The Eric Metaxas Show - Scott Eyman (Encore)

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

Discover all the intriguing details of one of America's best-loved leading men from Scott Eyman, the author of the definitive biography, "Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise." (Encore Presentation)

Hey there, folks. As you know, I have written a number of big biographies. I'm kind of a fan of the form. I'm also somebody who loves classic Hollywood. I'm a devotee of Turner Classic movies, and that would lead you to believe that I love Carrie Grant. That's where you would be wrong. Actually, no, I forgot. I do love Carrie Grant. Which Carrie Grant? With the one, you know, that married, Diane Cannon or the one that started with May West. My goodness, he had such an amazing career. What a wonderful thing to have a new biography about Kerry Grant. It is titled A Brilliant Disguise. And the author who has written many other wonderful books is with us now. Scott Eymann. Scott Eamon, welcome to the program. Hey, Eric, good to be here. Well, look, I already get the joke from the title, you know,

Carrie Grant, a brilliant disguise. Didn't he famously say something along the lines? It must be tough being Carrie Grant all the time. And he said, you know, yeah, I'm not or something like that. The point is the line was everybody wants to be Carrie Grant, even I want to be Carrie Grant. Right. So let's start where I often start when I'm talking to authors of books.

What led you to write this particular book? You wrote a wonderful book on John Wayne. And on, you've written many books. By now, you were the literary critic for the West Palm Beach newspaper. What led you to write a big book at this time on Kerry Grant? Well, because it's worth the price of the ticket, there are only a limited number of actors of the 30s and 40s who have any particular currency in the 21st century.

Let's be realistic. Because most actors are actually more like fashions than they are anything else. They belong to a specific period. And once that period evolves, they sort of evolve out of public favor as well. Actors have shelf lives as big stars. They may continue to go on in lesser form. But as big stars, there's a there's a synchronicity with the time and the period in the audience that most actors have. And then there are exceptions, people like Gary Grant, people like John Wayne.

and I whenever I'm circling a subject I basically read everything that's been written about that person and I thought Kerry Grant was ill-served frankly by his biographers if anybody really had anybody really nailed it I would have backed off because there's no point in being redundant spending three or four years of my life to be redundant nobody wants to do that it's actually a joy to speak to if I may say a fellow biographer because you've just described precisely what it's is that I do when I pick my subjects for my biographies. You know, there are people, I wrote about Martin Luther, the great reformer. And so many people said, oh, you've got to write about Calvin.

You've got to write about, and I thought, no, no, no, you don't understand. There's just one Martin Luther, one larger than life figure about whom people are, you know, telling these folk tales unto this day. So when you look at somebody like Carrie Grant, there are so many people that were in the movies that he was in that you don't hear about anymore. Nobody's doing a big biography on Franklin Pangborn or on Ann Southern or all these folks that were just huge names in their day. I mean, not so much Franklin Pangborn.

But the point is that there were these people that were very popular. And suddenly they're gone. There was no bigger star in the period we're talking about than Clark Gable. Clark Gable was the king of Hollywood. And I don't think Clark Gable has any particular currency in the 21st century. You're right. The reason being that he only made a couple of really good movies. You know, he made it happen one night, gone with the wind, the misfits.

And then there's a lot of second and third string movies because he was an obedient company man who did basically what MGM wanted him to do. And also there's his personality, which is, I think, I suspect a little cocksure for modern audiences that like a little bit more doubt in their movie stars, a little more equivocation. 10% more Hugh Grant. Well, that's not the case with John Wayne, though. I guess he's a different story. Maybe we can talk about him in a moment. But when you talk about Kerry Grant and juxtapose him, as you just did with Clark Gable, are you suggesting that Carrie Grant chose his roles differently, that he was willing to buck the studio system? Well, he had a, he separated himself from the studio system very early. He had in 1930s. six, he leaves Paramount Pictures where he was under contract since the end of 1931 to go freelance. And he stayed freelance essentially for the rest of his career. He had a one picture a year deal at Columbia and a one picture a year deal at RKO if they gave him a script he wanted to do.

