page_title: Cary Grant
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Cary Grant / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Statue of Cary Grant by Graham Ibbeson in Millennium Square, Bristol, UK.
context_page_description: Cary Grant was an English-born American actor, who was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He is known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing.
  Grant was born in Horfield, Bristol. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.
  Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic and screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday, and The Philadelphia Story with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time.
context_section_description: Biographers Morecambe and Stirling believe that Cary Grant was the "greatest leading man Hollywood had ever known". Schickel stated that there are "very few stars who achieve the magnitude of Cary Grant, art of a very high and subtle order", and thought that he was the "best star actor there ever was in the movies". David Thomson and directors Stanley Donen and Howard Hawks concurred that Grant was the greatest and most important actor in the history of the cinema. He was a favorite of Hitchcock, who admired him and called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life", and remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Pauline Kael stated that the world still thinks of him affectionately because he "embodies what seems a happier time−a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer."
  Grant was nominated for Academy Awards for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but he never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. The inscription on his statuette read "To Cary Grant, for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with respect and affection of his colleagues". On being presented with the award, his friend Frank Sinatra announced: "No one has brought more pleasure to more people for so many years than Cary has, and nobody has done so many things so well".
  Grant was awarded a special plaque at the Straw Hat Awards in New York in May 1975 which recognized him as a "star and superstar in entertainment". The following August, Betty Ford invited him to give a speech at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City and to attend the Bicentennial dinner for Queen Elizabeth II at the White House that same year. He was invited to a royal charity gala in 1978 at the London Palladium. In 1979, he hosted the American Film Institute's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and presented Laurence Olivier with his honorary Oscar.
  In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors. Three years later, a theater on the MGM lot was renamed the "Cary Grant Theatre". In 1995, more than 100 leading film directors were asked to reveal their favorite actor of all time in a Time Out poll, and Grant came second only to Marlon Brando. On December 7, 2001, a statue of Grant by Graham Ibbeson was unveiled in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to Bristol Harbour, Bristol, the city where he was born. In November 2005, Grant again came first in Premiere magazine's list of "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time". The biennial Cary Comes Home Festival was established in 2014 in his hometown Bristol. McCann declared that Grant was "quite simply, the funniest actor cinema has ever produced".
caption: Cary Grant statue by Graham Ibbeson (2001) in Millennium Square, Bristol
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS CORPORATION", "Image Model": "C750UZ", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "v753u2-86", "Image DateTime": "2004:06:06 14:00:16", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:06:06 14:00:16", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:06:06 14:00:16", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "413", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "629", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}