Cary Grant

February 25, 2002 - Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904, at 15 Hughenden Road in Horfield, a suburb of Bristol. He was the second child of Elias James Leach and Elsie Maria Leach (née Kingdon). His father worked as a tailor's presser at a clothes factory, while his mother worked as a seamstress.

June 13, 2017 - Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England, Cary Grant was just 11 years old when his mother, Elsie, left. Family members told Archie she had gone to a seaside resort, but gave no other explanation or anticipated date for her return. After Archie's father started a new family, it became increasingly clear that his mom wasn't coming back.

July 6, 2023 - Jennifer Grant was a baby when her parents divorced – her mother is the actor, Dyan Cannon – and it was her father with whom she primarily lived until his death, when she was 20.

Cary Grant · Historical Figures · Elsie Maria Kingdon, mother of Cary Grant · Jennifer Grant · Dyan Cannon · Elias James Leach, father of Cary Grant · Ford Grant Elsie Silver · What Remains Of Edith Finch Milton · Nancy Carroll Father Brown · Greenacres Harold Lloyd ·

March 11, 2021 - Then he returned to Bristol to see his mother on her 57th birthday, February 8, 1934. Cary Grant's mother Elsie Leach was committed to Bristol Lunatic Asylum without him knowing (Image: Press handout)

July 5, 2023 - Jennifer Grant was a baby when her parents divorced – her mother is the actor, Dyan Cannon – and it was her father with whom she primarily lived until his death, when she was 20.

Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I." Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias ...

April 7, 2025 - Archie, as he was known before he found fame, lived with his parents Elias and Elsie Leach. His mother had been unwell for a while, suffering bouts of depressions following the death of her first baby John, just before his first birthday, in 1900.

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October 9, 2024 - In 1933, one year into Cary’s first Hollywood contract, Elias called his son home to Bristol for a deathbed confession. “[Cary] had initially believed that his mother had left to go to the seaside,” the actor’s widow, Barbara Grant, tells ...

Elsie’s Story - Part Two Last time we looked at Cary Grant’s mother, Elsie Kingdon, and how at the age of 21 she married a young tailors press by the...

December 29, 2022 - Succession's Harriet Walter was cast to play Cary Grant's mother in the new Britbox production "Archie". I thought it was interesting since the real…

September 13, 2019 - TIL When Cary Grant was 9-years-old his mother was placed in a mental institution by Grant's father. He was told she went on a "long holiday".

November 29, 2023 - The real purpose was for Cary to introduce Mrs Grant the Fourth to Mrs Elsie Leach, the tragic mother he had lost at 11 and eventually tracked down decades later. That trio - bride, groom and his mother - are at the heart of Archie, a new four ...

July 18, 2019 - He would often claim that his mother didn’t want to visit him in Hollywood, and she like where she was. But the letters she sent him showed her desire to do just the opposite. Cary liked being Cary and did not want a reminder that he was once Archie, a poor nobody boy with a broken relationship with his mother.

November 13, 2023 - So Archie is shaped by three child-parent relationships: Grant with his mother, father then daughter. Central to the drama, though, is the complex relationship between Archie the Bristol boy and Cary the Hollywood man. “His whole life was a civil war,” says Pope.

Archie’s father Elias pressed men’s suits at a clothing store for a living. The Leach family was lower class and frequently wanted for money. Elias, obviously a man unhappy with his undistinguished fate, drank himself to death, expiring from alcohol poisoning in 1935. Grant’s mother Elsie was another haunted soul.

November 20, 2025 - Jennifer Diane Grant (born February 26, 1966) is an American actress. The daughter of actors Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon, she is best known for roles in the television series Beverly Hills, 90210 and Movie Stars.

Although he never invited his mother to Hollywood, he visited her regularly and happily posed for publicity photos in his native city. Such is Grant’s fame that his celebrated publicity photo in front of the Clifton Suspension Bridge continues to be recreated for selfies by the numerous visitors who flock to Bristol. In 2014, a new biennial festival – ‘Cary Comes Home’ – was set up to celebrate his achievements with a season of film screenings, talks, walking tours and much more.

Join us for our opening night reception and special screening of the award-winning Becoming Cary Grant which takes place at UWE Glenside campus, nee Bristol Lunatic Asylum, where Cary Grant’s mother, Elsie Kingdon Leach was committed in February 1915.