A month ago I briefly reviewed Jeff Pope‘s Archie, a four-part Britbox miniseries about the emotionally and psychologically fraught Cary Grant. I didn’t like it much, but after watching the final two episodes I was struck by a curious observation.
The series is based upon a 1992 tell-all by Grant’s fourth wife, Dyan Cannon, titled “Dear Cary: My Life With Cary Grant.” (They were married between 1965 and 1967.) Cannon, an executive producer of Archie, is played by Laura Aikman.
You would think, given the political circumstances, that Cannon would be portrayed sympathetically, but she isn’t. She comes off as anything but a day at the beach. Aikman portrays her, frankly, like a wife from hell — contentious, argumentative, feisty, completely uninterested in peace and placidity, and ready to take Grant’s head off at the drop of a hat.
One naturally presumes that Cannon was okay with this, but you have to wonder why. No marriage is ever a bed of roses, but my impression was “Jesus Christ, why did Grant ever marry that predator?”
Grant and Cannon began dating in 1961, when she was 24 and he was 57. They married on 7.22.65. Cannon filed for divorce in September 1967.
