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OT: Biography Books on Cary Grant and Walter Matthau

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Santa's haul for this adult movie fan included two biographies of two stars of varying prominence:

Cary Grant and Walter Matthau.

This isn't entirely OT, given that Grant worked four times with Alfred Hitchcock and crossed paths with him more than that, but Psycho barely enters into the book on Grant.

Matthau worked on the Hitchcock TV series, but never did a Hitchcock movie, though he was tentatively slotted to play the bad guy in Hitchcock's never-made film The Short Night(intended to follow Family Plot.)

Indeed, at the infamous 1979 American Film Institute tribute to Hitchocck, while a white haired Cary Grant sat right next to Hitchcock (with a white haired James Stewart on the other side); Matthau himself was seated right behind the table, in view for many shots of the show.

Grant biographer Scott Eyeman writes of that AFI event that sitting together, "Hitchocck showed old age at its worst; Grant showed old age at its best."

There are some other interesting tidbits.

One is that Hitchcock wrote Grant in 1965 (as he was preparing Torn Curtain) that "Leo McCarey has sent me a script with a role for me to play , beside you. But I can't do it, as I am preparing a film right now -- that you should be in.

Imagine: Hitchcock in a dramatic(or comedic?) role opposite Cary Grant. Another one of those "what if/never made" projects.

I will note here that Hitchocck indeed told an interviewer -- around the 70's -- that he had indeed been pitched some acting roles in his time. Given that John Huston did well by certain roles(Chinatown chief among them), it isn't all that far-fetched an idea, except Hitchcocks TV persona was so "larger than life" it is hard to imagine him playing any sort of ordinary human being. Along those lines, Preminger pitched Hitchcock on playing "God" in his horrible 1968 movie "Skidoo" -- Hitch declined and Groucho Marx took the part. Also, I don't think Hitchcock was up for it. but John Houseman's Oscar-winning turn as the law professor in "The Paper Chase" was said to sound like Hitchcock in some critical quarters.

The Grant book also finds Hitchcock sending Grant a thank you note for his appearance at that AFI event -- "I hope that I can again photograph you soon -- you know, you can be."

Hitch was writing this given that Grant had formally retired as a movie star at age 62 after his final film, 1966's Walk Don't Run(in which Grant played matchmaker to a young couple played by Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton -- biographer Eyeman believes that Grant STILL had more sexual chemistry with Eggar than Hutton did.)

Eyeman's book is interesting to me because the last one he did on a major movie star was about John Wayne. I've read that one and its interesting to see him pretty much "superimpose" the trappings and techniques of his Wayne book to his Grant book. Its rather like when Hitchcock would use Stewart or Grant in a movie. Same overall approach -- with a different man.

What comes out of the comparison of the Wayne book and the Grant book is Grant as a much more troubled, neurotic and somewhat crazy individual than Wayne. Both men had hardscabble youths and rather "came up" in the film business from lowly jobs and lowly roles before hitting it big. But Wayne(born Marion Morrison) seems to have affected a more "normal," boisterous hard drinking life style with a bunch of macho pals. Both men had multiple marriages -- Grant's 5 to Wayne's 3 -- but, again, Wayne's marriages seemed more "par for the Hollywood course."

Its interesting. Wayne died at 72. Grant lived a decade longer -- 82. But Wayne made MOVIES for ten years more than Grant. Grant's final film was Walk Don't Run in 1966. Wayne's final film was The Shootist in 1976. A comparison of the "working star"(Wayne) versus the "retired legend"(Grant.) (For math buffs, we have John Wayne being born later than Grant, so "younger" to make some of his movies after 1966.)

Eyeman, in both the Wayne book and the Grant book, is fanatical about analyzing, the budget , box office, and earnings of the two stars, movie by movie. Eyeman's smart, this is the most fascinating reading in the book. Both men were entitled to big up front payments (In the $350,000 to $750,000 range in their era), plus percentages and ownerships that brought Grant, for one, extra paydays of $3 million or so per picture. Wayne, by working into the 70's, started getting $1 million dollar up fronts(Grant never did) but Grant seems to have done more to own a number of his biggest hits, outright.

Eyeman contends that Grant got his "best deal ever" on To Catch A Thief(Hitchcock reduced his own pay so as to pay for Grant); and yet made his biggest money in a Hitchcock film on North by Northwest. (Go figure.) But then Grant made MORE money on his OTHER 1959 release, the lesser Operation Petticoat(which had the hot Tony Curtis as a co-star and a Navy theme for 1959 veterans to enjoy.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Eyeman gets gossipy and a bit judgmental -- as he did with Wayne -- and offers perhaps somewhat "realistic" views about some of the oddities in Grant's life, such as his taking of LSD -- a LOT -- in the 50s and 60s. Its not so much the taking that bothers Eyeman, its "Grant's incessant babbling" about the wonders of LSD to anyone and everyone.

