Hollywood Gays by Boze Hadleigh

well, and in hard times I had to make do without the necessities, but nevah without the luxuries . Except of course during wartime. The war was the exception to everything.
    “Above all, I think Cary Grant has an intense desire to be liked. At almost any cost. Then, as now. Professionally, it’s probably cost him, in terms of art roles and an Academy Award. Yet who can fault such a successful career?”
    I wondered aloud whether stars with commercial success don’t envy—for one often hears it—those with widely recognized artistic success?
    “It’s not that simple. Few real artists become so-called superstars. And Cary did his homework. He wasn’t as lazy as some find it fashionable to believe. That seeming lack of effort you’ve seen on the screen—that elegant jauntiness—he rehearsed it with his life, nothing less. All his off-screen hours, he was practicing to be Cary Grant.
    “He wasn’t born that way. He worked on everything. The masculinity, as well. When he was very young, he was quite neutral. Not feminine, but not effortlessly masculine, either. He worked at it, probably practiced on his wives and the fond admirers who imagined him the better half of a happy couple. In the end, he attained a low-keyed masculinity—by American standards. But it had become inherent.”
    “You don’t mean to say you think his marriages made him more butch?”
    “No, my dear. Not ‘butch,’ as you so provocatively put it. Convincing . A man who has married more than once is no longer boyish. The effort of it robs him of that quality.”
    “I think you’re right. I’m thinking of gay actors I know about who never married, and most still seem rather boyish.”
    “You see ...Cary Grant is a gentleman in a business which dotes upon brutish men. Yet he holds his own quite nicely in terms of reassuring women. But you’ll notice he isn’t an active sex symbol. He’s rarely done love scenes, and his screen kisses have been brief. In no way could one define him as that Hollywood culinary absurdity, beefcake .”
    “I never thought him sexy, but rather, charming and good-looking in a non-spectacular way. Sir Noël, do you find him sexually appealing?”
    He rolled his eyes and cooed, “Even today,” then tapped his forefinger against the side of his nose. “You hit on something by saying he’s reassuring. His manner and longevity are comforting, aren’t they?”
    “They are. So is his class. Nobody would label Cary a snob. But he does embody motion pictures’ classiness, as Americans would put it.”
    “May I ask if you ever wanted to be more like Cary Grant, Sir Noël?”
    “ No , my dear boy. On the contrary . He always wanted to be Noël Coward! Until he made it big in Hollywood. Then he realized his future was there, that he’d never become Sir Cary Grant, and so he set about creating and rehearsing an entirely new character. For that particular place. You see, Hollywood is a state of mindlessness.”
    Edith Head gave Cary Grant good wardrobe. Not coincidentally, he retired from Hollywood in the mid ‘60s, when anti-glamour was taking over and words like “style,” “class,” and “gentleman” had become box-office poison as well as uncool, man. Queried what Grant was like to dress, Head noted with her trademark severity, “You could call him a perfectionist or incredibly vain. You can take your pick.
    “But he wasn’t difficult. Big stars aren’t. The difficult, insecure ones are the up-and-comers. Kids who don’t know who they are or what they’re about, who don’t trust the experts. Stars, being established, are secure in their image. Unless they’re trying to come up with a new image every decade, like Joan Crawford did. Cary Grant found his and stuck with it.
    “He was very fussy about what he would and wouldn’t do. He had to look good, which wasn’t difficult. Mostly, it meant good tailoring. He knew what he should wear and shouldn’t. He was no hayseed, certainly not the denim