Cary Grant’s fourth wife is not the only one to have published a book about her time with the actor. His daughter Jennifer, who was with Grant for the last twenty years of his life, also wrote about their relationship in her 2011 memoir, ‘Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father’.
She speaks freely about his loving nature but also about his strict stands on certain things, specifically makeup. Grant believed that women should not wear makeup and she recalls that she once got into big trouble when her father found eyeshadow in her room.
His Road to Stardom
Cary Grant came from humble beginnings. He was born in Bristol, England under the name Archibald Leach. He began performing and moved to the U.S., where he made a name for himself as a performer. It took him a few years, but he eventually went on to become one of Tinseltown's brightest stars. He acted side by side with some of the biggest names in an era that has since become known as the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Despite being nominated, Grant never won an Academy Award for any of his roles, but he did receive an honorary Oscar for his lifetime achievements. Although Grant has the ultimate rags to riches story, his life behind the camera was not exactly a fairytale.
Living in the Past
To the public, the legendary actor always seemed on top of the world, but for Grant, acting was his way to escape the problems that he had faced when he was a child and was still dealing with as an adult. At the age of 31, Grant found out that his mother, whom he believed dead for over twenty years, was actually alive and had been in a psychiatric hospital in England the entire time.
After his third wife, Betsy Drake, broke things off, Grant sought help from a psychiatrist who encouraged him to take recreational drugs. He felt that the drugs were beneficial, and thanks to them, he “went through rebirth” and confronted his issues. The actor even left the doctor who was treating him $10,000 in his will.
Trick or Treat
Jennifer recalls a story that shows just how committed Grant was to being in her life. On one Halloween when she was growing up, her father rented a house in the neighborhood where she was trick-or-treating so that he could see her in her costume and hand her some candy.
She says, "At the time ... I was embarrassed, I think, by the extent of his love and devotion to me. So I just sort of ran up and got the candy and gave him a hug and left. It's moments like that that I look back on — and I regret those moments. I wish I'd just sat down and said, 'Oh, thank you Dad!'"
Meticulous Father
After Cannon and Grant were divorced, he was dedicated to not missing anything in his daughter’s life. Grant then began meticulously keeping a literal fireproof vault that held photographs, audiotapes, letters and Super 8 films, all carefully labeled.
It was important for him to keep this archive because all of his records were destroyed in the bombings of WWII. He left this collection to his daughter and she believes that it has helped her understand him better as a father.