Cary Grant

A Brilliant Disguise

By: Scott Eyman

Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto

Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Film historian and acclaimed New York Times best-selling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive, “captivating” (Associated Press) biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished — and beloved — actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today.

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 11-years-old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was 31-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.

This “estimable and empathetic biography” (The Washington Post) draws on Grant’s own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends making it a definitive and “complex portrait of Hollywood’s original leading man” (Entertainment Weekly).

©2020 Paladin Literature, Inc. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio

Great book, great narration

I’ve read many books over my long life, few I’ve loved any more than this one. Great narration as well. Book you not only love but learn from. Hated when it was over.

Kept my attention from beginning to end.

l recommend it to readers who enjoy the whole story of a famous life. Both the flattering and the faults.

Better than this review

Most of the book is entertaining and there are numerous very good sections. I do not regret listening to this book. but this review is middling because the book is lightweight and did not live up to its promise and title. It fails when trying to make profound insights and should have stuck to making detailed but shallow remembrances of Cary Grant’s life. It was too long, and I was often impatient to get done but few areas stand out as parts to skim past. Take the book for what it is and enjoy.

It is an insider’s book and the name dropping makes it hard to follow and make the proper inferences. I am old enough to recognize the names of many of the stars and characters from the early and mid-twentieth century but even then context was missed. If you do not have an appreciation for folks like Buster Keaton or Errol Flynn, let alone, some of the more obscure, you will feel left out because it is assumed that their lives are understood by the listener. Like many authors, Mr. Eyman wants to make profound observations and conclusions. Unfortunately, many of these observations are only accompanied by a single second-hand quote. The book is not structured to present evidence and then make a conclusion. Rather, it appears more like the author was searching for tidbits to create a narrative around his conclusions. In general, the writing is largely sequential with many vignettes.

Here are a few specific nitpicks that bothered me but many may not care. The book generally lives in its day which results in little description of the people which can be maddening. Yet, there were a very few times where analogies to present day people are presented which were glaring because of the infrequency. There were also several debates regarding Cary Grant’s sexual orientation. However, given his varied and long documented sexual relations with women, there seems little point to have pondered whether he was firmly gay. In the end, the author only presented innuendo and rumor that he had homosexual relations so it could have been mentioned more in passing and less in detail. This is where the insider nature of the book also made it difficult to understand the innuendo and hard to infer what was implied. One of the main themes was that Cary Grant was a character of Archi Leach. That premise seems a stretch and was not significantly demonstrated to me.

Cary Grant seemed to be a generally good guy with eccentricities, significant personal failures but with a great deal of grace and success. The book is not as profound as the author supposes. It would have been better had it been tightened and the attempts at insight removed. It was entertaining to learn more about the main and the history of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

Well done

Very well written factual from other books that I had read and very entertaining enjoyable

Everything you wanted to know

Comprehensive life story, to say the least. The result of prodigious research. If you are interested — at great length — in CG this is for you. My one criticism is that while the book was well-read there were a number of mispronounced proper names. Very distracting! I know because I lived through much of the period recounted. Who vets these issues for audiobooks?

cary grant's iconic image

rough start.....could not get involved or swept into story. I felt there was too much professional life versus personal storyline.

Comically dumb narrator

Good though sometimes skimpy bio. Awful narration though. I've never ever heard a paid performer mispronounce so many famous names.

Not crazy about the reader.

I love Cary Grant so I loved learning about him but the author is too detailed at times and went off on tangents.
The reader annoyed me. He appeared to be acting, with a purposely lowered voice. I almost stopped listening but I tolerated him...for Cary.

Narrator almost ruined the story for me

I really hate audiobooks and podcasts when the people involved publish mispronunciations of peoples names and names of cities and towns.

Is there no editor? Does the narrator practice? Where is the author when this is recorded?

The story is good, but I want to yell every time there is simple error and am taken away from the content,
btw...Walter Huss Ton? he's famous---his son is even more famous. Why?

A Good and Balanced Biography… but

The text itself is well researched and balanced with observations based on some evidence. Grant was a fiction created by Archie Leach and the author does well to present that story. The narrator however is awful. As noted by others, he mangles well-known names. Further he presents the story like someone reading news bulletins. No nuance, inflection or interest in the story.