English actor Archibald Leach, better known as Cary Grant, was BOTD in 1904. Born in Bristol to an unhappy working-class family, he left home at 13 to perform in acrobatic troupes and in London music halls. Relocating to America in 1920, he worked in circuses for many years before heading to Hollywood, becoming a star in two Mae West films She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel. Reinventing himself as Cary Grant, a debonair and indecently handsome charmer with a trans-Atlantic accent. He became one of Hollywood’s most desirable leading men, starring in some of the greatest screwball comedies of Hollywood’s Golden Age, including The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne, Holiday, Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn and His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell. He found his darker side in a series of successful collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, starring in Suspicion with Joan Fontaine, Notorious with Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief with Grace Kelly and North by Northwest with Eva Marie Saint. His film career lasted into the 1950s, scoring hits with Charade with Audrey Hepburn, A Touch of Mink with Doris Day and An Affair to Remember with Deborah Kerr. Married and divorced four times, his sexuality has been extensively debated by biographers and historians, particularly his live-in relationship with gay actor Randolph Scott during his bachelor days. As the Hollywood studio system disbanded, he retired from film, devoting himself to his daughter (by fourth wife Dyan Cannon) and experimenting with LSD. He died in 1986, aged 82. Now considered one of the greatest stars of classic Hollywood, his work and legacy continues to make women and men weak-kneed, essaying an artificial but appealing brand of debonair masculinity. He has been portrayed frequently on screen, most recently by Jason Isaacs in the 2023 TV series Archie.