Eyeman also reaches the segment about the birth of Grant's only child -- daughter Jennifer -- by wife Dyan Cannon, and points out that Grant's total indulgence of and control over that child may well have been yet another manifestation of his madness. Grant loved the daughter deeply, but photographed her every waking moment and saw her as the only child in the world(doesn't every parent feel that way? At least in the beginning?) The divorce from Cannon(in which the LSD taking was up for argument) took Jennifer away from Grant a lot - but didn't end his lifelong worship of her every move.

As so often happens when Cary Grant is written about, North by Northwest ends up the final destination of this journey, the only REALLY good movie(it would seem) among all the films that Grant made after To Catch a Thief. (I'm among those who would definitely add Charade to the mix, and I have affection for the unshaven beach bum routine that was Father Goose.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Like a lot of movie star biographers, Eyeman cobbles together a lot of his book from OTHER biographies. And thus, when Eyeman reaches North by Northwest, we get tidbits from the Spoto Hitchcock book and the McGilligan Hitchcock book. (In other chapters, we get a lot of quotes from Boganovich's profiles of Grant in HIS books.) I found only two "new" tidbits in the NXNW chapter. One was just sort of sweet: Grant noticed Eva Marie Saint squinting in a scene opposite her, decided the lighting was too bright and ordered it lowered. One was sort of funny: a raging argument between Grant and Hitchcock's main assistant Herbert Coleman over PAY(one figures that Grant would never argue with Hitchcock himself over pay, but would be ready for a real knock down drag out with an "underling.") The best part of the argument(another "whew, we almost missed history" moment in Hitchcock, like when he almost tossed Psycho to his TV series) is Grant telling Coleman "I had a competing offer from Fox for another movie with this Hitchcock movie, and I said I'd pick the one that started first, and I'm STILL working on this one!) Grant evidently didn't see how great NXNW could be, he almost switched another movie in.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Unlike as with John Wayne, with Cary Grant it seems that every biographer has to skirt the "was he gay?" issue...which seems less and less important with every passing year of sexual gender complexity in modern society. Eyeman rather keeps raising it and dodging it -- notably with the Randolph Scott roommate friendship(it keeps shifting from gay to "just pals") and finally finds a gay servant of Grant's(from late in life) who says Grant told him: "I was gay when I was young, then bisexual, and now I'm straight.") Sort of sounds like the Anthony Perkins story and I say: let the stories rest as they are. Moreover, this "hearsay" testimony from a little known player in Grant's life -- well, just how reliable is it? Bottom line seems to be: we will never really know.

What does remain intriguing about Grant, however, is that stretch where he fell madly in love with Sophia Loren(on the set of The Pride and the Passion) and proposed to her. He pushed for her to be written into Houseboat, too. He seems to have hated her after her turn down on The Pride and the Passion and then hated her coming into Houseboat, and then fell in love with her AGAIN, and then pined for her again when she married Carlo Ponti. All this during the same time that Grant MAY have been gay. These movie star romances, most confusing.

Eyeman notes that North by Northwest went a million over budget - to 3.2 million(ie. four times more than Psycho) but was the sixth top grosser of 1959 (whereas Hawks' Monkey Business with Grant was the 47th highest grossing film of 1952 -- not much at all. They released a lot of films in those days. 6th was pretty high up.) This is a reminder that for all the blockbuster success of Psycho the next year, Hitchcock was still coming off of a formidable "near blockbuster" in NXNW. Good times.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I'm always intrigued with how most "Golden Era" movie star biographies end -- with the deaths of the stars themselves. These are ALL of our lives, writ larger. That day comes or days come when the star, as a normal human being, "doesn't feel too good" and checks into the hospital for a "long goodbye" (John Wayne, by a returning cancer that took months to kill him) or dies within hours of taking ill (Cary Grant, in Davenport , Iowa, of a stroke that hit in the afternoon and killed him by evening.) Grant was there to give one of his "Evening with Cary Grant" talks. This was in 1986. I saw him give one of those talks in 1984...always worried with my ticket bought months in advance that he wouldn't live to give it. I was off by two years.

The bio also gives about half a page to Grant's love of the Magic Castle restaurant/club in the Hollywood Hills. That's the OTHER time I saw Grant -- unplanned, no tickets bought -- for an extended 3 hours in his company(along with about 30 other paying guests) in 1980.

As Cary Grant told Eva Marie Saint when he took her to the Opera during the filming of North by Northwest and everyone applauded, "We've given these people one of the memories of their life...they've seen Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint."

