:42 AM |
Grant’s daughter Jennifer wrote a good book in their relationship. She readily admits dad was bi.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | July 6, 2023 2:07 AM |
*of their
by Anonymous | reply 72 | July 6, 2023 2:07 AM |
R71, That’s quite different from what’s quoted at R59.
by Anonymous | reply 73 | July 6, 2023 2:09 AM |
I was starting to read a bio of him, but he was so troubled and nasty, especially to the women he married it was a very unpleasant read. Frankly he seemed completely disordered. It is a wonder he was so professionally productive for so long.
by Anonymous | reply 74 | July 6, 2023 2:13 AM |
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott - A Love Affair
"Cary Grant's 'friendship' with the devastatingly handsome Randolph Scott was remarkably open and fairly candid in the dangerously oppressed 1930s.There were several photo shoots for the fan magazines of the two 'merry bachelors,' who for several years shared a beach house in Santa Monica, as well as a mansion in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, which was commonly referred to in the press as 'Bachelor Hall,' both before, during, and after their seven marriages to women they had seven between them. The photos included in this article, are just a few of the many that exist, where it so perfectly clear that they were much more than just 'roommates.' It's obvious that they shared a great love and were just about the most physically gorgeous couple in Hollywood history."
by Anonymous | reply 75 | July 6, 2023 2:13 AM |
I just can't watch Randolph Scott. He's so unattractive. I don't get him at all.
by Anonymous | reply 76 | July 6, 2023 2:18 AM |
Mae West's story about casting him in his first role is interesting...
by Anonymous | reply 77 | July 6, 2023 2:22 AM |
Randolph Scott is devastatingly gorgeous. Are you thinking of someone else entirely, R76?!
by Anonymous | reply 78 | July 6, 2023 2:22 AM |
Nope R78. And I find lots of old Hollywood guys to be sexy and gorgeous. But Randolph Scott is like a dried up old leaf.
by Anonymous | reply 79 | July 6, 2023 2:32 AM |
Randolph Scott was a beauty on par with Errol Flynn. Stunningly beautiful.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | July 6, 2023 2:35 AM |
I think it's the lack of lips. I like lips on a man. And blond guys are not usually as good-looking as their darker fellows.
by Anonymous | reply 81 | July 6, 2023 2:48 AM |
r76 = Helen Keller
by Anonymous | reply 82 | July 6, 2023 4:20 AM |
Randolph should have played Ashley in GWTW.
by Anonymous | reply 83 | July 6, 2023 4:40 AM |
R81 must be into blacks and Latinos and those whose features resemble them.
by Anonymous | reply 84 | July 8, 2023 2:49 PM |
"......Spencer Tracy, men you can actually imagine getting sweaty in bed."
Was Spencer Tracy ever sober long enough to fuck anybody?
Say what you want about CG, he had the good sense to turn down the '54 version of "A Star is Born" since he didn't want to get involved with all of Judy's excess baggage and drama. (though the official version was Grant was then travelling extensively with his wife at the time).
by Anonymous | reply 85 | July 8, 2023 3:13 PM |
I’d never heard the Dick Sargent comment from upthread.
RESEARCH FINDINGS:
Sargent spoke about Cary Grant, with whom he made two films with. They went on several dates, but they didn’t have sex. According to Sargent:
“[Grant] hated being alone. He liked being around good-looking men. In fact, I heard all his secretaries were good-looking young men. He was indeed very closeted, but he didn’t avoid you if you were a good-looking guy, the way some others will. I was just thrilled to be socializing with Cary Grant. It was the two of us, we’d go out together, then we’d talk, but nothing else.”
by Anonymous | reply 86 | July 8, 2023 4:47 PM |
From R86’s link:
[quote] Even the show’s lead, Montgomery, was an avid, enthusiastic activist for LGBTQ Rights.
What bullshit. I’m sure she advocated for GAY AND LESBIAN rights, yes, but “LGBTQ” was not a thing then. The T hadn’t even been added, let alone the Q. Fuck these people and their revisionism.
by Anonymous | reply 87 | July 8, 2023 5:06 PM |
That was already posted at R59, R88.
by Anonymous | reply 89 | July 8, 2023 6:01 PM |
Most of the really beautiful people are bi to some extent
by Anonymous | reply 90 | July 8, 2023 6:14 PM |
Both Cary and Grace Kelly had very cool sex appeal. In To Catch a Thief they pulled it off - there was chemistry.
But Hitchcock liked the actresses with a sexy coolness.
by Anonymous | reply 92 | July 8, 2023 6:20 PM |
[quote]Say what you want about CG, he had the good sense to turn down the '54 version of "A Star is Born" since he didn't want to get involved with all of Judy's excess baggage and drama.
Huh? I'd say that was a total missed opportunity for Grant's career! He easily would have snagged a Best Actor nomination and would likely have won. Grant seemed a bit older than James Mason and would have been an even more pathetic Norman Maine, imo. I'm sorry he didn't have the smarts to accept the job.
by Anonymous | reply 93 | July 8, 2023 6:25 PM |
At a certain point, after you've achieved monumental success, you don't need to take any movie role. You do what you think will be fun.
Some actors never succumbed to the mystique of the Oscar. It didn't define their career, they'll tell you.
by Anonymous | reply 94 | July 8, 2023 9:37 PM |
His daughter insists that he was heterosexual, despite evidence to the contrary…
by Anonymous | reply 95 | July 8, 2023 11:42 PM |
[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]
by Anonymous | reply 96 | July 8, 2023 11:43 PM |
Weird how Grant’s daughter has alternately denied her father’s bisexuality and also celebrated him for being bisexual or at least trying homo-sex at least once.
What will she say tomorrow about it?
by Anonymous | reply 97 | July 8, 2023 11:48 PM |
She’s just as flaky as her mother.
by Anonymous | reply 98 | July 8, 2023 11:53 PM |
Well, having a father who was bisexual is not exactly like having a father who was a rocket scientist. I suppose people feel a little embarrassed about admitting it out loud. I'm not sure if Laurence Olivier's children have bragged about their father's bisexuality in print, or Leonard Bernstein's. In the case of these latter two, at least other people have been pretty forthright in spilling details, but the people who knew Cary Grant were more discreet.
by Anonymous | reply 99 | July 9, 2023 9:28 AM |
R1, It was wife Betsy Drake who questioned all the gay rumors because they were “always fucking”.
by Anonymous | reply 100 | July 9, 2023 10:08 AM |