How Cary Grant’s Roommate Randolph Scott Helped Him Create His Smooth and Cultured Image

When director Henry Hathaway sought an actor to play an upper-class cavalryman opposite Gary Cooper in 1935’s Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Paramount Studios suggested Cary Grant. “You mean that Cockney guy with the long neck and the big ears?” he asked. “He’s no gentleman.”

Bristol, England-born Archie Leach arrived in Los Angeles by way of the Broadway stage. Signed with Paramount under the new name Cary Grant in 1932, he appeared in at least four films a year but didn’t leave much of an impression until 1937’s comedy The Awful Truth, in which he played half of a wealthy couple on the rocks. The hit film marked the debut of the “Cary Grant persona.”

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In the 1930s, Cary learned everything about the fine art of being a gentleman from his best friend and roommate Randolph Scott. The pair met as costars in 1932’s Hot Saturday and eventually leased a house near Griffith Park together. While both tall, handsome young men, Randy, as he was called by friends, had an enviable backstory too. The Virginia-reared actor’s father worked as an accountant and he was related to a wealthy North Carolina family on his mother’s side. Randy attended private schools where he excelled at swimming, football and horseback riding. He dressed well, spoke with a charming southern accent and oozed refinement.

To Cary, such an upbringing must have seemed like a fairy tale. “My father made no more than a modest living and we had little money,” he recalled. His mother vanished overnight into an asylum when Cary was 9 — he wouldn’t know that she was still alive until 1935. By then, he’d made his escape across the sea to become a star.

Cary Grant Climbed the Mountain to Legend Status

His childhood poverty likely fueled Cary’s ambition. While Randy was content to make a living as an actor — he played several memorable cowboy roles — Cary set out to climb the mountain to legend. To do so, he realized he would have to leave Archie behind. “I tried to copy men I though were sophisticated and well dressed,” he said, according to Evenings With Cary Grant by Nancy Nelson. “I cultivated raising one eyebrow and tried to imitate those who put their hands in their pockets with a certain amount of ease and nonchalance.”

Even as Cary began to dress better, refine his accent and develop the continental charm that would make him a success, he struggled to forget the past. One night at a nightclub with his soon-to-be first wife, City Lights actress Virginia Cherrill, a stranger approached Cary. “He told him he remembered seeing him as a kid in vaudeville on the East Coast,” recalled Virginia in Cary Grant: Brilliant Disguise, a biography of the star by Scott Eyman. “I’m not sure how pleased Cary was about that; he didn’t like talking about those early years.”

One of the few people who could coax Cary out of his melancholy was Randy. When he first started doing publicity for the studio, Cary insisted that his roommate sit in on his interviews with journalists. “I’ve seen [Cary] actually lose sleep and weight after reading certain items that touched upon his personal life and thoughts,” Randy told a reporter in 1935.

A celebrity writer for Silver Screen explained the pair’s dynamic. “Cary is temperamental in the sense of being very intense,” he wrote. “Randy is calm and quiet.” Virginia, who often went on double dates with Randy and his girlfriends, also noted his influence on Cary — and its limitations. “Randy was good with Cary, when he was around,” she said. “But he wasn’t always there. It’s not like you read in the books. They lived in the same house and they got on well, but they didn’t necessarily lead the same lives.”

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott Had the ‘Perfect Friendship’

Cary and Virginia were married in 1934, still a few years before the actor would come into his own in the movies. After a honeymoon to Italy, the newlyweds returned to live in the house Cary shared with Randy. “Randy Scott has been constantly with us — the three of us get along so well,” Virginia said in Silver Screen. Cary insisted that the arrangement wasn’t as odd as it seemed. “[The house is] so huge Randy couldn’t possibly be in our way.”

Whispers about the nature of the men’s relationship began then and grew louder as homosexuality became more socially acceptable. In fact, Cary and Randy’s at-home publicity photographs from the 1930s look like a happy gay couple, but Virginia insisted that it was not the case. “Cary was crazy about women,” the actress, who eventually moved into her own home with her husband, said. “He was great in bed … [and] Randolph Scott was no more gay than Cary was.”

When they appeared together in 1940’s My Favorite Wife, Cary had top billing. Though his star eclipsed Randy, they would remain friends. “We have been the closest of friends for years, but we never butted into each other’s business,” said Randy. “We never even had friendly quarrels. It has been a perfect friendship.”