Cary Grant

Cary Grant always shimmers with glassy perfection, whether he's bantering in the moneyed drawing rooms of "The Philadelphia Story" (1940) or scampering across rooftops in "To Catch a Thief" (1955). Even at the center of Hitchcock's "wrong man" plot in "North by Northwest" (1959), Grant still looks like he's in the right place. Agile, dazzling, impossibly handsome, he remains Hollywood's most graceful and elegant leading man: a template not only for actors, but for anyone who's ever put on a tuxedo or tried to charm a woman with sparkling repartee.

His ease among the urbane — like his untraceable, staccato accent — was an achievement, not an inheritance. Archibald Leach came from a poor family in Bristol, England. At 14, he joined an English troupe of acrobats, stilt walkers, and music hall performers. After the company played New York in 1920, he stayed behind, first working on Broadway before heading to Hollywood. There, he reinvented himself as Cary Grant — and then helped invent the screwball comedy in manic, sexy, whip-smart farces like "The Awful Truth" (1937) and "His Girl Friday" (1940). He played the resourceful rake, the irresistible ex-husband who makes everyone else onscreen seem flat-footed and two-steps too slow. Throughout the '40s and '50s, he mellowed (but never really aged), making gems like "Notorious" (1946) and "An Affair to Remember" (1955). Grant guarded his image and his private life carefully. In the years between his retirement in 1966 (still lithe at 62) and death in 1986, he refused to write his memoirs despite lucrative offers. But the former Archie Leach knew better than most that in the realm of Hollywood gods, myth is usually better than life. —Jeff Ousborne