Inside The Mind of Cary Grant

Over the weekend (or “le weekend”, as the French say) I re-watched Father Goose, a favorite of mine from growing up. (It was a staple of weekend movie fare on Ted Turner’s WTBS on the weekends in the early- to mid-80s.)

Father Goose is your standard late-Grant-era light romantic comedy trying to ride the financial coattails of 1959’s Operation Petticoat. Grant produced the film through his Granox production company, and so had a high degree of creative control. At this stage of his career Grant was becoming weary of playing the romantic lead to women half his age, but he smelled an Oscar in the upbeat, family-friendly story. (Grant never received an acting Oscar, although he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1970.)

Grant would later say that the role of misanthropic, unshaven, boozy Walter Eckland was closest to his real personality. Usually the epitome of crisp, suave sophistication, Grant was certainly playing against type in Father Goose (catnip to the Academy). As I was recently reading Marc Eliot’s Cary Grant: A Biography, it became clear that this is more than a breezy, off-the-cuff statement: it says something profound about who Cary Grant really was.

Take a look at Father Goose’s opening credit sequence:

Eckland eats a sandwich, drinks a (Bomber? Did they call them bombers back then?) of beer, and hums along to the radio while he steers his launch into port. In fact, he untucks his shirt in the opening credits, and it stays untucked for the rest of the movie.

According to Eliot’s biography, this is exactly the kind of man Grant was in his private life. His needs were small (he only wanted a bed, a few chairs, a radio, and a refrigerator, Eliot says), and to relax he would often just lay in the sun, listen to the radio, or read while in the company of someone else. In the 30s his lover and companion Randolph Scott introduced Grant to Howard Hughes, and the two apparently got along famously, in large part because both were privately laconic and unassuming. Eliot paints a peaceful, domestic picture of Grant and Hughes hanging out together in Hughes’ mahogany study, with Hughes working on new aircraft designs and Grant sitting nearby, smoking and reading a book. They would do this all afternoon and into the evening, with perhaps nothing more than a few words spoken between them.

Filmmakers often project their inner selves upon the screen, and in this case, I think Grant is lowering his guard and letting you see exactly who he is, and what makes him happy.

A sandwich, a beer, humming along with the radio on a nice day.