See images of the romance between Dyan Cannon and Cary Grant.
According to her new book Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant, actress Dyan Cannon says Grant first spotted her in the 1961 TV series Malibu Run. She was living in Rome when he reached out to set up a meeting, and rebuffed his advances for months. The 25-year-old finally gave in to a quick lunch, which turned into a four-hour conversation. The 58-year-old matinee idol invited her out to his ranch in Palm Springs (she brought a friend), and the romance took off from there. “He was such an overwhelming presence. He was so handsome and so charming and so dapper and so suave and so so so in every aspect of his life,” Cannon told THE DAILY BEAST.
One of the many perks of dating Hollywood royalty is the all-star supporting cast. Dyan Cannon and Cary Grant frequently attended parties with Alfred Hitchcock (whom he worked with on four films), Jimmy Stewart, and dozens of others. Seen here in 1967 are Cannon, Frederick Brisson, his wife Rosalind Russell (who starred opposite Grant in His Girl Friday), Grant, and Sinatra’s then-wife, Mia Farrow.
After dating for six or seven months, Grant tried to prove his devotion to Cannon by falling facedown in the middle of La Cienega Boulevard, telling her he fell “head over heels” for her. Cannon began adjusting her own behavior for him, too. “Slowly, he changed the way I dress, my choice of things, the way I wrote thank you notes,” she told THE DAILY BEAST. “He became my Svengali.”
Shortly before her marriage to Cary Grant, Dyan Cannon learned she was pregnant. On February 26, 1966, their daughter Jennifer—Grant’s first and only child—was born.
During their five-year relationship, Grant and Cannon were one of the most-watched couples in the world. While on a trip to Bristol, Grant’s hometown, they couldn’t escape photographers and fans. Cannon remembers they were once in a local pub, engaged in a serious conversation about his childhood, when “a ruddy-faced man stood grinning at us, holding two pints of ale. ‘Just wanted to be able to tell me mates I’d bought Cary Grant a pint! You are a local boy, after all!”
Seen here in England, Dyan Cannon and Cary Grant had a tempestuous relationship after their original courtship. Grant came to heavily rely on LSD to “get closer to God” and clarify his troubled past. After their bitter divorce in 1968, Cannon had a breakdown. Grant married for the fifth time, and Cannon went on to have a successful film career.
