The Real Secret of Cary Grant’s Style
By Richard Torregrossa
Cary Grant was 6’1” and 180 lbs, a tall and at times a muscular man, especially in the early part of his career when he was an acrobat tumbling across vaudeville stages or stilt walking for pin money in Coney Island, all of which required extraordinary physical skill.
These experiences gave him a superior edge over most other movie actors—athletic grace, a feature that has been overlooked by some fans, many critics, and every biographer.
When Cary Grant walked into a room it was taken for granted that “men wanted to be him and women wanted to be with him” because he was handsome and impeccably dressed.
To be sure, this was a large part of his appeal; he looked so crisp you could practically smell his after shave lotion, but it was the way he moved that was really the key to Cary Grant’s style.
He performed comic stunts without losing one iota of style. In “The Awful Truth” he falls backwards off a chair in full evening attire and in “Holiday” he launches into a cartwheel, a back flip, and a forward roll with Katherine Hepburn standing on his shoulders—all in the clothes of his character, whether it was a bumpkin’s three-piece suit in “Holiday” or full evening attire in ‘The Awful Truth.”
He didn’t cheat like Fred Astaire who created all kinds of innovations in his legendary collaboration with his Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard or Kilgour, French & Stanbury to facilitate his incomparable movements on the dance floor.
Some of Astaire’s innovations were ridiculously pretentious like the time he tied a scarf instead of a belt around his pants, a substitution that was supposed to make his clothes less constricting. Cary Grant just wore clothes that fit.
Fred Astaire was a one-dimensional talent, a dandy dancer, a leggy technician with a lot of skill, and even more discipline. His girlishly lithe figure made it easier for him to defy gravity than a man of Grant’s more manly size.
You can see Astaire straining for precision and a kind of choreographed perfection. We appreciate his hard work, but with Grant he gives us a calming joy, lightly uplifts us, all without effort—or rather with an effort that appears effortless, the epitome of genuine and not arduous grace.
And Grant made better movies. Nothing Astaire did can compare to “North by Northwest,” Notorious,” or “To Catch a Thief.”
Astaire made corny musicals in which he danced brilliantly. Grant made iconic movies in which he acted brilliantly and at the same time created the gold standard for style.
—Richard Torregrossa is the author of Cary Grant: A Celebration of Style, Foreword by Giorgio Armani.
www.richardtorregrossa.com