And the rest of the time, he was picking and choosing his own projects. I guess I wasn't aware that was even possible in those days. Who else was able to- It was if you were willing to take the risk. Uh-huh. See, that's the key thing. Most actors are broke for a long creative time until they make it. You know, they're impoverished.

It's not an easy life being an actor. It's not an easy life being a writer either, but actors have a more romantic aura of poverty. But once they hit it, the studios would offer them a seven-year contract. That's a long time for financial security, you know, when you're used to making 75 bucks a week in stock companies or something. So most actors in that period took the deal. they took the deal, in return for which they basically had to do what the studios wanted,

unless they became such big stars that they had actual leverage over what they would do, like James Cagney did at Warner Brothers and Betty Davis did at Warner Brothers. Then you have a little running room, a little room in the aisle. Otherwise, basically, they handed out scripts like playing cards, and you were expected to show up on Monday and start working. Grant and a few other people separated themselves from that. Ronald Coleman separated themselves from that. Dunn separated Earthself from that.

Claudette Colbert as well. There were certain elite group of actors who were very self-aware and self-possessed and willing to take a certain amount of risk that other actors weren't willing to take. Is Irene Dunn the one who married Thalberg? No, that's Norma Scher. I always

do that. What a crime to confuse Irene. No, it's not a crime. It's not a crime. Well. Irene Dunn was a brilliant comedian who worked beautifully with Carrie Granite for Leo McCarrie, basically, my favorite wife and Yeah. Well, okay, so what was Kerry Grant's breakout hit? Was it bringing up baby? Is that what brought him, stardom initially? It's a couple of pictures. It didn't happen overnight. He was a kind of generic leading man at Paramount, and they didn't quite know what to do with him. He's obviously gorgeous. But in his early pictures, he's not really projecting anything. He's sort of like an 8 by 10 glossy. He's there. He's beautifully dressed. He moves well, but he's not putting anything.

out to the winds, to the camera. It begins to happen for him in about 1936 after he's been in movies for four years in a movie called Sylvia Scarlet with Kate Hepburn. And he's playing someone whose reality he could access because it kind of overlapped his reality

as Archie Leach, his original name. He's playing a character named Jimmy Monkley. He's a cockney. He's aggressive. He's a sharper. He's out for Jimmy. he thinks it's a dog-eat-dog world and he intends to be a dog, a big dog. But at the same time, he has enormous charm and a likeness about his personality

that enables him to basically seduce people emotionally. And that's, yes. Well, let me, we have to go backwards, though, because you just said something about, you know, Archie Leach. I mean, let's start there. Where he was born, his early years as a tumbler, as an acrobat. I mean, most people don't know that about him. I didn't mean to interrupt you, finish what you were saying, but I want to go backwards.

Okay, fine. No, it's perfectly valid. But he had been playing romantic leading men that he had no knowledge of, particularly, because he'd never been that in life. The answer to Kerry Grant was to access things that he had actually done in life, aggression, humor, control of his body, because he's a trained acrobat before he was anything else. We're going to go to a break.

here, but this is just wonderful. Folks, we're talking to the author of a brand new biography of Kerry Grant, subtitle of Brilliant Disguise. We'll be back with Scott Eymond. Don't go away. Alvin, have I told you about food for the poor? Yes, yes. Tell us.

Have I told you? Have I told you? I got to tell you again, I'm so excited. Listen, this is an opportunity. Everybody knows they have to give back. But you always wonder, where do I go? Who do I give to? How do I get?

Folks, we've done the homework, food for the poor. We've worked with them over and over and over again. They could not be more reputable. they are feeding, starving kids in Honduras right now. Please, please go to Metaxistock.com. Click on the banner. Metaxistock.com, click on the banner. This is a blessing.

Please do it. We want 100% participation. Please go to Metaxxatok.com. Click on the banner. God bless you. Hey there, folks. How many years have I been telling you about relief factor? What, like four?

