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!'”
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.
Loving but Strict
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.
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.
The Value of Money
Although the rumors claim that Grant was famously cheap, his daughter refutes the claim. She says, “I always found him generous to a fault but he wasn’t reckless with his money, which was rather rare in Hollywood. He’d grown up with nothing and he wasn’t about to fritter it all away".
"His attitude was he knew he could walk into any shop and buy whatever he wanted. He just didn’t have to. That taught me the proper value of money.”