Bringing Up Baby – I just went gay all of a sudden
Vickie Lester
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.
