Cary Grant by Marc Eliot Read Free Book Online Page A

her Bristol grave.
    * This sartorial philosophy was reflected in the relatively sparse wardrobe of the highest-quality clothing that Grant maintained, even at the height of his great wealth and enormous popularity. Once he became an independent player, to the end of his career, he contracted to keep, at his discretion, all the clothing he wore in his films, more than once green-lighting a script out of consideration of the wardrobe. Grant was quoted (Davis, “Cary Grant”) as saying that his favorite film in terms of fashion was
That Touch of Mink
(1962) because of the luxurious and exclusive custom-made Cardinal suits his character wore. At the end of shooting he kept the entire wardrobe of blues and grays that so perfectly offset his then blue-gray hair.
    * Variously known as “Bob Pender's Little Dandies,” “The Pender Troupe of Giants,” “Bob Pender's Nippy Nine Burlesque Rehearsal,” and by Grant in later recollections as “The Bob Pender Acrobats.”

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    “I never associated him with being a working-class kid. I must say, I don't want to sound snobbish about it, but he never had any sort of Bristol accent. From the first time I met him, he always impressed me as the model gentleman. I thought he was Cary Grant offscreen, in real life. But that's what made him such a good actor.”
    — PETER CADBURY
    A rchie's dreams of the future stretched across the ocean like expanding tubes of a telescope until, on July 28, the tip of lower Manhattan finally came into view. As the
Olympic
slowly pulled into New York's harbor and the Hudson River, Archie stood on deck with the hundreds of other passengers, the salt spray cooling his face in the hot sun as they sailed past the silent, welcoming gaze of the Statue of Liberty. When he turned his head in the other direction, while the great ship was carefully tugged into West Forty- sixth Street's White Star pier, he could see for the first time the magnificent tall buildings of Manhattan.
    Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks and the other first-class passengers disembarked to fireworks and a live brass band, while hundreds of photographers and newsreel cameramen and hordes of well-wishers celebrated the return of the larger-than-life screen legends. By the time Pender's troupe deboarded, muchof the pomp, press, and people had gone. Archie and the others had missed all the excitement because of getting bogged down in the extra-long tedium of customs reserved for steerage passengers. His first steps onto American soil were taken over dead streamers and punctured balloons strewn along the wooden pier, as he and the others made their way to the waiting taxis that Lomas had arranged to take them to their hotel. The entire troupe had been booked into a Fifty-eighth Street “We Cater to the Theatrical Trade” residential hotel, just west of Eighth Avenue, about three-quarters of a mile from where they had docked.
    After lugging his own bags up four flights to his small room, Archie barely had time to unpack when a slip of paper under his door informed him that the company was to attend a reception that evening personally arranged and supervised by Charles Dillingham, to be held on the stage of his famed Broadway Globe Theater. Archie was ready to go an hour before departure time.
    Dillingham intended the welcome party as a way to formally introduce the Penders to Fred Stone, the star for whom they had been booked to open. The evening went well enough, with relations between Stone and the troupe cordial, if not warm. They cooled even more the next day when Stone caught a glimpse of the troupe rehearsals. He didn't like what he saw—not because they were so bad, but because they were too good. Stone feared that the Penders' spectacular physical feats, far better than he had heard, particularly the stilt-walking routine, would be impossible for him to follow, and he insisted they be taken off the bill.
    It was a blow for the Penders and for Dillingham, as well. He had invested a lot of money in