The truth is, I know there are millions of people. In fact, some say over 100 million people struggling with some kind of pain, and maybe from exercise, just getting older, that could do it, getting older, which is why I am so impressed with Pete and Seth Talbot. They are on a mission. You rarely see this kind of focus and commitment. Seriously, they recently shared with me that they are doubling down and want to literally double their total number of happy customers in the next year,

and I believe they'll do it. So here's the deal. If you're struggling with back, neck, shoulder, hip, or knee pain, even general muscle, aches and pains, then I'm suggesting you order their three-week quick start, still discounted to only $195, about a dollar a day to see if we can get you out of pain too. And then after that, less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day to stay at a pain. Go to relieffactor.com, relief factor.com or call 800, 500, 8384.

Reliefactor.com, 800, 500, 8384. I use it. It works. Check it out. Hey, folks, Eric Metaxis here. Like you, I am sick of hearing about big tech companies spying on their customers, selling their and not being able to keep their platforms safe and secure. Luckily, I've found SquadPod, a private platform that helps businesses, organizations, churches, and nonprofits take back control of their communication. Squad pod has three things going for it that other companies do not. First, squad pod puts you in control of who is a part of your team, what they see, and how they interact

with the group. Second, squad pod is 100% owned and operated in the United States. Third, squad pod is simple to use, just create an account, invite your team, and start communicating via their secure video and messaging features. Learn more at squadpod.com slash Eric. That's squadpod.com slash Eric. Let me say it again. Squadpod.com slash Eric. Check it out. with Scott Eamon. He's the author of a brand new biography of Carrie Grant, subtitle, A Brilliant Disguise. Scott, you were just talking about how Carrie Grant moved physically. And, you know, I think for people who know him just as a fashion icon, maybe they don't think about that. They think of him as just a clothes horse or something. But you said that he began his career as an

acrobat. Tell us about that. Where did he grow up? And how did he find his, Wayne to show business. He grew up in Bristol, England, in an extraordinarily difficult circumstances emotionally. His father was an alcoholic pants presser. His mother was, I guess, emotionally compromised would be a delicate way of putting it. His father institutionalized his mother when Archie was 11 years old. Archie was given to understand that she had died. He accepted it. It was obviously there was absolutely no communication inside the house. He accepted the fact that what he was told, that he had died. And he went out of with his life. He kept a diary when he was 14 years old for four or five months until he got

bored with it because diaries are hard work. And it's fascinating because he's a lone wolf already at the age of 14. He's not going in class very often, not going to school. What he's doing is going to the movies and going to the music hall and seeing acts. And that's where he fell in low with show business because he would go backstage and he would see the camaraderie between the vaudeville acts, the tumblers, the acrobatts, the comedians, the way. it was like an extended family. He was attracted to the warmth because he had none in his life. But his, now his voice, of course, he doesn't have a standard English accent or any kind of a cockney accent.

It's like when you say that Kerry Grant is a brilliant disguise, it's as though he created a voice for himself. It literally. The Bristol accent is a working class accent. If he kept his Bristol accent, he would have been playing farm foreman in England. That's the only part he could have played because it's a working class accent in the same way that cockney is a working class accent. He picked up the cockney when he joined the acrobatic troop when he was 14 years old. He got himself kicked out of school, which was intentional. And he got his father to apprentice him to a very popular acrobatic troop, the Pender Troop. Bob Bender ran it.

And he was with the Pender Troop for the next five years, working, working, working, until he came to America and basically split. He just sort of went off on his own into American Bauderville. It's funny to think that WC. Fields, a little bit different from Kerry Grant, also started as a tumbler, as an acrobat in vaudeville. You would never think that when you look at his image today. Right, right, right. But Grant's way of entering a comic performance was through physicality, through his physicality. He worked out his comedy in terms of his movement and the rhythm of his movement and how it would jive with the rhythm of the lines.

