Appreciation …

… Archie Leach’s Greatest Character. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Part of the fascination that Grant exerted on moviegoers lay in the fact that he made no secret of having created his “sophisticated characteristics” out of whole cloth. Whenever fans told him, “I always wanted to be Cary Grant,” his reply was: “So did I.” Even his not-quite-English accent was a fabrication: Everyone knew that he was an Englishman whose real name was Archie Leach and that he had grown up in a working-class neighborhood, apprenticing himself to a troupe of acrobats and coming to America to tour in vaudeville. After a successful screen test, he moved to Hollywood in 1931 and signed with Paramount, changing his name to do so. By 1937, he was a full-fledged movie star, one whose fans never tired of trying to figure out.