So have I. And it IS a great memory.

Some movie stars matter.

---

Meanwhile: Walter Matthau. I was a longtime Matthau fan in what I call his "golden years" (from Lonely are the Brave in 1962 to First Week in October in 1981 -- roughly 20 years) and years ago I found a book on him in a bookstore, published after his 2000 death. I neglected to buy it, and it disappeared for 18 years from my life. A companion of mine found it (its from 2002) and gave it to me with the Grant book. I found the two reads (side by side) to be educational.

For while Walter Matthau gets described a lot in his bio as a "big star" -- we all know that he was never as big as Cary Grant, and yet, somewhat cut from the same cloth. No, really.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Matthau himself only half-jokingly called himself "the Ukranian Cary Grant" and said in an interview that this was proved when he got the lead in "Cactus Flower"(1969) after Grant (three years into retirement) turned it down. I mean, the female lead was...Ingrid Bergman! Matthau joked about this movie: "Here's Ingrid Bergman, and she's crazy about me...and here's Goldie Hawn and she's all over me...I'm Cary Grant.")

Well, yeah, in 1969, Walter Matthau kinda was. He took over the comedic side of Grant, dressed well (suit and tie) and maintained the same kind of deadpan timing that was Grant's stock in trade. Granted Matthau was not as handsome as Cary Grant...but he wasn't ugly, either. He had a pleasant comedic face. It COULD be a manly face if he held the right expression.

But as this biography also points out, Matthau came along at a time when "plainer" leading men were acceptable -- Dustin Hoffman among the young ones, George C. Scott and Gene Hackman(Matthau's peers) among the middle-aged ones. This biography also finds (as do I) an antecedent to Matthau in Spencer Tracy (whose works with the not-gorgeous Katherine Hepburn were mirrored by Matthau and Glenda Jackson in two films.) I would throw in WC Fields as a comic precursor to Matthau and Lee Marvin as yet another middle-aged peer who might have been only a supporting actor in previous decades.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Unlike Cary Grant, Matthau had to do about a decade in the trenches of supporting roles -- often the villain, sometimes the sidekick -- but starting in 1962(says I) a series of key supporting roles positioned him for stardom.

The supports were in 1962(to Kirk Douglas) in Lonely are the Brave, in 1963(to Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn) in Charade, and in 1965(to Greg Peck) in Mirage. Matthau just about steals those movies from the stars, and it only took two more movies to MAKE him a star: The Fortune Cookie(Best Supporting Actor Oscar, in a lead role) and The Odd Couple. Both with Jack Lemmon. (Folks forget that Matthau after The Fortune Cookie got a couple of leads -- one in a A Guide to the Married Man, with all-star cameos in a tale about husbands cheating on wives. What a time capsule! With Jack Benny as one of the cheaters!)

On the "personal life" side of the story, Matthau is less complex than Cary Grant, but they actually shared something: both men doted on their late age father hood. With Grant, it was his ONLY child, Jennifer. With Matthau it was his only child from his second(and final) marriage, little "Charlie Matthau." In both cases, the fathers doted massively on the children; but in Matthau's case, there were two OTHER children from an earlier marriage, practically ignored (though he got them small roles in his movies, too.) Alas, the attempted acting/directing careers of the Grant and Matthau children didn't pan out to their parents' level(one realizes that even Walter Matthau WAS a big star in a way that many don't become), but I think they did well with inheritances.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Also for Walter Matthau as a "personal life sweetener" is his lifelong gambling addiction, evidently quite dangerous to him in his early years(mobsters threatened him and a heart attack at 45 was partially attributed to it), but manageable in his later, very rich years. Still its there -- one of those things that makes a movie star more interesting than the rest of us -- it suggests a certain risk-taking bravado that indeed helped Matthau become a star, rather than a lifelong supporting actor. The book poignantly posits character guy William Schallert -- Matthau's deputy in Lonely are the Brave and purusing sheriff in Charley Varrick -- as a lifelong friend of Matthau's, resigned that at a certain point, his fellow character guy Matthau had reached that rarely climbed peak to full stardom.

In enjoying these two biographies of two of my favorite actors, I suppose in the final analysis, its still about the movies that they made that I loved more than about the two men themselves. Both Grant and Matthau considered themselves "boring men" and I guess they were. But they were RICH boring men, and they got rich giving us film fans some memorable "movie star performances' in a number of fine films, many of them in my favorite category: thriller. (Suspicion, Notorious, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Charade -- starring Grant AND Matthau, Mirage, Charley Varrick, The Laughing Policeman, The Taking of Pelham 123.)

More than enough justification to read their biographies, right there.