When you look at a movie like bringing up baby, watch it how completely thought out the performance is from a physical point of view. There's a scene where he is following directly behind Hepburn's skirt has been ripped off. He's trying to avoid people seeing that her skirt's been ripped off. And he's moving in a kind of like his feet are tight, like his legs are tied at the knees. That's something that only a physical comedian would think of doing. Yeah. You know, he physicalizes his performance. And he continues to do that basically throughout his career,

coming up with an original way to make the humor come out of the movement as well as the dialogue. Here's a simple question. How tall was he? 6-2. I ask that just because when you look at him and you see the way clothes hang on him and men wore their pants very high-waisted in those days, it's almost impossible unless you're 6-2 to dress the way he did. You can dress maybe like Fred Astaire if you're thin,

but it's fascinating to look at just at his body and how clothes hung on him. He rarely weighed more than 175 pounds. He was on the slender side. He was very careful about his weight because he was vain about his appearance. He wanted to look good. Clothes were important to him. That was a way of emphasizing status when you're lower middle class or working class, which is what he was as a boy.

So the appearance, he wanted his appearance to precede him into the room. It was a way of removing the doubt that people might have had about him when he opened his mouth and out came to Bristol accent. So he was playing the role of Kerry Grant rather early on. When was he given that name in Hollywood? When he signed with Paramount. Up till then, he's Archie Leach. All through vaudeville in America, he's Archie Leach. He was signed to Schubert, the Schubert organization to do Broadway.

musicals and on the road because the Schubert's always had a big road component. And he was Archie Leach then, too. He didn't change his name until they signed. He signed with Paramount at the end of 1931. And he took Carrie from a part he played in a play on Broadway with Faye Ray. He played a character named Carrie Lockwood. So he took the carry because he liked it. And Grant came from just a random list of surnames that Paramount had.

So it was one from column A, one from column B. It's so bizarre. Whenever you hear of somebody taking a name, you think, what a thing to do to take a name and then for the rest of your life to be known by that name and not your own name? I think it worked pretty well for him, though. It worked okay. But the problem was the psychological problem of a similar. He could play Carrie Grant easily.

He could flip the switch and be Carrie Grant. And since most people expected to see that, he tended to portray that socially. But the problem in its private life was assimilating Archie, a working class kid from Bristol with an indifferent education and a series of old wives' tales in his head about what was healthy and what was not healthy with Carrie Grant, who didn't have many doubts about anything unless he was being chased by a crop dusting plane in North Dakota something. Well, let me ask you, because this is something I don't. remember. When did he marry? How many times was he married? Five. Five. Five.

With an F? Five with an F. Capital F. Capital F. So how, so how early was he married? His first wife was Virginia Cherell, who was the leading lady in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. Very beautiful girl. But she wasn't really an actress. Chaplin saw her and she had the facility of looking blind, which is what she had to play in the film. And he cast her, but she drove him nuts because she wasn't a professional. She would stay out all night and come in late and have bags under her eyes because she was out partying. And Chaplin expected a professional performance.

And she couldn't give that. She wasn't a professional actress. But she was gorgeous and blonde. And she and Grant fell in love and the marriage broke up in about 10 months. Uh-huh. Because it started, that was a pattern that would happen over and over. again in his marriages until the last one, which was very happy. Now, the last one, of course, very strange to think that he married someone dramatically

his junior, Diane Cannon. No, that was his fourth wife. Oh, that was only his fourth wife? That was number four. You're kidding. You're not kidding. No, no. That was the mother of his child, Jennifer.

They were together for a brief time. They were there for a couple of years. She had his only child, and after that, they diverged. How much younger was she than he? Oh, well, let's see. About 30 years. More than 30 years. More than 30 years.

More than 30 years. But he married after that. He must have been quite advanced in years for this fifth marriage. Oh, yeah. He was in his late 70s. And that lasted, obviously, till his death. When did he die? 1986.

No, I mean, how old was he when he died? when he died he was 82. Well, so his latest marriage, his longest marriage, only lasted a few years, is what you're married. I think six years. I think it was about six years there were married. Wow. And he was pretty happy with her. She wasn't an actress. She had no ambitions other than to take care of him, which is all he ever really wanted. Was she related to Larry Fortensky, who married? No, no, no, no. That's it. She was a concierge at a London hotel was her So she's used to taking care of demanding customers.

