Cary Grant: Roles He Missed That Other Actors Made Famous

From the time he starred with Mae West in the 1933 film “She Done Him Wrong,” Cary Grant set himself up for stardom.

“Nobody doesn't like Cary Grant,” Warren Hoge noted in The New York Times in 1977. “He’s a Hollywood monument, and nobody wants to tamper with that.” Still, there were some roles he missed that made other actors famous. Here are some of them:

James Bond in “Dr. No”
This was a role that got away. Grant was the best man in the producer’s wedding and was the Hollywood star in mind for the role, The Guardian noted on the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film. But Grant didn’t want to be tied to a series. Sean Connery took his place and claimed stardom of his own.

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George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life”
The holidays might never be the same without Jimmy Stewart playing George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But different producers prepared a previous version of the script with Grant in mind, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Joe Bradley in “Roman Holiday”
The Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn movie classic may have featured Grant instead. But Grant turned down the role of Joe Bradley because he felt he was too old to play Hepburn’s love interest, The American Magazine recounted. Grant and Hepburn did work as a pair a decade later in “Charade.”

The roles Grant missed didn’t seem to bother him or his legacy. “He was everyone’s favorite uncle, brother, best friend and ideal lover: more than most stars he belonged to the public,” David Shipman wrote in his book, “The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years.” “He stayed young. We loved Gable, Crosby, Cooper as much, but they aged. The appeal of many of them lay in familiarity: unlike us and the world, Grant was changeless.”

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Related Stories:

• The 7 Roles That Defined Cary Grant’s Career
• Lesser-Known Cary Grant Roles: 3 Films From Star You Probably Haven’t Seen Yet