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Good Stuff

A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
Jennifer Grant is the only child of Cary Grant, who was, and continues to be, the epitome of all that is elegant, sophisticated, and deft. Almost half a century after Cary Grant’s retirement from the screen, he remains the quintessential romantic comic movie star. He stopped making movies when his daughter was born so that he could be with her and raise her, which is just what he did.

Good Stuff
is an enchanting portrait of the profound and loving relationship between a daughter and her father, who just happens to be one of America’s most iconic male movie stars.
Cary Grant’s own personal childhood archives were burned in World War I, and he took painstaking care to ensure that his daughter would have an accurate record of her early life. In Good Stuff, Jennifer Grant writes of their life together through her high school and college years until Grant’s death at the age of eighty-two.
Cary Grant had a happy way of living, and he gave that to his daughter. He invented the phrase “good stuff” to mean happiness. For the last twenty years of his life, his daughter experienced the full vital passion of her father’s heart, and she now—delightfully—gives us a taste of it.
She writes of the lessons he taught her; of the love he showed her; of his childhood as well as her own . . . Here are letters, notes, and funny cards written from father to daughter and those written from her to him . . . as well as bits of conversation between them (Cary Grant kept a tape recorder going for most of their time together).
She writes of their life at 9966 Beverly Grove Drive, living in a farmhouse in the midst of Beverly Hills, playing, laughing, dining, and dancing through the thick and thin of Jennifer's growing up; the years of his work, his travels, his friendships with “old Hollywood royalty” (the Sinatras, the Pecks, the Poitiers, et al.) and with just plain-old royalty (the Rainiers) . . .
We see Grant the playful dad; Grant the clown, sharing his gifts of laughter through his warm spirit; Grant teaching his daughter about life, about love, about boys, about manners and money, about acting and living.
Cary Grant was given the indefinable incandescence of charm. He was a pip . . .

Good Stuff
captures his special quality. It gives us the magic of a father’s devotion (and goofball-ness) as it reveals a daughter’s special odyssey and education of loving, and being loved, by a dad who was Cary Grant.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 14, 2011
      While Cary Grant's private life has always been open to wide speculation, as a father he kept a thorough family archive for his only child. Grant's daughter pays loving tribute to her father in a memoir interspersed with intimate photos, notes, and endearing transcripts of a parent dedicated to love and learning; along the way she gives insight into Cary Grant as caregiver, friend, teacher ("Dad ‘homeschooled' me in life seven days a week"), traveler, style icon, businessman, and husband to his last wife, Barbara Harris. She fondly notes his favorite pursuits like the racetrack and Dodger games, but she also addresses being the daughter of a star ("inherent fame left me entirely ill-prepared for the realities of the world), money matters (one Christmas Grant gave his seven-year-old stock shares), and even addresses the gay rumors. She writes sparingly here of her mother, Dyan Cannon (she and Grant divorced when Jennifer was one), but records her feelings as Grant remarries and a new family emerges as the octogenarian Grant struggles to father another child. Grant nicely chronicles for her father's fans the life behind the legend and the authentic image of parental love off the screen.

    • Kirkus

      March 1, 2011

      Cary Grant was a wonderful father. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

      Actress Grant's memoir about life with her famous father is like a cake made entirely of frosting: sweet, insubstantial and sickening in large servings. The author's reflexive and seemingly unconscious narcissism verges on the risible as she describes, in excruciating detail, the utterly mundane details of her privileged girlhood. Cary Grant was in his 60s and long since retired from movie stardom when he became a father, and the author avers that the icon avoided any discussion of his career. Understandably, Grant has almost nothing to say about the subject either, which begs the question—who could this extended mash note possibly interest outside of the author's immediate circle of family and friends? It's perhaps cheering to hear that Cary Grant was apparently as fine a fellow as his image would suggest, but Grant reveals nothing the general reader will not already know about the star. There is no dirt, no surprises, no analysis...just a litany of pleasant outings and a celebration of warm family togetherness. In a peculiarly cloying prose style, overly familiar and made up of informal sentence fragments, girlish exclamations, and soggy platitudes, Grant limns the archetypal movie idol as a cheerful elderly papa, padding contentedly around his well-appointed home and delighting his little girl with affectionate attention. It sounds like a lovely life, but it makes for an irritating reading experience.

