A prop gravestone in Arsenic and Old Lace carries the name Archie Leach, the real birth name of Cary Grant, and this episode argues that the suave screen persona was less a stage name than a meticulously engineered suit of armor. Born in Bristol in 1904 into poverty and grief, Archie lost his mother at age nine when his father committed her to an institution and told the boy she had gone on holiday, then that she had died. The father remarried and left him with his grandmother.

From expulsion at 14 and a touring acrobatic troupe to the RMS Olympic crossing alongside Douglas Fairbanks, vaudeville stilt-walking at Coney Island, and the Paramount screen test that renamed him in 1931, the conversation follows how he built a new identity from scratch. It then examines his unprecedented decision to become Hollywood's first major freelance actor i ...