Alexis Smith and Cary Grant

Came into the world as Archibald Leach. Cary Grant. Born January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, UK Died November 29, 1986 in Davenport, Iowa, USA (cerebral hemorrhage) Birth Name Archibald Alec Leach Height 6' 1½" (1.87 m) Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant," Grant is said to have replied, "So would I." Cary Grant was born Archibald Alexander Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s). He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62. One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In To Catch a Thief (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, North by Northwest (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco. Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM. Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963). - IMDb Mini Biography By: Dale O'Connor Spouse (5) Barbara Harris (11 April 1981 - 29 November 1986) ( his death) Dyan Cannon (22 July 1965 - 21 March 1968) ( divorced) ( 1 child) Betsy Drake (25 December 1949 - 13 August 1962) ( divorced) Barbara Hutton (8 July 1942 - 30 August 1945) ( divorced) Virginia Cherrill (9 February 1934 - 26 March 1935) ( divorced)

Alexis Smith Biography Born June 8, 1921 in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada Died June 9, 1993 in Los Angeles, California, USA (brain cancer) Birth Name Margaret Alexis Fitzsimmons-Smit Height 5' 9" (1.75 m) Statuesque, smart Canadian-born Alexis Smith, with her blue/green eyes and a seductively husky voice, lent a touch of class to her leading ladies of the 1940s and 1950s. After her family moved to California, Alexis grew into a precocious talent, performing ballet in public by the age of thirteen, dancing to 'Carmen' at the Hollywood Bowl. She later graduated with a degree in drama from Los Angeles City College, having previously won an acting contest whilst still in high school. During a performance of a play on campus, she was spotted by a Warner Brothers talent scout and signed to a contract in 1941. Until the early 1950s she was paired with the top male stars in Hollywood, including Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden and Bing Crosby. While often simply decorative (as, for example, in Of Human Bondage (1946) and Stallion Road (1947)), stylishly attired by costume designers like Milo Anderson and Helen Rose in the most glamorous gowns, Alexis also proved to be a capable and spirited actress, in spite of relatively few opportunities to break out of the mold of "the other woman". At the beginning of her career the studio's publicity department touted Alexis, much to her chagrin, as the "Dynamite Girl". While she claimed in later years to have typecast herself, and that few of her assigned roles ever challenged her on any level, Alexis frequently enjoyed good critical reviews for many of her performances (she was also popular with directors and film crews, who appreciated her relaxed, professional manner on the set). To begin with, she was cast in two films with Errol Flynn (she would make a total of four films with him): Dive Bomber (1941) and the boxing drama Gentleman Jim (1942). Though decidedly second fiddle to both the action and the charismatic Flynn, Alexis made a good first impression as the fetching romantic interest. Her next performance, in The Constant Nymph (1943) opposite Charles Boyer, was described by a reviewer as an "intelligent rendition". Her biggest hit of the mid-1940s was as Cole Porter's wife in the inaccurate--but hugely successful--biopic Night and Day (1946). She also appeared in two "noir" films with Humphrey Bogart at his most menacing: the interesting and underrated Conflict (1945) and the excellent The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947). As Clark Gable's wife in the gambling drama Any Number Can Play (1949), she was critically lauded as "genuinely appealing". In between there were also some conspicuous failures, in particular her somewhat stolid performance in the period drama The Woman in White (1948). She had little to do in Here Comes the Groom (1951) and The Turning Point (1952) and her best part in the 1950s, though small, was that of Carol Wharton in The Young Philadelphians (1959). During the 1960s Alexis took a sabbatical from the screen to appear on stage with her husband, actor Craig Stevens (her marriage, a rare Hollywood success, lasted 49 years) in "Critic's Choice", "Cactus Flower" and "Mary, Mary". She reserved her best acting for the stage, becoming the Tony Award-winning star of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Follies", in which she played Phyllis during the 1971 run on Broadway (which landed her on the cover of the May 3 issue of 'Time' Magazine) and at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles in 1972. In 1973 she played Sylvia Fowler in a revival of Clare Boothe Luce's "The Women" and was nominated for another Tony for her leading role of Lila Halliday in "Platinum" in 1979. On television Alexis was seen infrequently from the mid-'50s, sometimes appearing on the same show opposite her husband. She had a recurring role as the homicidal Lady Jessica Montfort in Dallas (1978) during the 1984 and 1990 seasons, and was nominated for an Emmy for a guest-starring role on Cheers (1982). It was fitting, or perhaps ironic, that her last film role, in The Age of Innocence (1993), was as a New York socialite, a type of character she had portrayed frequently in her heyday at Warner's.