Chapter 24
In later years, Cary Grant would claim that he did retire in the early 1950s. In fact, he had only an 18 month hiatus between films, and during that time he knew that he would return to the screen in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief (1955). Hitchcock not only revived Grant’s career but also brought it into the modern era. All of his future films would be made in Technicolor and in a widescreen format, and all would feature location shooting in a spectacular setting. With To Catch A Thief, he found his favourite leading lady, Grace Kelly, and enjoyed a summer of filming with friends Alfred and Alma Hitchcock on location in the south of France. The Pride and the Passion (1956) was an epic historical drama filmed on location in Spain, where Grant fell deeply in love with his co-star Sophia Loren. The bittersweet love story An Affair to Remember (1957), co-starring Deborah Kerr, was filmed on location in Manhattan. Remarkably, the film’s producers tried to convince Grant that the setting should be changed to San Francisco, but he insisted on filming in Manhattan, citing the scene atop the Empire State Building as a crucial element of the film. He was correct. The scene is now considered iconic, and the film has become a perennially popular classic.