Cary Grant

Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; 18 January 1904 – 29 November 1986) was an English-American actor. Known for his blended British and American accent, debonair demeanor, lighthearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award, received an Academy Honorary Award in 1970, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. He was named the second-greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute in 1999.

Grant was born into an impoverished family in Bristol, where he had an unhappy childhood marked by the absence of his mother, and his father's alcoholism. He became attracted to theatre at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.