How an “execrable” movie Cary Grant walked out of after 20 minutes convinced him to stay retired
If someone dedicates their entire life to something, then it stands to reason they might miss it when they retire. That wasn’t the case for Cary Grant, though, who couldn’t be tempted to return to the screen in the 20 years between his final role in Walk, Don’t Run and his death 20 years later.
While he did contemplate a couple of potential comeback vehicles, they never got any further than the discussion stage. Grant had given the industry over 30 years and headlined some of the greatest and most beloved films ever made, but when he was rich as fuck and couldn’t be arsed, there was no convincing him to end his self-imposed exile.
Instead, he continued making money through other means. Although his lengthy stint as one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars had made him a very wealthy man, he’d understandably grown accustomed to a life of luxury. With so much free time on his hands, doing nothing gets expensive.
Grant decided to travel the world on speaking engagements where he discussed his life, career, and legacy. When he was asked why he never allowed them to be filmed for television, his response was that people wouldn’t pay to come and see him live if they could watch it at home for free.
At no point during his final two decades did he ever feel as if he was missing out watching cinema evolve from the sidelines, and his reasons for avoiding the business he’d called home for so long like the plague were justified when he made short work of a trip to the multiplex to see 1970’s Myra Breckenridge.
Michael Sarne’s adaptation of Gore Vidal’s eponymous novel starred fellow ‘Golden Age’ icon Mae West in her first movie role in 27 years. Grant was curious to see the actor’s long-awaited return but ended up walking out after 20 minutes because he hated it that much, deeming it “execrable.”
Fortunately, he didn’t stick around for the whole thing, with Myra Breckenridge being dubbed one of the worst films ever made. Grant was also left dismayed by what had become of Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland, two titanic presences who’d been reduced to appearing in terrible films, singling out the latter’s 1964 exploitation flick Lady in a Cage as a pertinent example of the misery that can befall a star if they hang around too long and end up in films that are beneath them.
He was basically a ‘Golden Age’ equivalent of Quentin Tarantino: Grant refused to sully his reputation by continuing his career past its sell-by date and filling out the remainder of his filmography with bad movies, so he walked away with his head held high and his legacy undiminished.
He didn’t want to be one of those old-man actors who coasted by on their glory days and gradually discovered the offers had dried up to such an extent that they were forced to make shoddy pictures just to keep working. As he put it himself: “No one will say I didn’t know when to get off the Hollywood trolley.”
