Hawks’ friend (and Hepburn’s sometime-boyfriend) Howard Hughes finally suggested Cary Grant for the role. Grant had just finished shooting his breakthrough romantic comedy The Awful Truth, and Hawks may have seen a rough cut of the unreleased film. Grant then had a non-exclusive, four-picture deal with RKO for $50,000 per film. Grant’s manager used his casting in the film to renegotiate Grant’s contract, earning him $75,000 plus the bonuses Hepburn was receiving. Grant was initially concerned about being able to play an intellectual character and took two weeks to accept the role, despite the new contract. Hawks built Grant’s confidence by promising to coach him throughout the film, instructing him to watch Harold Lloyd films for inspiration. Grant met with Howard Hughes throughout the film to discuss his character, which he said helped his performance…
In the film, the word “gay” was an ad-lib by Grant and not in any version of the original script. According to Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet (1981, revised 1987), the script originally had Grant’s character say “I…I suppose you think it’s odd, my wearing this. I realize it looks odd…I don’t usually…I mean, I don’t own one of these”. Russo suggests that this indicates that people in Hollywood (at least in Grant’s circles) were familiar with the slang connotations of the word; however, neither Grant nor anyone involved in the film suggested this.
Such a memorable scene! Hilarious. 🙂 Cary is Great, this is my favorite comedic performance of his (and of Katharine Hepburn’s too).
I think I need to put this movie on a continuous loop this weekend 🙂 !
Ah, glorious.
Whenever anyone says glorious I think, Billie Holiday and Too Marvelous for Words 😉
You’re just too marvelous
Too marvelous for words
Like glorious, glamorous
And that old standby amorous
It’s all so wonderful
I’ll never find the words
That say enough, tell enough
I mean they just aren’t swell enough
You’re much too much, and just too very very
To ever be, in the Webster’s Dictionary
And so I’m borrowing a love song from the birds
To tell you that you’re marvelous, too marvelous for words
May I say, ‘Glorious” again! With a marvelous as well. But I could only find Frank to sing it to me; still marvelous 🙂
Nothing like utter perfection is there?
This one really is timeless – I completely agree.
How exhausting, now I have to search for a place where I can comment here 😀 Just regarding the Peter Finch pic… if you have a chance get his first wife’s book. Her name is Tamara Tchinarova and she’s like 500 years old but still looks absolutely superb. Watches ballet videos all day and insists on speaking French.
YOU are wonderful, I just put “Dancing into the Unknown: My Life in the Ballets Russes and Beyond” in my shopping basket!
It’s mostly about ballet, but she talks about Peter’s affair with Vivien Leigh and all sorts of other interesting things that relate to the (your?) ‘beguiling world’. She’s ill now, but I swear no one would believe it if they saw her. Still ultra-glamorous. Her house has lots of red, animal prints and Russian art. Tables of photographs which are really more or less the history of Hollywood and entertainment in the 20th century. You go the bathroom and think ‘oh, why was Elizabeth Taylor carrying your child in a church?’. Pure fabulousity.
Dearest V
Ah yes. Cary… fascinating character, and, that almost non-existent thing these days, something of an enigma.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Nice to have lived in a time when being enigmatic was possible…unlike now.
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