Cary Grant (51 page)

The plot centers on Charles's efforts to woo Hilary away from Victor. The sex mess is treated in a veddy Briddish manner, meaning much civilized talk with little physical action, until the two men agree to resolve their differences in a duel. Victor is wounded, Hilary realizes she still loves him, and everyone lives happily ever after, including Charles, who somehow winds up with
Hattie (with whom Victor had faked a romance in the hopes it would make Hilary jealous and win her before any shots were fired).

Grant had, at one point, considered not being in the picture at all, and unofficially offered his part instead to Rex Harrison, who agreed to do it— until the death of his wife, Kay Kendall, forced him to drop out. To avoid an expensive delay, Grant then agreed to play the role after all, one he knew he could do with his eyes closed. Mitchum, on the other hand, stood out like an American sore thumb, cast against type in the guise of an articulate, understated wealthy American urbanite. Grant okayed Donen's choice of Mitchum because he had already starred in two films with each of
The Grass Is Greener
's female costars, and thought their experience would produce a familiar chemistry well suited for this ensemble piece.
^*

As it happened, Grant felt early on that Mitchum's acting was too understated, and that because of it he, Grant, would be seen as overplaying his part. Mitchum saw things differently. He complained that his role was under
written,
consisting mostly of reactions like “Really?” and “Oh?” amid long stretches of dialogue from either Grant or Kerr. Moreover, Mitchum found Grant a bit old-man stodgy, both in the part and in real life, and he later told friends that he didn't appreciate Grant's “humor… sort of old music-hall jokes. ‘What's that noise down there? They're holding an Elephant's Ball? Well, I wish they'd let go of it, I'm trying to get some sleep,'” adding somewhat facetiously, “I guess that was when he was coming off his LSD treatment.”

Donen remembers the film as a milestone of sorts, marking the end of a certain type of sophisticated British comedy, before the antic humor of Peter Sellers arrived and dominated the English cinematic 1960s: “Cary played a titled Englishman, and [in several scenes] was wearing what an earl would wear at night in his country house—a dark green velvet smoking jacket. Halfway through making the picture, he got terrified. ‘I don't want to be in a smoking jacket,’ he said. He was afraid that by playing that kind of man he would lose people's interest. A certain sort of polish in films—the way people moved and spoke—vanished then. And it never came back.”

DURING FILMING, GRANT SPENT EVERY
weekend in Bristol visiting his mother, for the first time enjoying the occasional flash of genuine wit that emerged from her diminished capacities without the overlay of guilt that had long plagued their relationship. Grant loved treating Elsie to shopping sprees in search of the antiques she loved to collect.

Less blissful was a visit he received from Drake, who, as part of yet another of her futile attempts to reconcile with Grant, flew to England to be with him for several weeks while he was shooting. During her stay she and Grant were invited by Princess Grace to go sailing with her and Prince Rainier off the shores of Monaco—something that caused the prince no little amount of consternation. Not only had he absolutely forbidden his wife to return to filmmaking, he didn't even like being reminded of that part of her life, which, as far as he was concerned, was, like all of Hollywood, cheap and tawdry (and threatening). No doubt he both envied and feared his imagined (and in some cases real) Hollywood rivals for Kelly's affections. He was especially jealous of Grant, who was much taller and far more fit than the pudgy prince, who could not get out of his head the images of the passionate kisses and sexual flirtation between Grant and his wife in
To Catch a Thief.
(He nevertheless screened the film frequently at the palace, when guests from America stayed with them, always by request. Of all her films, it remained the only one he refused to allow to be shown publicly in Monaco.)

According to one who was there, throughout Grant and Drake's visit “the prince did not hide his bad humor during their stay at the palace. He spoke to no one. He sulked… the princess, meanwhile, was cool—her usual attitude to her husband's moods.”

For her part, Drake mistook the princess's coolness for well-founded jealousy and in turn became jealous herself. The resulting criss-crossing of tensions made everyone less comfortable than they otherwise might have been. Princess Grace and Grant both knew what was taking place and did their best to ignore their spouses' suspicions and just enjoy themselves.

This was the last official invitation to Monaco Grant would receive during the princess's lifetime.

The Grass Is Greener
opened in December 1960, and its comic conceits—that the British were essentially so superior to the Americans in the ways of civilized love that their marriages could survive a little harmless flirtation, while the boorish Americans, no matter how rich or refined, would chase anything in a skirt, single or married—laid a gigantic egg in the United States. Even Grant's most diehard female fans tended to stay away, not wanting to see their idol compromised by, of all men, the swarthy, bullying Robert Mitchum.

