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Today is Cary Grant's 122nd birthday. Known for his distinctive mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanour, light-hearted approach to acting, and impeccable comic timing, he was one of the most iconic leading men of Hollywood's Golden Age. Renowned for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940) and The Philadelphia (1940), he also received acclaim for serious roles in films like Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), and his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, which included Suspicious (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959). He was nominated for two Academy Awards, five Golden Globes and a BAFTA, received a Star on the Walk of Fame in 1960, and remained a top box-office attraction for almost 30 years. To celebrate the man, the myth, the legend, this is his life in pictures.

I started this blog six years ago as a way to share my passion for classic films and the Old Hollywood era. I used to watch dozens of classic films every month, and every time I discovered a new star I liked I would go and watch their entire filmography. But somewhere along the way, that passion dimmed down. For instance, I watched 73 classic films in 2016, and only 10 in 2020. The other day, I found this film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that I had never heard of, and for some reason it made me really excited about Old Hollywood again. It made me really miss the magic of that era and all the wonderful actors and actresses that graced the silver screen. And it also made me think of all the reasons why I fell in love with classic films in the first place. I came up with 80 reasons, which I thought would be fun to share with you. Most of them are just random little scenes or quirky little quotes, but put them together and they spell Old Hollywood to me. This is part one of the 80 reasons w...

The 1930s were a decade of great political and economic turmoil. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the entire world was consumed by an economic downfall called the Great Depression, which led to widespread unemployment and poverty. As a result, authoritarian political movements emerged in several countries in South America and Europe. Notorious among them was Adolf Hitler's Third Reich in Germany, whose expansionist policy resulted in the outbreak of World War II a few months before the end of the decade. In between, Gandhi walked to the Arabian Sea in the Salt March, a civil war established an authoritarian dictatorship in Spain, the Hindenburg exploded over New Jersey, Amelia Earhart became the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the Empire of Japan invaded China. (from left to right) Gandhi and his followers during the Salt March (March-April 1930); Japanese troops entering Manchuria (September 1931); the Hindenburg disaster (May 1937); German troo...

Directed by Howard Hawks, Bringing Up Baby (1938) follows the tribulations of David Huxley (Cary Grant), a mild-mannered paleontologist who has been trying to assemble the skeleton of a Brontosaurus for the past four years, but is missing one bone in order to complete it: the intercostal clavicle. Adding to his stress is his forthcoming marriage to the dour Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker) and the need to impress Elizabeth Random (May Robson), who is considering a million-dollar donation to his museum. The day before his wedding, David meets a free-spirited society girl named Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) by chance at a golf course. Unbeknownst to him at first, she is Mrs. Random's niece. Susan's brother, Mark, has sent her a tame leopard from Brazil named Baby (Nissa) to give to their aunt. Believing David is a zoologist, she invites him to her country home in Connecticut to help bring up Baby, which includes singing "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby" ...

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born at 22 Hudson Street, in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 12, 1907. The second of six children, she was the daughter of Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn, a urologist at Hartford Hospital, and Katharine «Kit» Martha Houghton, a member of the prominent Houghton family from New England and Upstate New York. Kit's father, Alfred Houghton, was the younger brother of Amory Houghton, the head of the Corning Glass Company. Both progressive freethinkers, Kit and Thomas fought for social change in America: he helped establish the New England Social Hygiene Association, which educated the general public about venereal disease, while she was president of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage association and later campaigned for birth control with Margaret Sanger. Kate later wrote of her progenitors, «Mother and Dad were perfect parents. They brought us up with a feeling of freedom. There were NO RULES. There were simply certain things which he did — and certain things which h...