Archie (2023) stars Jason Isaacs as Archibald Alec Leach, whom the world knew as legendary actor Cary Grant. Based heavily on his fourth wife Dyan Cannon’s memoir Dear Cary, the show alternates between three separate timelines in Grant’s life but glosses over a lot of the more sensational aspects. If you’re expecting this show to touch on his all-but-in-name relationships with Orry-Kelly and actor Randolph Scott, you’re out of luck (though there is a throwaway line in the final episode where Cary says he’s been described as a homosexual but doesn’t find it offensive); this biopic is fairly sterilized, no doubt to tread carefully around Grant’s surviving family, amongst whom the question of exactly how queer Archie Leach was is a bit of a contentious subject — Dyan Cannon actually described him as “queer” back when the term was a whole lot more of a slur than it is now. His daughter Jennifer Grant, however, rejects the notion that her father’s relationships with other men were relationships.
Ultimately, I don’t think leaving the question of his Kinsey Scale number unaddressed is necessarily doing a disservice to the story that Archie is committed to telling, since so much of that question is extremely hard to document (and Grant himself liked to drop hints and then veer away from any explanation of his private life), but I do think that it needs to be remembered that the basis for said story is tilted heavily towards Dyan Cannon’s perception of her 8-ish years as Cary Grant’s girlfriend, then wife, then mother of his child, and ultimately his ex-wife. Because, wow, does it pull no punches when depicting Cary Grant as a broken man with terrible relationships with every woman he’s ever known, starting with his mother and reaching its zenith with Cannon, who was 30-something years younger than him.
That said, it’s hard not to like Isaacs in the role of Archie playing the role of Cary. Really, I doubt there is any other actor so perfectly suited, both physically and intellectually, to playing someone as classically handsome as Grant and as stereotypically broken as Archie, and he ties both ends together in a neat little bow.
Annie Hardinge (Austenland, Nolly) designed the costumes, the bulk of which are set in the mid-1960s with some forays back to Archie’s childhood and teen years in the early part of the 20th century, and forward to the early 1980s. For the men, namely Cary Grant, it’s mostly smart casual — slacks, polo sweaters — with the occasional standard two piece suit and tie.
Have you watched Archie (2023)? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Find this frock flick at:
![Portrait of a lady said to be Jeanne de Valois, comtesse de la Motte [I would be shocked if this was accurate] by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, c. 1780 [I'd say post-1783], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/frockflicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Jeanne_lamotte_valois.jpg?fit=300%2C175&ssl=1)
That dress with the flower pockets – I’d wear TF out of it today!!
Most dresses should have pockets, and I absolutely adore those blue daisies! I’d wear that dress, too!
I saw part of this-was horrified by the fact that his asshole father got rid of his mother by putting her into an insane asylum-apparently, a pretty common thing.
When doing genealogy research years ago, I found records showing my great great grandmother had been committed to an asylum by her husband. And get this, the cause written for admission was listed as “the menopause”. Even as common as it was, I never thought I would have something like that in my family line.
I hesitate to see this, because I remember him from life. I was in my mid 20s when he passed away, and it often bothers me to see biopics of people in living memory – the actors often seem a pale imitation of an imitation, especially of the genuine superstars. I find people’s identity issues from other eras problematic. I had friends and classmates who couldn’t reveal their sexuality for fear of losing their jobs, being ostracized, et al. For someone in Grant’s position, a world-famous romantic leading man, being outed would have destroyed his career. Him treating his relationship/friendship with Randolph Scott with a nod and a wink was clever on his part. Today, the world can deal with bisexual leading actors; 50 years ago, it wasn’t possible. I like Jason Issacs, more from the snark on his social media, but outside of Harry Potter and Death of Stalin, I haven’t seen him in anything. The costuming looks beautiful, and I see things that would have been very familiar in my late primary/middle school years. From what I’ve read of his life story in various magazine articles excerpted from biographical tomes, it’s really a wonder how far Grant went in life. A weaker man would have ended up some sort of addicted mess. I think that perhaps I’ll stick to written biographies and continue watching The Bishop’s Wife and The Philadelphia Story on repeat.
Yeah, it’s really hard to try to make everyone happy with someone like Cary Grant. On the one hand, there is a truth (maybe not THE truth, just one of many truths) about his life and it’s ultimately being told by those who survived him and whatever their agendas are dictate it.
I don’t doubt he was a terrible husband to Dyan Cannon (and the 3 wives before her, all of whom parted ways with him acrimoniously), but he also was devoted to his 5th and final wife, and was a doting and loving father to his daughter. Someone who came from such a broken home, with both parents being various levels of abusive, being abandoned, and yet managing to claw his way out of the gutter and into the highest echelons of stardom is incredible; but of course it left scars on him and it’s a credit to him that he seemed to be somewhat aware of that (what with his pursuit of psychotherapy and LSD treatment).
As for the question of his sexuality, I think most folks would consider him bisexual and if it were possible for him to put such a label on it back then, he probably would have. At the end of the day, however, it’s always fraught to assign modern labels to historical people, just like it’s always risky to take accounts like Hollywood Babylon at face value. Cary Grant was straight, just ask him. But what about Archie Leach? Who knows, and if it weren’t for the fact that the rumors have dogged him for almost a century, it honestly doesn’t matter in the end, I suppose.
I’m deeply fond of Grant’s screwball performances, and Isaacs’s, too. Looking forward to this one. (But will we learn where that deft style originated? Probably not.)
I’m not a big fan of biopics but I’ll probably watch this because I like Jason Isaacs. The poor bloke must be kicking himself for accepting a leading role in “The Salt Path”, based on a supposedly true story that was recently revealed to be a shameless fraud.
Not the first film of which that can be said – SIGNIFICANT LOOK TO ‘THE CONJURING’ et al – and at least onscreen you’re aware the whole thing is fictionalised from the start.