Isabel Quigly
Dark Side of A Star
Cary Grant: A Biography
By Marc Eliot
Aurum Press 434pp £18.99
The perfection of his features, the beautiful and sharp eyes that sat carved beneath his thick black brows, the handsome nose, the flawlessly smooth skin, the thick slick hair always perfectly cut and parted, and that remarkable cleft in his chin ... the godlike monument of his face': so the author of this overheated biography describes Cary Grant. He also calls him 'eternally alluring' and 'preternaturally beautiful', with his 'irresistible face ... as beautiful as a leading lady', and Time magazine piles it on even higher, calling him 'the world's most perfect male animal'. All this being at odds with his studio's initial opinion that his face was too pudgy, his 17-and-a-half-inch neck too long and thick, and that his legs were slightly bowed.
Well, he has kept those looks and hasn't dated over the years (more than twenty since he died and forty since he appeared in a feature film). Unlike so many who were once thought handsome, he is still acceptable as a head-turner and could still walk into a contemporary film
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It wasn’t until 1825 that Pepys’s diary became available for the first time. How it was eventually decrypted and published is a story of subterfuge and duplicity.
Kate Loveman tells the tale.
Kate Loveman - Publishing Pepys
Kate Loveman: Publishing Pepys
literaryreview.co.uk
Arthur Christopher Benson was a pillar of the Edwardian establishment. He was supremely well connected. As his newly published diaries reveal, he was also riotously indiscreet.
Piers Brendon compares Benson’s journals to others from the 20th century.
Piers Brendon - Land of Dopes & Tories
Piers Brendon: Land of Dopes & Tories - The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson by Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd)
literaryreview.co.uk
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk