A very happy birthday indeed, indeed, to Cary Grant (18 January 1904–29 November 1986), an actor whose greatest role may well have been…Cary Grant.  May all our birthdays be as full of champagne and toy giraffes (image, from “Holiday,” via gallerygirl). If you tell me you don’t think much of Cary Grant, I will have to assume that you have never actually seen a Cary Grant film.  Whether in his more callow early roles, such as She Done Him Wrong with Mae West: or his mid-career screwball comedy classics, like His Girl Friday or The Awful Truth or Bringing Up Baby: or his late-career exercises in unalloyed suavity, like North by Northwest, or Charade, or (be still my heart) To Catch a Thief: he was always more fun to watch on-screen than anyone else (well, maybe not more fun than Mae West: but she did have a good 7 or more years on him at the time). Oh my heavens, did I leave out The Philadelphia Story?  Shame on me!  Not a bad place for a novice to begin.

A very happy birthday indeed, indeed, to Cary Grant (18 January 1904–29 November 1986), an actor whose greatest role may well have been…Cary Grant.  May all our birthdays be as full of champagne and toy giraffes (image, from “Holiday,” via gallerygirl).

If you tell me you don’t think much of Cary Grant, I will have to assume that you have never actually seen a Cary Grant film.  Whether in his more callow early roles, such as She Done Him Wrong with Mae West:

She Done Him Wrong

or his mid-career screwball comedy classics, like His Girl Friday or The Awful Truth or Bringing Up Baby:

Bringing Up Baby

or his late-career exercises in unalloyed suavity, like North by Northwest, or Charade, or (be still my heart) To Catch a Thief:

To Catch a Thief

he was always more fun to watch on-screen than anyone else (well, maybe not more fun than Mae West: but she did have a good 7 or more years on him at the time).

Oh my heavens, did I leave out The Philadelphia Story?  Shame on me!  Not a bad place for a novice to begin.