Paramount film actors Cary Grant (1904 – 1986) and Randolph Scott (1898 – 1987) in front of their new home which looks out over Santa Monica sea front. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty)
Candid photos showing Hollywood heartthrobs Cary Grant and Randolph Scott together in their shared home were the result of a studio publicity campaign and were not reflective of a secret relationship, a historian has said.
Grant and Scott famously lived together early on in their acting careers, and a series of shots showcasing their intimacy taken in 1935 have fuelled rumours that the pair had a romantic connection.
One photo showed the shirtless actors sunbathing on sun loungers, while another showed them sitting on a diving board with Scott’s hands reaching out to touch his co-star.
But a new discovery by a film historian has finally put rumours about the nature of the photographs to bed.
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were photographed together as part of a studio campaign to promote them as eligible bachelors.
Mark Glancy, a London-based film historian, has discovered that the photos were commissioned by the actors’ film studio.
According to Glancy, the photographs were carefully staged by a photographer who visited their shared home to promote them to the world.
“Previous biographers have mistaken these for photographs of their real home life that somehow got leaked or mistakenly released to the press,” Glancy said, according to The Telegraph.
“But I went to the Paramount Pictures archive and found that actually these photographs were commissioned by Paramount as part of a publicity campaign that ran throughout the 1930s, that promoted their relationship as that of two bachelors who were very heterosexual, and they used it for them to endorse products such as soups.”
Previous biographers have mistaken these for photographs of their real home life that somehow got leaked or mistakenly released to the press.
Rumours have swirled for years about Cary Grant’s sexuality. A 2016 documentary suggested that he was bisexual and lived with a male partner.
In the documentary, it was suggested that Grant made no secret of his same-sex love affairs before he made it big in Hollywood.
The claims were based on costume designer Orry-Kelly’s autobiography in which he claimed that Grant would “always come home” to him.
Grant famously sued comedian Chevy Chase for slander after the comic implied that he was gay.
He was married five times throughout his life and died in 1986.