Bristol still loves his beloved... Cary Grant

Funny Cary Grant still means so much to Bristol!! I guess it's because he left...

I do feel he's not the city's "most famous son" anymore nowadays; Banksy must be, except for those who still quote him as a Londoner (what?! I know, but surely you heard that too!) or... as an American!!! (I swear I heard it on a very prestigious radio...).

That does not mean Cary or Banksy are Bristol's FAVOURITE son however.

Or mine, for that matter :)

Though he's the closest person who almost shared my birthday date (January 19 anyone?)...

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Anyway, if you're a fan, you'll be able to enjoy this festival dedicated to his film in Bristol in July:

Cary Grant Festival programme revealed

Bristol's most famous son, Cary Grant (sorry Banksy), is celebrated in the third annual Cary Grant Comes Home for the Weekend festival next month. This includes screenings at venues as diverse as Avery's Wine Cellars, the Watershed and the new Everyman Cinema. The grand finale is a gala screening of the classic 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby at the City Museum and Art Gallery.

This year's event also runs alongside the Bristol Harbour Festival, offering an ideal opportunity to highlight the role Bristol's maritime heritage played in transforming young tearaway Archibald Leach into Hollywood icon Cary Grant.

The whole thing kicks off with a curtain-raiser screening of Hitchcock's Notorious at Avery's Wine Cellars on Friday, 8 July. Naturally, this includes a tasting of wines inspired by the film.

A special Cary Grant marquee in Millennium Square during the festival weekend of July 16/17 explores the great man's relationship with the city docks and allows punters to take the inevitable selfie with his statue, as well as offering the opportunity to buy a range of official merchandise.

“In his autobiography, Grant reveals that he spent many hours watching ships come and go from the harbour, dreaming of sailing away with them," says programme co-director Charlotte Crofts. "He also talks about the excitement he felt on making his first transatlantic crossing and of discovering that the film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were fellow passengers. So it’s perfect to have a celebration of his roots, life and work happening when the harbour is so lively: a wonderful chance for locals and visitors alike to find out more about one of the city’s most famous sons and enjoy some of the glamour of his world and times.”

The Everyman cinema has two screenings: a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wingson Saturday and the classic romantic weepie An Affair to Remember (co-starring fellow Bristolian Deborah Kerr) on Sunday.

On Saturday, the Watershed has two fascinating talks under the banner The Man from Dream City. In Kiss Him For Me: Cary Grant and Onscreen Love, Kathrina Glitre of UWE explores Grant's snogability with reference to his many leading ladies. And in an appetite whetter for the Sunday evening gala screening, Mark Clancy explores the making of Bringing Up Baby in Liberating the Leopard.

In a separate Watershed event on the same day, The Making of Becoming Cary Grant, Bristol filmmaker Mark Kidel unveils footage from his upcoming Cary Grant documentary and discusses the challenges of creating this new first-person insight.

If all that's not enough Cary Grant for you, there are also regular guided open-top bus tours of Bristol making special mention of places associated with Cary Grant (possibly not including the girls' toilets at Fairfield School, into which he once snuck, leading to his expulsion), as well as tours of the Bristol Hippodrome, where the young Archie got his introduction to showbiz. For further information and ticket details of all events see the festival's official website.

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The Cary Grant Timeline

The Cary Grant Comes Home for the Weekend festival has produced this fascinating timeline tracing young Archie's journey from Horfield to Hollywood.

1904:  A boy is born on 18 January at 15 Hughenden Road, Horfield, Bristol, and given the name Archibald Alexander Leach (shortened to Archie). He is the second but only surviving son of Elsie Maria (nee Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, his older brother having died in infancy.  His mother suffers deep depression as a result of the death of her firstborn and is considered over-protective of her new baby. By contrast, Archie’s father, a tailors’ presser, is rumoured to be a drinker and womaniser, possibly with illegitimate off-spring

1908: Young Archie becomes a pupil at Bishop Road Primary School, Bishopston and, briefly, at North Street Wesleyan Primary School, Stokes Croft, before transferring in 1915 to Fairfield Grammar in Montpelier. At Fairfield, he meets the science class assistant who will later take him on a life-changing trip into central Bristol. [B24/7 note: by now, Archie was living with his father and grandfather at 21 Picton Street.]

c1914:  Archie, now aged nine or 10, comes home to be told that his mother has gone away for a long seaside holiday and, later, that she is dead. In fact,  Elsie has been committed to the Bristol Insane Asylum (now part of UWE’s Glenside Campus) where, unknown to her son, she will remain for the next 20-odd years. 

c1917:  Because Archie shows such an interest in electricity, a part-time teacher and electrician takes him to see the lighting system he has installed at the newly-built Bristol Hippodrome theatre. Archie is captivated and begins working at the theatre after school as a backstage ‘gofer’. Here, he meets Bob Pender who runs a travelling troupe of knockabout comedians and at 14 leaves home to join the troupe.

