Cary Grant: Dark Angel

The title of this handsomely produced coffee-table biography promises more than it delivers. British journalist Wansell writes that ""there was a darker side to [Grant's] character that he took pain never to allow to surface in public."" This biography offers no new revelations about Grant's private life, however, only a string of hints that readers are left to connect on their own, chiefly Grant's offscreen awkwardness with women and his long-standing friendship with actor Randolph Scott. Otherwise Wansell relies on previously published interviews and accounts, telling the well-known story of Archibald Leach's ascent from a hardscrabble British boyhood to his long stardom as Cary Grant, the very definition of debonair manhood. Oft-told anecdotes about the making of Grant's films are interspersed with boilerplate observations about Grant's charm from such colleagues as Sophia Loren. Even the juice stories of Grant's four marriages are nothing new. The text is secondary, however, to the beautifully reproduced photos (120 b&w, 30 color) showing the enviably graceful aging of the handsomest face in movies; but these photos, chiefly publicity shots and production stills, are also nothing new. While not perfect, Graham McCann's recent Cary Grant (Forecasts, Jan. 6) still offers a more extensive and considered appraisal of the actor's life and work. (May)