Right. We all want spouses like that, don't we? Yes. So tell the do we get them. That's incredible. Well, so then what are, you mentioned Clark Gable only had three really major films. What are the films that Kerry Grant had? Let's go down the list.

We mentioned bringing a baby is a huge one. The four for Hitchcock, North by North. to catch a thief, notorious suspicion. Those are four, well, three excellent pictures and suspicion, because it had to be castrated because of the production code. I like art snick and old lace. Grant hated it passionately. Now, I actually remember hearing that.

Maybe I heard it in the commentary on Turner Classic movies recently when it played, but he did hate it. Did he feel that he had overplayed it, that he had mugged too much? Yes, he thought Capra forced him into a performance. He didn't really feel comfortable giving. Absolutely over-the-top frantic hurricane of a comic performance. And he's right.

Capra is, but Capra believed it's farce, and arsenicinolase is a farce, and you can't overplay farce. And Grant's thought, yes, actually, you can't overplay farce. Well, it's funny, though, I mean, because it does look like something that started on this day, age and in fact it did. And when I think of his performance, I think it's just right. But that's another story. We'll be right back, folks. We're talking to the author of the brand new biography of Carrie Grant, subtitle, A Brilliant Disguise. We'll be right back with Scott Eymond.

Hey there, folks. We're talking about Carrie Grant. What's not to like? The author of a brand new biography, Scott Eamon is on with me. Scott, you mentioned earlier that, and I was saying the same thing. When I choose an object for a biography, a subject, you want to make sure that somebody hasn't written the definitive work, or at least in your estimation. So what have some of the previous biographies missed that you hoped to remedy? Well, I found his vaudeville period fascinating because that's where he's learning the art of performing, the art of winning the audience over in very short order. Because in vaudeville, you only had 10 or 12 minutes. for an act.

So you couldn't start slow. You had to come out there and build immediately. And he always said the secret to comedy is timing. It's all about timing. There's nothing else involved. Because a lot of jokes that play very well, if you see them written down on paper, aren't really that funny.

Correct. It's a question of the timing and the personality and how the joke is put over. And he said, That's where he learned timing. It was in the theater in vaudeville, working four and five performances a day over and over again for different audiences. The early audience is a little slower because they've had, you know, it's like a 10 in the morning, you know, and they're still waking up. The best performances were usually the 8 o'clock performance.

But not always. You couldn't always assume that the 10 o'clock in the morning audience was going to be a stiff because sometimes they were very lively. But he said, working in front of all audiences, three or four shows a day, for years, you really did learn a discipline, a sense of craft, a sense of what works with an audience, which comes in invaluable when you're doing movies where there's no audience, where the crew can't laugh, where you have to think that it probably might work if I do this and if I break the line up that way. because you've done it, that thing hundreds and hundreds of times in the theater and in vaudeville. But for people who just come into movies without having that theatrical experience, it's very difficult because you don't know how an audience reacts. Well, he really is masterful. I think that's the word that I'd have to use to describe Kerry Grant,

just the way he manages to be comfortable in his body in all of these different roles. If you had to pick, what would you say was his best movie? Can you pick? It depends on which kind of how you like your Carrie Grant. If you like your Carrie Grant as a wild comedian, you go with Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday. Speaking of great journalism, you know, my favorite journalism movie is Girl Friday. If you like your Carrie Grant serious and somewhat threatening, you go with notorious or suspicion. if you like Kerry Grant doing a star turn, then I would go with to catch a thief.

