Cary Grant

 In November 1933, Cary Grant was just beginning his ascent into Hollywood immortality when he was photographed aboard the SS Paris with Randolph Scott and actress Virginia Cherrill. At only 29 years old, Grant had already appeared in films like Blonde Venus (1932) opposite Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, performances that set him apart as a leading man of charisma and wit. His pairing with Virginia Cherrill was particularly newsworthy: she had charmed audiences worldwide as the blind flower girl in Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece City Lights (1931), a role that secured her place in cinematic history. Just weeks after this voyage, Grant and Cherrill married in London, though their union would dissolve by 1935, another chapter in Grant’s famously complex personal life.

The figure who most intrigues historians, however, is Randolph Scott, the tall, rugged actor who met Grant while filming Hot Saturday (1932). Shortly after, the two began a long period of cohabitation in their Malibu home, affectionately nicknamed “Bachelor Hall.” For over a decade, Grant and Scott lived together on and off, entertaining Hollywood’s elite while sparking rumors that persist to this day. Though the era demanded discretion, friends and biographers have described their relationship as deeply affectionate, perhaps romantic, though never publicly confirmed. At a time when Hollywood strictly controlled its stars’ images, their closeness stood out, feeding speculation about Grant’s sexuality while also highlighting the carefully constructed barriers of studio-era respectability.

This photograph freezes a moment before Grant became one of the most untouchable stars of Golden Age Hollywood. Over the next three decades, he would define the archetype of suave masculinity through films like Bringing Up Baby (1938), Notorious (1946), and North by Northwest (1959). Yet his personal life, marked by five marriages and lifelong bonds like the one with Scott, remains a subject of fascination, blurring the line between fact, myth, and legend. The image of Grant, Cherrill, and Scott disembarking in Plymouth captures not only a glamorous trio but also the complexity of Hollywood history—where elegance and ambiguity often walked hand in hand.