Cary Grant On Threshold Of Stardom

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 186, 3 May 1940, Page 5

Cary Grant On Threshold Of Stardom

Knockabout Trouper Since He Was 13

/ ’ARY GRANT, after a film debut that was not very promising, is now on the verge of becoming one of the screen’s most oiitstamiing stars. His life, though he is only 32 years old, has been one completely HHed witli incident.

AT 13 Cary Grant started his knockabout life as a trouper. He is English by birth, his birthplace being Bristol, but at 15 be was a comedian at the Hippodrome, New York. At 17 he became a singing juvenile in England. At 21 he was playing leads in Broad way musical and at 25 was in Hollywood appearing only in featured roles on tire screen. He had yet to be “discovered.”

Looking at Cary Grant quite dispassionately it does not seem that there really is any reason why he should be on the verge of stardom. He does not at all iit in with any. accepted formulas and that is probably why. He started off in comedy for Paramount, and played with Roland Young and Lili. Damitta, which was not very helpful for a beginner. Miss Damitta, being a “temperamental actress,” gave the lad the wrong ideas, it is said. Then Mae West took a liking to him and be played opposite her twice. Then he was given dare-devil roles for a couple of years, and also he was the hardhearted Pinkerton in "Madame Butterfly.”

That is where he stood in 1035. He decided,. therefore, to become a free lance, and has done very much better for himself. He started off well with “Sylvia Scarlett” starring Katharine Hepburn. He was worthy of the characters Compton McKenzie had created. He was' bubbling over with Cockney assuredness- What had before been stodgy conceit was now charming.

Grant had found an opportunity to show his sense of humour. It is impossible to understand how Katharine Hepburn ever came to give him up in favour <u Brian Ahearn —though she has been back to him lately in two pictures, her last in Hollywood to date. The soldier whom Grant created in “Gunga Din was great because he was real, despite the unreal events about him. Grant is now under contract to Columbia and has been for about two years. He made .“Holiday” for them with Katharine Hepburn and Dew Ayres, and he was really good as the young man who could not understand why people made money. Also in "The Awful Truth” with Irene Dunne he was excellent because the role suited him. It suited bis personality and his sense of humour. He ean play lightheartedness and dramatic seriousness with ease as in "In Name Only” and "Only Angels Have Wings.” Grant is one of the actors in Hollywood who certainly deserve congratulations for the way in which he has progressed. He has travelled a long road since the days when he was merely’ a handsome ornament in a Mae West vehicle. Currently screening in New Zealand is “His Girl Friday,” stars Cary Grant, and gives him an opportunity once more to show his devil-may-care attitude to the world. Opposite him is Rosalind Russell. The Grant vehicle now in production at the Columbia studios is a story of old America entitled “The Tree of Liberty” and costars Joan Fontaine with Grant.