And if you like Carrie Grant showing what he could do with his serious dramatic performance, I would go with Penny Serenade or none but the lonely heart, preferably the latter. I don't even know those two. I'm ashamed to say maybe I shouldn't be too ashamed since you're the world expert on Carrie Grant. But you said it doing a star turn into catch a thief. I saw that not to. long ago. I've seen it before, but there's something about it that bothers me, maybe because I sense that he's doing a star turn more than a good movie. Well, it's a vehicle. It's to Catch a Thief as designed as a vehicle. It's a Hitchcock movie. So Hitchcock's going to give the audience what they expect from a Hitchcock movie that's set in the

South of France and where they went to the trouble shooting it in the south of France. And it's got Kerry Grant and Grace Kelly. So you've got a certain combination of elements that had already established personas. Grace Kelly by 1954 has made four or five pictures. And the audience said she'd done rear window. She'd done high noon. Her personality was coming into focus. To Catch a Thief really solidifies it, you know, as a very well-bred, classy girl with fire beneath that beautiful blonde appearance.

And it's sexy and it's beautifully shot and it's kind of erotic and romantic at the same time. And it's also a thriller. It's a mystery. There's a lot of different elements to mix into one movie. How many films did he do with Hitchcock? Four. Four. Notorious?

Suspicion, notorious to catch a thief, north by northwest. Yeah, and notorious, I would think it might be the best movie. I don't know, but I just, I love that film. Claude Raines, it's great. Remind us about suspicion now, because that one I'm not remembered. His mission is the one where he's married to Joan Fontaine and she thinks he's trying to kill her. Right. He's kind of escape grace, ne'er do well, charming but apparently lethal.

And the ending of the film was going to be, she was right. He was intending to kill her and in fact does kill her, but he gets tripped up when he mails a letter she left for him to post, which will incriminate him and get him caught. But the production code wouldn't allow a murderer to get away with a murder, even if he's going to get arrested after the movie's over. So they had to reshoot the ending that he's not a murder and she's simply a clinical paranoid, which destroys the entire picture as far as I'm concerned. Is it considered one of Hitchcock's best films or just Grant's best films?

It's considered an interesting, an interesting picture that loses its momentum because of circumstances beyond Hitchcock's control. Interesting. We have to talk about North by Northwest. West. First of all, what a film. Yeah. I don't know where to begin. That, I mean, you talk about a star turn. The way he behaves so suavely in the train with Eva Marie Saint. That is vintage, vintage Carrie Grant. We're actually out of time

in this segment. We're going to be right back. We will continue the conversation about Carrie Grant. The new book is called Carrie Grant, A Brilliant Disguise, the author Scott Eymond. away. Folks, we're talking about Carrie Grant with Scott Eymann, his biographer, brand new bookout called Carrie Grant, A Brilliant Disguise. Scott, we were talking about North by Northwest. It's just a wild film on so many levels. I mean, the idea that Hitchcock sets part of it on Mount Rushmore, I don't, you know, you kind of can't top that. It seems like Hitchcock genius to do that. Now, I assume that that was not the actual Mount Rushmore was a set.

it's yeah actually actually it's mostly a paintings uh they build a large mockup of the top of the heads at mgm some of it are large backdrop large-brained rack drops but because it takes place that sequence takes place mostly at night it's not brightly lit so they get away with it well it's unbelievable the crop duster scene again hitchcock at the height of his powers as far as i'm concerned. Oh, absolutely. The funny thing about the movie is Grant was convinced that it was, he often would get anxious about a picture after he signed and before they started shooting.

And he was very uptight about North by Northwest because on paper, the more he read it, the less there seemed to be there on paper. And he was, and he complained to people incessantly, this isn't a Kerry Grant picture. This is a David Niven picture. I guess on some level, David Niven was like a road company, Carrie Grant as far as he was concerned. That is, he was worried about it. But on the other hand, he's working with Hitchcock, who he loved working with because

Hitchcock was so comprehensively in charge that a performer didn't really have to worry a lot because Hitchcock had planned everything out to the nth degree, you know. But he was very fretful during the picture. And it was a long, hard shoot. It went on and on and on because you got, they started in New York, then they went to Chicago, then they went to Bakersfield, where they actually shot the crop dust. sequence. And then they finally ended up for a long time at the studio. But it was a long, arduous shoot that literally mimic the progression of the narrative. It starts in New York

and goes all the way to Mount Rushmore. Well, there are cornfields outside of California, but we're not going to, you know, we're not going to argue with Hitchcock. I guess, you know, when you mentioned David Niven, for example, it's hard to think of David Niven in that role. because Kerry Grant is so gorgeous that you can imagine someone as beautiful as Eva Marie Saint throwing herself at him, but maybe not quite at David Niven, even though he was not an unattractive man.

