The Escape Artist.

The only time I saw Cary Grant was when he and Fred Astaire went out to Hollywood Park two years ago to be inducted into the racetrack’s Pavilion of the Stars. Grant was 80 years of age at that time.  He wore a dark blue suit, black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and his hair shone white.  When he walked into his glitzy new building with his wife Barbara, I half expected to see a doddering old man in his twilight, an old star dimming against the clock.  What I saw was something else, something never to be forgotten.  Grant walked into that building tall, straight as a redwood, elegant, sure of foot, smiling and radiating a presence I have never before — or since — experienced.  In the flesh, movie stars have a habit of shrinking back to our size.  Cary Grant was the only movie star in my experience who seemed to loom larger than life than his image on the screen.  Women that morning stopped in their tracks.  Men gaped and stared.  Electricity rippled through the crowd.  Here was an old man being feted like a young matinee idol.  Grant made a brief, little speech.  I don’t remember a word he said in that distinctive accent because, like everyone else, I was too engrossed wondering how a man of 80 could look so young, vigorous and in command.  —Ray Kerrison

(Source: mattybing1025, via istalksnape)