Towards the end of Archie, a new four-part ITV drama about the life of Cary Grant, the actor (played at this stage by Jason Isaacs) muses: “Leave the past in the past where it belongs. If you’re not careful, it becomes a trap.” Yet the series suggests that, even at the height of his Hollywood fame, Grant could never truly forget his deprived origins in Bristol as a boy called Archibald Leach.
Archie doesn’t offer a linear account of Grant’s life, but instead cuts continuously between his humble English beginnings and later Hollywood success. There’s particular focus on the period during the early 1960s when he pursued, married and divorced the young screen star Dyan Cannon, who was 33 years his junior.
