Includes bibliographical references (pages 523-529) and index

"Born Archibald Leach in 1904, he came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was thirty-one years old. Because of this experience Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs. Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest. Drawing on Grant's own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends, this is the definitive portrait of a movie immortal." -- Amazon.com

"Scott Eyman, author of the New York Times bestseller JOHN WAYNE: The Life and Legend, has written an incisive, definitive biography of another great Hollywood legend, Cary Grant, drawing in part on new research into Grant's all-important early years, which permanently shaped his life"--,Provided by publisher