Because of it Grant took a bit of a financial bath, something at the time with which he simply could not be bothered. Instead, his focus returned once more to his pursuit of finding the proper soulmate as a wife and future mother. While he continued his search, he moved along briskly with his plan to eliminate all remaining film obligations. He soon began production on the decidedly all-American
That Touch of Mink,
in which he appears opposite Doris Day, the cross-eyed, freckled, lemon-haired eternal virgin of the American mid-twentieth-century cinema.

Grant plays the role of a suave and debonair millionaire ladies' man originally intended for Rock Hudson, Day's onscreen partner in the hugely successful sex(less) comedies
Pillow Talk
and
Lover Come Back,
both made at Universal. Day's husband, manager, and producer, Martin Melcher, felt that Hudson had gotten too much credit and Day too little for the previous films' successes, and as the Hudson characters were always described as “Cary Grant” types, he decided to go for the real thing.

Grant, meanwhile, since firing Wasserman, loathed the thought of doing any more business with Universal and turned Melcher down several times. Finally Stanley Fox came up with a workable plan good enough to convince Melcher's company, Arwin Productions, to bring in Grant as a partner and make Stanley Shapiro the film's screenwriter and coproducer, along with Grant and Melcher. It was the choice of Shapiro that finally convinced Grant to sign on. Shapiro, who came up with the original concept for
That Touch of Mink,
was also the screenwriter for
Operation Petticoat
and a cowriter of both
Pillow Talk
and
Lover Come Back,
all three of which were highly successful, big-profit pictures.

In
That Touch of Mink,
millionaire bachelor Philip Shayne (Grant) romances working girl Cathy Timberlake (Day). After a meet-cute in which Grant's Rolls-Royce accidentally douses Cathy's coat with mud, Philip, assisted by his ever-loyal manservant and moral adviser Roger (Gig Young), decides to romance Day every-American-woman's-fantasy style, which includes a visit to the dugout of the New York Yankees (Grant, a lifelong baseball fan, was thrilled to death to appear with Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra in a scene shot on location at Yankee Stadium), a trip to Bermuda on everything but gossamer wings, and midnight top-of-the-world dinners at his penthouse, all of which gets him no closer to having sex with Cathy. Somehow this only makes him want her more. In the end, they get married.

The film, which borrowed heavily from Shapiro's previous Day comedy
Lover Come Back,
is a basic meat-and-potatoes middle-aged man meets girl, middle-aged man loses girl, middle-aged man gets chicken pox (and the girl who gives it to him). Audiences loved it and welcomed back the familiar “American” Cary Grant with open arms and wallets. The film opened at Radio City Music Hall on July 18, 1962, and earned more than $1 million in its initial domestic theatrical release. It went on to become the second-highest-grossing Cary Grant film of all time (just behind
Operation Petticoat
).

Although
That Touch of Mink
earned $4 million for Grant, personally he remained indifferent to the film and thought nothing about it other than it was one less he would ever have to make.
^*

Three weeks later, on August 13, 1962, Drake, who had returned from a trip to England after not hearing from Grant even once the entire time she was gone, was convinced at last that their relationship could not be saved and sued for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty.

According to court records, Drake's reasons for seeking the divorce included the fact that Grant “preferred watching television to talking to me.

He appeared bored. I became lonely, unhappy, miserable, and went into psychoanalysis. He told me he didn't want to be married. He showed no interest in any of my friends.”

As was his custom, Grant made no public comment, other than the onesentence comment that “Betsy was good for me.” Drake's initial reaction to the press waiting outside the courtroom door after the one-day hearing (at which Grant did not testify) was done with dramatic flair: “I was always in love with him,” she said, then paused, turned her head, and added, “and I still am.”

Later on, pressed by Louella Parsons for more “exclusive” information, Betsy told the gossip, “I left Cary, but physically he'd left me long ago.”

Drake received a generous settlement from Grant rumored to be more than $1 million in cash and a portion of the profits from all the films he had made during the nearly thirteen years they were married. Shortly thereafter she left show business, and his life, forever.

The swiftness and generosity of Grant's participation reflected his only remaining interest in his third wife: getting rid of her as soon as possible so he could continue to search for the woman truly worthy of being the mother of his child.

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