Dyan Cannon has fallen in love with Cary Grant again years after his death – despite their abusive marriage.
Dyan Cannon has fallen in love with Cary Grant again years after his death – despite their abusive marriage
The ‘Heaven Can Wait’ actress was 28 when she married the Hollywood icon who was 61 at the time in 1965 and the pair had daughter Jennifer in 1966, but they divorced two years later after their marriage imploded in the wake of a string of scandals involving Cary.
But Dyan told Page Six about looking back fondly on the star: “About four months ago I was going through my safe and I found some notes from him that were so adorable, and made me understand why I fell in love with him.
In her 2011 memoir ‘Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant’, Dyan said there were “fundamental problems” in their relationship from the start, with Cary allegedly slamming her for what she wore and flying into unexpected fits of rage.
She said in the book: “I never knew what was going to set him off next, and when he wasn’t at work he trailed me around the house, listing my shortcomings.
“I didn’t place a coaster under my water glass. I parked my car in the driveway crooked. I shouldn’t be so friendly to the postman because he might get the wrong idea, or to the maid because it was good to keep a distance.”
Dyan was pressured to take LSD with Cary – but she has also admitted she left plenty of scandals out of the book.
She added: “The thing that was really challenging for me in writing the book was what to say and what not to say.
“Cary had so many people who loved him and I didn’t want to take the stars out of their eyes… (mine) disappeared for a while but, curiously, the stars are back in my eyes again.”
Dyan’s autobiography has been made into a four-part miniseries now streaming on Britbox about Cary’s life called ‘Archie’ – as the actor’s real name was Archie Leach.
He grew up poor in Bristol, England, and when Archie was aged nine, his dad placed his mother in a mental institution and told his son she had died.
Cary – who changed his name in 1941 and died in 1986 at the age of 82 – did not learn that his mother was still alive until he was 31 and was left with abandonment issues that coloured his relationships with all other women.
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