1920:  At 16, Archie is still with the troupe when it enters the USA via Ellis Island for what turns out to be a successful run on Broadway and tour. At the end of the two-year visit Archie opts to stay in the States and the name Archie Leach starts appearing on vaudeville bills and in the cast lists of Broadway plays and musicals. 

1931:  With several Broadway credits now on his CV, Archie decides to head for Hollywood and is signed by Paramount Pictures. The studio insists, however, on a change of name. Archie’s first suggestion is Cary Lockwood – a character he’d played on Broadway - but while the studio accepts ‘Cary’, it asks for a different surname: enter, Cary Grant.  Later, his birth-name will crop up in the dialogue of His Girl Friday. It also appears on a gravestone in Arsenic and Old Lace.

1932:  Cary Grant gets his first major screen credit as co-star to Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus.  His performance is liked by Mae West who casts him in her 1933 film She Done Him Wrong, which she also wrote. The film is a Box Office smash, gets nominated for an Academy Award and sets Cary Grant towards becoming a Hollywood favourite. In all, he appears in more than 70 films before retiring after Walk Don’t Run in 1966.

1935: Archie’s father Elias dies in Bristol and the lie that has held since 1914 is shattered when Archie discovers that his mother remains alive in a local hospital for the mentally ill. A reunion swiftly follows, Archie arranges for his mother’s release and when she declines to join him in the States, he buys her a house in upmarket Westbury Park, Bristol, and visits her often from then until her death in the private Chesterfield, Hospital in 1973, aged 96.

1939:  Following the outbreak of WW2, Archie tries to join the British Navy but is ruled too old.  He may, however, have become a British spy - possibly reporting on Nazi sympathisers in Hollywood and possibly recruited by his friends Noel Coward &/or Ian Fleming both of whom definitely did work for the British Intelligence service.

1942:  Archie Leach becomes a US citizen and adopts Cary Grant as his legal name.  He also marries one of the world’s richest women, Barbara Hutton, earning the couple the nickname ‘Cash & Cary’. Hutton is his second of his five eventual wives (and Grant the fourth of her eight husbands!).

1947:  King George V1 presents Cary Grant with the King’s Medal for his services to the British war effort and for his gifts to war relief funds. Grant’s donations include his entire earnings from The Philadelphia Story.

1962:  After his performance in Notorious reportedly inspires Ian Fleming to create his debonair spy James Bond, Grant is the first actor asked to portray 007 on screen. But he turns the role down, saying he is too old to commit, as required, to a series. The Bond films franchise goes on to exceed all expectations and by coincidence benefits at least three other former Bristol residents: the locally-trained actors Caroline Bliss, Samantha Bond and Naomie Harris who all appear in different Bond films as Miss Moneypenny.

1965:  Now aged 61, Cary Grant gains his fourth wife: 28-year-old Dyan Cannon (later to earn an Oscar nomination for her role in Bob & Carol, Ted & Alice).  In 1966, Cannon makes Grant a father for the first time when she gives birth to a daughter, Jennifer. Grant then announces his retirement from film to concentrate on parenthood. Ironically, fan sites claim that a photo on a desk in his farewell film Walk Don’t Run is of Grant’s own parents, Elsie and Elias Leach.

1966:  The luxury goods and cosmetics firm Faberge appoints Grant as a director and brand ambassador, with access to the company’s private jet. Grant starts using the plane to drop in on his Mum and visit favourite places in around Bristol. His Faberge work keeps him in the public eye, as does his support for various good causes and his attendances at some very high-profile funerals including that of Princess Grace of Monaco.

1970:  After decades of failing to bestow a main prize on Grant’s many nominated films and roles, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally gives Grant a special Oscar for ‘his mastery of the art of screen acting’.

1974: Arriving in a British-style double decker bus, Grant unveils a plaque in New York’s Bristol Basin commemorating that the foundations of the city’s East River Drive are built from the remnants of buildings destroyed in WW2 bombing raids on Bristol - the Bristol Blitz – which was later taken to New York as ballast for ships. A duplicate plaque stands near the Bristol Harbourmaster’s office.

1986:  Cary Grant embarks on an international tour of a one-man show. Would it have come to Bristol and perhaps to the Hippodrome? No-one will ever know because just before the show’s 37th performance, in Iowa, on November 29, the 82-year-old suffers a cerebral haemorrhage (stroke) and dies.

2001: A life-sized bronze statue of Cary Grant sculpted by Graham Ibbeson is unveiled in Millennium Square by Grant’s fifth wife and widow, Barbara.

2014: The first Cary Grant Comes Home festival takes place and attracts visitors from as far afield as Australia and the USA with a programme of events which includes a gala double bill at Bristol Hippodrome, the theatre where young Archie Leach caught the acting bug as a lad.