Features / Cary Grant
From Archie to Cary: Hollywood star’s early life in Bristol
From Archibald Leach to Cary Grant. From Horfield to Hollywood. From growing up in poverty in Bristol to becoming the archetypal leading man.
The early life of Cary Grant, to many the most famous Bristolian of all time, will be explored in a new four-part ITVX drama, Archie, which begins on Thursday.
Archie sees Jason Isaacs star as the older Cary Grant, with the action flitting from Bristol to Hollywood via New York and London.
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Archie is a drama so various elements of Cary Grant’s childhood in Bristol have been fictionalised for dramatic purposes – much like his own retelling of his life story.
But the key components are still here: born in 1904 at 15 Hughenden Road in Horfield, attended Bishop Road Primary School in Bishopston, told that his mum was dead at the age of 11 when she was in fact at Bristol Lunatic Asylum in Fishponds, expelled from Fairfield Grammar School in Montpelier, worked at Bristol Hippodrome, joined a troupe of acrobats, travelled with them to the USA, stayed in the States as they returned to England, changed his name to Cary Grant.
Archibald Alexander Leach was born to parents Elsie and Elias on January 18 1904 at 8 Hughenden Road (later renumbered to 15) in Horfield, where a blue plaque remembers Bristol’s most famous son – photo: Martin Booth
Archie Leach pictured in Bristol, circa 1910 – photo courtesy of Oxford University Press
Archie enjoyed sports at Bishop Road School as well as having singing and piano lessons. Two years above him at the same primary school was Paul Dirac, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933 – photo: Martin Booth
Cary Grant’s class at Bishop Road Primary School – photo: Bishop Road Primary School
Until 1918, young Archibald Leach lived with his father and grandfather at 21 Picton Street in Montpelier. Archie also spent time living with his grandmother on Campbell Street in St Paul’s – photo: Martin Booth
Archie won a scholarship to Fairfield Grammar School (now Fairlawn Primary School), which he joined in 1915. He was expelled at the age of 14 after being found hiding in the girls’ toilets – photo: Martin Booth
After leaving school, he worked at the Bristol Hippodrome and former Bristol Empire on Old Market Street (below), where he met Bob Pender, the leader of a travelling group of performers who he later joined as an acrobat – photo: Martin Booth
The acrobatic Pender Troupe of ‘knockabout comedians’ pictured in 1918. Archie is in the front row, far right – photo courtesy of Oxford University Press
Despite Bristol being lauded as a filming location, most of Archie was shot in Liverpool, with none of the scenes shot where they are set.
Super-8 and 16mm film blending different styles and eras make up for its lack of a big budget.
At a recent preview of episode one at the Watershed, writer and exec producer Jeff Pope said that in his character, Cary Grant “always retained a large slice of the Englishman”.
“He moved around but Bristol was always his first stop… You took the boy out of Bristol but you never quite took Bristol out of the boy.”
Actor-led theatre walks of Archie’s Bristol will be run regularly in 2024 – starting at the Cary Grant statue in Millennium Square – in partnership with Show of Strength – photo: Martin Booth
The statue is based on this famous photo of Cary Grant on College Green – photo: Bristol Evening Post
Look out for a stencil of Cary Grant by Stewy on the side of Room 212 on Gloucester Road – photo: Martin Booth
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
- Meet the 10-year-old playing Cary Grant in new biopic
- Cary Grant’s long strange trip
- Definitive biography marks 117th birthday of Cary Grant
- Bristol’s Cary Grant statue reaches its 20th anniversary
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