      Less a memoir than a hagiography—and a dull one at that.

       

      (COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2011

      Cary Grant's only child, Jennifer, was born when he was 63. His marriage to Dyan Cannon didn't last, but Jennifer's childhood was full of special times with her father, who, retired from film and leading a private life, was devoted to her. Almost 25 years after his death, Jennifer Grant, a Stanford graduate who switched from law to acting, writes of their relationship. Some fans of the debonair actor may be disappointed that she focuses squarely on the man she knew, even declaring that she hasn't read any published material about him: "I'll stick with my trusty experience as a guide." Her father never spoke of his early life, from which he had few mementos, but he carefully saved Jennifer's every creation. His tape recordings of many of their happy moments were bequeathed to her along with files of instructive clippings and notes about leading a responsible life. VERDICT This memoir, touching and authentic, of a kind man in his final happy decades (his daughter also writes lovingly of his last marriage) will offer balance to Cary Grant collections. Although his film career is not covered, his fans will be the primary readers. Dyan Cannon's own memoir, Dear Cary, is due out in September. [See Prepub Alert, 11/1/10.]--Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal

      Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      March 15, 2011
      In this brief memoir, Jennifer Grant tells of growing up with her father, the urbane movie starand, as it turns out, extremely devoted dadCary Grant. After Jennifers birth to mother Dyan Cannon, the 62-year-old Grant retired from acting to concentrate on raising her. Following her parents divorce, she split her time between them but wound up mostly living with her father because Cannons film career was in full swing. To say Grant was a doting father is putting it mildly: he saved just about every childhood doodle, drawing, scrap paper, receipt, or event ticket that held any significance. He wrote hundreds of letters and messages to his daughter, and home movies and audiotapes also bear witness to his fatherly devotion. All of these items were meticulously filed away for her, and Grant plows through a lot of the material, capturing her fathers silly and loving personality, recalling all the fun times playing, laughing, dining, and dancing together. She also provides some insider details about his time in Hollywood, his travels, his friendships with other famous people and their happy relationship until Grants death at the age of 82. Many of the letters, notes, and drawings from father to daughter and from her to him are reproduced here, as are snapshots and other memorabilia. Not a full-blown biography, but a rather quick and lively glimpse of life with Cary Grant.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

    • Kirkus

      March 1, 2011

      Cary Grant was a wonderful father. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

      Actress Grant's memoir about life with her famous father is like a cake made entirely of frosting: sweet, insubstantial and sickening in large servings. The author's reflexive and seemingly unconscious narcissism verges on the risible as she describes, in excruciating detail, the utterly mundane details of her privileged girlhood. Cary Grant was in his 60s and long since retired from movie stardom when he became a father, and the author avers that the icon avoided any discussion of his career. Understandably, Grant has almost nothing to say about the subject either, which begs the question--who could this extended mash note possibly interest outside of the author's immediate circle of family and friends? It's perhaps cheering to hear that Cary Grant was apparently as fine a fellow as his image would suggest, but Grant reveals nothing the general reader will not already know about the star. There is no dirt, no surprises, no analysis...just a litany of pleasant outings and a celebration of warm family togetherness. In a peculiarly cloying prose style, overly familiar and made up of informal sentence fragments, girlish exclamations, and soggy platitudes, Grant limns the archetypal movie idol as a cheerful elderly papa, padding contentedly around his well-appointed home and delighting his little girl with affectionate attention. It sounds like a lovely life, but it makes for an irritating reading experience.

      Less a memoir than a hagiography--and a dull one at that.

      (COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

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