He was attractive. But see, there's a thing about Grant. He's also athletic. It's a beautiful thing to watch Carrie Grant run because he moves beautifully. He's like a dancer. He moves like a dancer. And Carrie Grant had played an action hero

in movies like Gunga Dinn. It's a comic action. hero. It's an action hero where things are not played entirely seriously. But he was trim. He was, of course, handsome. But he could also handle his body the way an action hero has to handle his body with a sense of command. That's a good way of putting it. Do you think that he liked Hitchcock or did Hitchcock like him? Hitchcock obviously is infamous for treating his actors Shabbily. Well, he didn't treat Grant Shabbily. Actually, he put up with a lot from Grant.

There's a section in the book about to catch a thief from the production personnel. Grant was, first he wanted a sports car to drive around the location and niece. Then he said, no, it's too ostentatious. I'll just get an ordinary car and I don't need a chauffeur. And then he changed his mind and wanted another sports car with a chauffeur. And Hitchcock would not have put up with that from anybody but Grant. Because he could be a little nitpicky and a little nervous and a little anxious. And Junot generally was.

But he trusted Hitchcock and Hitchcock trusted him. And they also had a certain commonality that they were both lower middle class English boys that nobody expected anything from. And they both had driving ambition and a great deal of talent. and both of them could be not necessarily what their public persona indicated. Hitchcock could be generally kept the light set in a lot of jokes and people were fine, but he could also get a little malicious at times with people. And Grant could be very demanding and nervous and anxious and irritate the crew because of that, where he didn't trust people to do their jobs quite.

Uh-huh. That's interesting. I'd love to talk to you in a future episode about your book on John Wayne, just so we can talk about John Ford, another director who could be very difficult. But I want to ask you about the last years of Kerry Grant's life. It's not clear to me what his last film was and when he decided to retire and why. His last film was Walk, Don't Run. very disappointing movie, that he had decided to quit before he made it. The deal was happened, but he said, this is it, I'm done. Because his daughter had been born. He wanted to spend time with her. He had finally enough money.

He was anxious about money. And he'd made more money than he could possibly spend. And he finally was relaxed about it. And he wanted to get away while the getting was good. He didn't want to hang around because he was worried about, he was playing opposite actresses who were 35 years younger than he was. And he felt awkward about that. And he didn't, although in private life, that's who he married,

and people who were 30 or 35 years younger than he was. And he didn't want to hang around playing Foxy Grandpaw parts, you know? And of course, this is before anyone used the term Foxy, but I know what you mean. Yeah. And he also, I think, sensed that the kind of movies he was especially good at were slowly becoming obsolete. you know, that touch of mink, the film you made with Doris Day is nobody's favorite Carrie Grant movie because it's more like a, it's done in the 60s, but it's more like a 1940s romantic comedy.

And it doesn't work because you're very conscious of the fact that the jokes aren't really funny in terms of 1960s romance and sexuality, whereas in 1940s, they would have been okay. And he didn't want to be obsolete. He didn't want to hang on past his expiration date. So he's one of those actors who walked away, like Sean Connery walked away. They just said, I'm done. And most actors, they have to be staked through the heart, you know, to get him to quit. But Grant felt he'd done the best work he could with the best directors he could work with.

And he didn't want to hang around. So he didn't. And he kept getting offers, but he turned them all down. So what year did he make that film the last? Walked out run is 66 or 67. So he lived until 1986. 20 years of retirement. Yes.

Hard to imagine what he did in those 20 years. He raised his daughter. He traveled. He liked to go on cruises. He thought it was great because you don't have to pack and unpack all the time. You unpack once and you're set for a month. Who goes on a cruise with Kerry Grant? On an actual cruise with other people?

