Cary Grant: The man we thought we knew

I idealize them. Every woman I meet, I put up there, because the longer I know her, the better I know her. It's hard to keep them up there. Yes, it is. Pretty soon the pedestal wobbles, and then topples. He was, as they say, central casting for a leading man, full of confidence, charisma, and charm. But that image of actor Cary Grant was carefully crafted by Cary Grant himself. Seth Doan dropped by the set of a new series on a true legend of Hollywood. You're Cary Grant. No, I'm not Cary Grant. But he wasn't Cary Grant either, is the point. Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want Cary Grant, but I'm not. I'm this slut here. Actor Jason Isaacs is portraying one of the best-known stars of the silver screen. But it turns out there was plenty audiences did not know about this debonair actor. Cigarette? No, thank you. He was in more than 70 films, yet his biggest role may have been playing Cary Grant, a name, a persona he created. I know, I look vaguely familiar. Yes. You feel you've seen me somewhere before. Mm-hmm. Funny how I have that effect on people. Hollywood's leading man was, in fact, an Englishman born into poverty and named Archibald Leach. His odyssey is the subject of a new series. Thank you. Okay, guys, can we have you back on set? Yeah. He invented Cary Grant. Cary Grant was a character to save him from himself, to build a career, and to try and exercise his demons. It's part of my therapy. Why do you need therapy? There's a lot about me you don't know, Diane. We were on set last year in Spain as they were shooting Archie, which is out this week on the British streaming service Britbox. In his early career, Cary Grant was the master of screwball comedies and a light romantic leading man. Jeff Pope is the writer and creator of the series. And then Alfred Hitchcock spotted something in him and cast him in very dark thrillers. He's got a knife, look out! Listen to me, I had nothing to do with this. This story explains what it is that Alfred Hitchcock saw. It's a thriller, a real-life thriller. You don't think of the life of Cary Grant as being a thriller? No, no, you don't. You do think of him, you know, as this incredibly suave, who's my mum's favourite movie star. There he is. And there he is now. Like that. While Jason Isaacs was playful on set, he told us it was serious work delving into Grant's character off screen. He was a private man. He was an incredibly private man. In fact, one of the hardest things was trying to work out what he spoke like. You can't find a recorded interview with him anywhere. He was born in Bristol, England. His father was said to be abusive and an alcoholic and committed his wife to an asylum, telling the young Archie she was dead. Leach made his own way to the US and into show business. Have you ever spoken any lines? Not yet. I've mostly done vaudeville, you know? Tumbling and stuff. But I'm willing to give it a try. What accent have you got, kid? English. I'm from Bristol. OK, thank you. Next. So when he was a young actor in New York, trying to make it, he was told he'd never make it with that accent. And he ended up with this thing that he's trying to sound American. His speech patterns on screen are almost always exactly the same. They weren't in life, of course. You know, you spill a hot coffee on someone's lap, they don't go, oh, that's a rather hot coffee. He wasn't that thing. He worked really hard at being that thing in public. And what we're showing is who he was when he shut the front door. Did you know of this person, Archie Leach? No. I didn't. Actor Diane Cannon was Cary Grant's fourth wife and mother of his only child, Jennifer. Both are producers of the series. Did Cary Grant play Cary Grant at home with you? Did he ever let that facade down? Oh, sure. Yes, he did, of course. Real people have emotions. He had a very tough boyhood. He was abandoned, felt left alone, unloved, unneeded, unwanted, deprived. Shall I go on? All those things. And, of course, who we came to know as Cary was this magnificent, gorgeous, leading man. A personality that never stopped. He was so graceful. And what a gorgeous body. And he never exercised. It used to really tick me off. And he looked great with no clothes on, I will tell you. You make a lot of people envious. Eat your heart out. Tell me about the women in your life. You want to have this pushover? I am. I hope not. One of the scenes they were shooting when we were with them in Malaga was the scene where your character, or you, are confronting Cary Grant with the rumors of him being gay. You write about it in your book. I think early on in Palm Springs, I said to him, you know, I hear these rumors, are they true? And I never saw any indication of it. And as far as I know, Cary was faithful to me when we were married. That wasn't the problem. Fear was. What do you mean by that? Fear that he would be abandoned. Fear that he would not be loved. Grant was a star by the time he learned his mother was actually alive in England. You're Cary Grant. Not to you, Mom. Just to Archie. But the world only really ever knew him as Cary Grant. He would retire from acting, becoming, by all accounts, the doting father he never had. Grant died in 1986 at age 82. I enjoyed playing him in his 80s a lot. He was a very different man. When he stepped away from the limelight he thought was sustaining him, I think he found out how little good it was doing him. It reminds me how complicated we all are to delve deeply into anyone's life like this. Even the people who seem to have everything we want.