Jennifer Grant - Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant

This Is a Borzoi Book
Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Copyright 2011 by Jennifer Grant
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grant, Jennifer, 1966
Good stuff : a reminiscence of my father, Cary Grant / by Jennifer Grant.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-59667-3
1. Grant, Cary, 19041986. 2. Motion picture actors and actressesUnited StatesBiography. 3. Grant, Jennifer, 1966
I. Title.
PN 2287. G 675 G 73 2011
791.43028092dc22
{B} 2011000454

Jacket photographs courtesy of the author.
Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson.

v3.1

United as partners, my mother and father
brought a child into the world. Perhaps
a similar cocreative love leads me to write
this book. In honor of Mom and Dads love,
and in gratitude for her wisdom, this
book is dedicated to my mother.

MAY 30, 1968 9966 BEVERLY GROVE DRIVE

Daddy attempts to put Jennifer to sleep. Jennifer wants to read Newsweek magazine as Daddy reads a book. Two-year-old Jennifers words struggle to find their way out.

JG: Bend it.

CG: What, darling?

JG: Bend the book.

CG: One must always be careful with books and treasure them.

JG (blurts out): I love you. Will you hold my hand? (then) Always be careful with books. Always be careful with books.

A few years ago, I visited a dear friend of mine, Yehuda Berg, for counsel.

You should write a book about your father. Right out of the clear blue sky. No. Im too private. Well, all right then, write it for yourself, but you need to write. At home, for my eyes only, I wrote for an hour or so a day. Two days later, my friend Mark Teitelbaum called. Hey, I just got back from New York. Met with a literary agent there about some stuff, have you ever considered? NO! Damn it. Twice in a week. Once I could ignore. But two people, both recommending I write a book about Dad. That same week I was asked if Id do a television special on Dad. Hmmm Okay heres my out. Maybe spending the next few years of my life delving and examining isnt necessary. I weighed the proposed television tribute. Alas, where Dad is concerned, its all or nothing for me. The privacy policy won out. No to the show. But for the first time, the possibility of a tribute lingered. The idea of writing The moment my lips uttered no, my heart knew yes. Something about all that Dad gave me. I wrote every morning for a month.

IN MY FATHERS LATER YEARS he asked several times that I remember him the way I knew him. He said that after his death, people would talk. They would say things about him and he wouldnt be there to defend himself. He beseechingly requested that I stick to what I knew to be true, because I truly knew him. I promised him I would. Ive easily kept that oath. Although many books about him have been published, Ive read none. Not out of a lack of interest. Im sure there are some wonderful things I could learn about my father, but most likely more misconceptions than are worth weeding through. To me, he was like a marvelous painting. All the art historians wish to break down the motives, and the scheme, and so on. I would rather know, as I do, his essence. I believe that at the heart of a person lies passion. For the last twenty years of his life, I was given the extraordinary privilege to experience the full, vital passion of his heart. Dad used the expression good stuff to declare happiness or, as one of his friends put it, he said it when pleased with the nature of things. He said it a lot. He had a happy way of life. His life was good stuff.

Just after my fathers death, I graduated from Stanford. My senior year I had worked as an intern at an advocacy firm in San Francisco. My plan was to take a job with this same firm and later move on to law school. When Dad died I shifted gears in ten seconds flat. I felt pulled, in an almost subterranean way, home to Los Angeles. Why? If Dad came home, thats where hed be. Have I been waiting for Dad to come home all these years?

At some level its still hard for me to admit that my father died. I can talk about it and around it, but those two words. He died. What can that possibly mean? That I wont get to hear his voice again? Thats not true; I have movies, I have all his taped conversations with me, I have pictures, I have slides. I even have one of his sweaters in my closet. If I remember well enough, he will come back. Hell appear, out of thin air, at my door or in my living room, and well laugh and well hug and well talk and well hold hands, and maybe he can hold the baby while I make lunch for him. After all, hes a grandfather now. Theres so much playing to be done. Watch out, baby Cary may pull your hair, Dad. And my dog, Oliver, is named after our mutual nickname, Ollie. In a Cockney accent we could greet each other with, ello Ollie! ow ya doin, Ollie? Oliver and baby Cary will look at us sideways, and then my father will never leave again.

A break from cantering across the Palm Springs desert. We likely stuffed ourselves with pancakes at Lindy Lous before setting out. Circa 1976.

To write this book is to fully admit, more than twenty years later, that he died. To move on with my life. The tribute to my father is more than mildly overdue. Dad has been deservedly honored by everyone and their mother. The U.S. government even turned my father into a stamp. For many years Ive stayed silent. Other tributes to Dad stem from the perspective of show business, where the intimate side of his life is somehow vaguely analyzed, but never revealed. I am my fathers only child. The world knows a two-dimensional Cary Grant. As charming a star and as remarkable a gentleman as he was, he was still a more thoughtful and loving father.

Madame Sylvia Wu, the marvelous restaurateur, was close to Dad for more than forty years. When I called Auntie Sylvia to discuss the book, she sweetly chided, Its about time! Sadly, several of Dads closest pals, among them Frank Sinatra, Charlie Rich, and Gregory Peck, are no longer alive to share their memories of him.

Privacy was a gift our family worked hard to maintain. Selfishly, I have guarded my memories of Dad, clutching them to preserve that part of him that I alone knew.

Why didnt Dad write his own book? One archived audio cassette recorded in 1962 is a self-hypnosis session made for Dad. He was being instructed to exercise, gently, daily, and to write his autobiography. Presumably these are activities he wished to pursue, and hed hired someone to help him with autosuggestion. The woman soothingly advised that he complete his autobiography with tremendous compassion for his subjects and not to worry, not to criticize the work, just to do it. Also, to exercise a bit each day. This was four years prior to my birth. Was Dad examining his life before having a child? Why didnt Dad finish his book? Did he consider revealing his history, his childhood, to the world? He never spoke of the endeavor, but he saved the tape for me. What turned him around? With so much misinformation out there, did he want to address and correct it? Is this why he stayed up at night? Was he too distressed about involving others lives? Of course, his was the definitive voice. His parents were already gone. Any writing would have served Dad and Dad alone. Dads parents werent famous, he was. He knew his story. Anyone reading his story would have done so to learn about him. His motives were therefore the central theme. My guess is he came to terms with his past, and with anyone who wished to write about it. Let them examine their own motives. In my case, ultimately its the same matter. Dad is gone; I write about him for me.