Actually, we're going to a break. We'll be right back for the answer to that exciting, incisive question. Stick around. Meeks and you'll get cut out I'll say goodbye to all my sorrow and by tomorrow

I'll be on my way Folks that we're talking to Scott I'm an E-Y-M-A-N just one E about his new book on Kerry Grant and I saved my most incisive question

for last The question is Is it true that the cruises that Kerry Grant liked to go on at the end of his life on these ships, that there were other people on those cruises. I can hardly imagine being on a cruise and looking over and seeing Kerry Grant on the cruise. This is a little hard for me to take in. Can you tell us? It's absolutely true. There were cruises he went on that were just ordinary cruises that all the other people were, you know, dentists from Detroit. And you know, and there's Gary Grant taking the cruise with you.

And he was perfectly relaxed because he'd retired by this time. And he no longer had to worry about the imposter syndrome of being worried about being discovered that he's not Carrie Grant, that he's actually only Archie Leach. He could relax because now he was Carrie Grant. But he still looked like Carrie Grant. And he still looked like Carrie Grant. He still stood and moved like Carrie Grant. And he was walking around at that point, I assume, with Diane Cannon and then his final wife. So he didn't look like some Schmoe from Westchester.

No, he did. And in fact, he would occasionally, he would have a little Q&A in one of the bars with some of the crew, the captain and the crew. And that was the beginning of what became a conversation with Carrie Grant, which was a show he did 35, 36 times at the end of his life in different cities. That's what he was doing when he died. He was in Davenport, Iowa to do a conversation with Carrie Grant with an audience. I saw him perform. And who was his interlocutor? There was none. He would take questions from the audience.

People would stand up, they'd take the mic and ask questions, and he would answer them. That's extraordinary. Yeah. I did not know that. I would assume that it would be Dick Cavett or somebody on the tour with him. No, he was relaxed enough to basically just let the audience ask him whatever they wanted to ask him. And he was in complete control and, of course, devastatingly charming, and more philosophical than you would imagine. But most of the questions were on the order of who is your favorite leading lady, What was it like kissing Grace Kelly?

You know, those kinds of questions. And he would, he would make, but he also would talk about the technical difficulty of, of shooting a movie that nobody in the audience could understand, where you have to mix a drink without having the noise from the ice cubes interfere with the dialogue. Right. And, and all sorts of technical,

it was all about the technique of acting, not about the emotion of acting, the technique of acting for the film. He said, he tried to explain that it's not about, about it's all technical. Making movies is technical, hitting your marks, getting the light right. Who was the one who said, you know,

somebody asked, how do you do this? And he said, acting. I can't remember the, was it Lawrence Olivier? Some method. With Dustin Hoffman,

where they're doing a marathon man. There we go. He's running around to get winded for a scene where he's got to be out of breath. Right. He says, why don't you try acting, dear boy?

Right. Well, it sounds like Carrie Grant was, was not a method actor. Thank the Lord. Well, So you did get to see him do some of these things in the 80s. Where was that?

Fort Lauderdale. He was doing it in Fort Lauderdale. He wouldn't do them in New York. He wouldn't do them in Los Angeles. It was all second tier cities. Schenectady. Why? Why?

I think he was afraid of bad reviews. I think he was afraid that the sophisticates, because it wasn't a terribly sophisticated show. It was a very heartfelt emotional show where people could tell him how much they loved him. and he could express how grateful he was for that love. And I think he thought it was too simple for the sophisticates in New York or Los Angeles. I think that's brilliant and correct on his part. But what a wonderful way to go out.

Unfortunately, we have to go out now. But Scott Eamon, it's been a joy to speak with you. I'd love to have you back to talk about John Wayne when we can find the time. I think that would be fun. In the meantime, folks, the book is Carrie Grant. a brilliant disguise by Scott Eamon. Scott again, thank you so much. Thank you, Eric.

My pleasure.