Cary Grant Read Online Free Page B
Author: Marc Eliot
Bristol, England, 1908.
(Courtesy of the private collection of the Virginia Cherrill Estate)
2
“I'm reminded of a piece of advice my father gave me regarding shoes; it has stood me in good stead whenever my own finances were low. He said, it's better to buy one good pair of shoes than four cheap ones. One pair made of fine leather could outlast four inferior pairs and, if well cared for, would continue to proclaim your good judgment and taste no matter how old they become. It is rather like the stock market. It makes more sense to buy just one share of blue chip than 150 shares of a one-dollar stock.”
— CARY GRANT
B ristol is the seventh-largest city and third-largest seaport in Great Britain. It is situated to the south of Cardiff, Wales, to the west of Bath, and to the southwest of Gloucestershire. In 1497, John Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland, first sailed to the New World from Bristol. Noted natives of Bristol include England's seventeenth-century poet laureate Robert Southey; William Penn, for whom Pennsylvania is named; and the celebrated Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving. During the first years of the twentieth century, Bristol was the designated port of departure for those who wished tosail via luxury liner from England to the United States. It is adored by the rest of the world for its celebrated cream sherry.
Bristol is also one of England's many great theatrical districts, home to the famous Theatre Royal on King Street, which first opened in 1766 and remains in operation to this day. The other major stops on the British vaudeville circuit at the turn of the twentieth century were Bristol's Empire and Hippodrome. All three venues were the first signposts on the journey to dreamland for the boy whose destiny it was to become Bristol's most beloved progeny, young Archibald (Arch
-eee-
bald) Alec (Alexander) Leach.
Archie, as everyone called him, was the second child born to Elsie Maria Kingdon, the daughter of an Episcopalian shipwright, and Elias Leach, the son of an Episcopalian potter. Although Elias had big dreams of one day becoming a famous entertainer, he earned his living wage as a tailor's presser at Todd's clothing factory. The Kingdons generally presumed, in the waning days of the staunch Victorian epoch, that their prudent daughter had, unfortunately, married beneath her class. They did not consider Elias—at thirty- three, twelve years their daughter's senior—socially acceptable or sufficiently established in business for a man his age.
Nevertheless the slight, attractive, cleft-chinned, and prohibitively shy Elsie did not turn him down when he proposed. How could she? He was tall, slim, dashing, and a charmer, the mustachioed man of her dreams. She resolutely believed in Elias, even if her parents didn't, and was certain that he meant it when he promised her that the type of fancy coats and suits of the wealthy he pressed at the factory would one day belong to him as well, that the manual labor in the steamy, windowless shop in which he toiled six days out of seven was but a brief stepping-stone to a better life for the both of them.
Elias could dream with the best of them, and he also knew well how to make at least some of those dreams come true. By the time he walked his twenty-one-year-old wife down the aisle, he had already played through the field of Bristol's most (and least) eligible women, using his good looks to insinuate himself into their beds if not their lives. When he met Elsie, he sensed that her father might provide a rich dowry and, later on, a comfortable inheritance. It was enough to lure him to renounce his wild ways and seek Elsie's hand in marriage.
They settled in to one of the newly built working-class semidetached homes along Hughenden Road, just off Gloucester, a dwelling too chilly and damp in the winter, the air roughened by the smelly choke of poorly ventilated coal heating, and too sweaty in the clumping humidity of summer. In dire need of fresh
(Courtesy of the private collection of the Virginia Cherrill Estate)
2
“I'm reminded of a piece of advice my father gave me regarding shoes; it has stood me in good stead whenever my own finances were low. He said, it's better to buy one good pair of shoes than four cheap ones. One pair made of fine leather could outlast four inferior pairs and, if well cared for, would continue to proclaim your good judgment and taste no matter how old they become. It is rather like the stock market. It makes more sense to buy just one share of blue chip than 150 shares of a one-dollar stock.”
— CARY GRANT
B ristol is the seventh-largest city and third-largest seaport in Great Britain. It is situated to the south of Cardiff, Wales, to the west of Bath, and to the southwest of Gloucestershire. In 1497, John Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland, first sailed to the New World from Bristol. Noted natives of Bristol include England's seventeenth-century poet laureate Robert Southey; William Penn, for whom Pennsylvania is named; and the celebrated Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving. During the first years of the twentieth century, Bristol was the designated port of departure for those who wished tosail via luxury liner from England to the United States. It is adored by the rest of the world for its celebrated cream sherry.
Bristol is also one of England's many great theatrical districts, home to the famous Theatre Royal on King Street, which first opened in 1766 and remains in operation to this day. The other major stops on the British vaudeville circuit at the turn of the twentieth century were Bristol's Empire and Hippodrome. All three venues were the first signposts on the journey to dreamland for the boy whose destiny it was to become Bristol's most beloved progeny, young Archibald (Arch
-eee-
bald) Alec (Alexander) Leach.
Archie, as everyone called him, was the second child born to Elsie Maria Kingdon, the daughter of an Episcopalian shipwright, and Elias Leach, the son of an Episcopalian potter. Although Elias had big dreams of one day becoming a famous entertainer, he earned his living wage as a tailor's presser at Todd's clothing factory. The Kingdons generally presumed, in the waning days of the staunch Victorian epoch, that their prudent daughter had, unfortunately, married beneath her class. They did not consider Elias—at thirty- three, twelve years their daughter's senior—socially acceptable or sufficiently established in business for a man his age.
Nevertheless the slight, attractive, cleft-chinned, and prohibitively shy Elsie did not turn him down when he proposed. How could she? He was tall, slim, dashing, and a charmer, the mustachioed man of her dreams. She resolutely believed in Elias, even if her parents didn't, and was certain that he meant it when he promised her that the type of fancy coats and suits of the wealthy he pressed at the factory would one day belong to him as well, that the manual labor in the steamy, windowless shop in which he toiled six days out of seven was but a brief stepping-stone to a better life for the both of them.
Elias could dream with the best of them, and he also knew well how to make at least some of those dreams come true. By the time he walked his twenty-one-year-old wife down the aisle, he had already played through the field of Bristol's most (and least) eligible women, using his good looks to insinuate himself into their beds if not their lives. When he met Elsie, he sensed that her father might provide a rich dowry and, later on, a comfortable inheritance. It was enough to lure him to renounce his wild ways and seek Elsie's hand in marriage.
They settled in to one of the newly built working-class semidetached homes along Hughenden Road, just off Gloucester, a dwelling too chilly and damp in the winter, the air roughened by the smelly choke of poorly ventilated coal heating, and too sweaty in the clumping humidity of summer. In dire need of fresh
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