José Ferrer

Ferrer died of colon cancer in Coral Gables, Florida at the age of 80. His cremated ashes were given to his family. Ferrer is the uncle of actor George Clooney and the father-in-law of singer Debby Boone. It was just before one of these performances — in Davenport, Iowa — that Grant suffered a severe stroke and died in hospital a few hours later. At the time of his death, Ferrer was married to Stella Magee, whom he married in 1992. In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the USA with his "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and afterward hold a question-and-answer session with the audience. Ferrer had previously been married to Uta Hagen (1938-1948) and Phyllis Hill (1948-1953). His fourth marriage was to actress Dyan Cannon, with whom he had his only child, a daughter, Jennifer Grant, who would later become an actress herself.

The two were married in 1953, divorced in 1961, and remarried in 1964, only to be divorced again in 1967. In 1981, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. Clooney was Ferrer's third wife. Although twice nominated for an Academy Award, he never won but was honored in 1970 with a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Ferrer had five children with singer-actress Rosemary Clooney: Miguel was born in 1955, Maria in 1956, Gabriel in 1957, Monsita in 1958, and Rafael in 1960. In the mid-1950s Grant formed his own production company, Grantley Productions, and via a distribution deal with Universal produced some of his finest work, which included Operation Petticoat, Indiscreet, That Touch Of Mink (co-starring Doris Day), and Father Goose. in the 1980s. In the September, 1959 issue of Look magazine, Grant related how treatment with LSD at a prestigious California clinic -- it was legal at the time -- had finally brought him inner peace after yoga, hypnotism, and mysticism had proved ineffective.

Ferrer also had a recurring role as Julia Duffy's wealthy father on the popular Newhart television sitcom in the U.S. Howard Hawks was just as devoted, saying that Grant was "so far the best that there isn't anybody to be compared to him". His other notable films include Lawrence of Arabia in 1962, The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965, Ship of Fools also in 1965, Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy in 1982, Dune in 1984. Hitchcock, who was notorious for disliking actors, was very fond of Grant, saying that Grant was "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life". Ferrer also directed, but did not appear in, Return to Peyton Place in 1961 and the re-make of State Fair in 1962. He was a versatile actor, who did demanding physical comedy in movies like "Gunga Din" with the skills he had learned on the stage. In 1958 Ferrer appeared in I Accuse! and The High Cost of Loving. Grant was one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for several decades.

The Cockleshell Heroes followed a year later, along with The Great Man. Grant subsequently took that character in a far darker direction in Suspicion, directed by Hitchcock, without somehow losing his charm or his audience's devotion. In 1955 Ferrer directed himself in The Shrike. These performances solidifed his appeal, and The Philadelphia Story, with Hepburn, established his best-known screen role: the charming if sometimes unreliable man, formerly married to an intelligent and strong-willed woman who first divorced him, then realized that he was — with all his faults — irresistible. He appeared in 1953's Miss Sadie Thompson opposite Rita Hayworth, in 1954's The Caine Mutiny and the MGM musical Deep in My Heart. Grant starred in some of the classic screwball comedies, including The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell and Arsenic and Old Lace with Priscilla Lane. Also in 1952, Ferrer portrayed French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in John Huston's Moulin Rouge (Oscar nominated). Grant became the surrogate father and had a lifelong influence on her son, Lance Reventlow.

In 1952 Ferrer won three Tony Awards for directing three plays during the same season (The Shrike, Stalag 17, The Fourposter) and earned another Tony for also acting in The Shrike. He became an American citizen on June 26th, 1942 and shortly thereafter married the wealthy socialite Barbara Hutton. He played Cyrano yet again in the French movie, Cyrano et D'Artagnan. After some success in light Broadway comedies, he made it to Hollywood in 1931, where he acquired the name "Cary Grant". He played the same role on stage in 1946 (winning a Tony Award), and on TV in 1949 and 1955. Grant traveled with the troupe to the United States in 1920 for a two year tour; when the troupe returned to the United Kingdom, Grant stayed — creating over time that unique accent and persona that mixed working and upper class accents as he supported himself as, among other things, a hawker. In 1950 Ferrer won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the 1950 film of that name. After being expelled, in 1918 (from Fairfield School, Bristol) for an incident involving the girls' toilets, he joined the Bob Pender stage troupe.

Ferrer made his film debut with Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc in 1948, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination for "Best Supporting Actor". Grant's unhappy childhood, by his own account, led him to crave applause and attention and to create a new persona that would attract it. José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintron, known as José Ferrer (January 8, 1912-January 26, 1992), was an actor and director, born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Lucky. Jose Ferrer profile, NNDB (http://www.nndb.com/people/311/000026233/). Those traits also come through more directly in many of his performances, in films as different as Suspicion and Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and tear-jerkers, such as Mr. That left Archie Leach/Cary Grant with both a certain insecurity in his relations with women and a secretiveness about his inner life that may explain his bravado and charm.