Cary Grant:
One of my favorite books is A Social History of Left-Handers, written by a technician with the BBC. This technician was editing the recorded speeches of King George VI, erasing the King’s stammer. he knew that many people stammer because they’re frustrated, but wondered what could possibly frustrate a king. He did some research and found out. It seems George had been naturally left-handed but was forced as a child to use his right hand. I realized when I read the book how very lucky I was that my teachers in Bristol didn’t have the same intolerance. If I’d grown up with a stammer, it might have proved something of a hindrance to my film career.
Yeah, Cary. “Something of a hindrance” indeed!
If you notice, though – in every one of his films (except for Indiscreet) he plays a right-hander. I notice that stuff, but that is only because I am legitimately insane. In films, he writes, opens doors, whatever – with the right hand. (Notice, though, at the dinner scene in Bringing Up Baby – he holds the knife and fork like a leftie would – not a rightie.) But in Indiscreet, it is written into the script that he is a leftie. He loved, in that picture, being able to just relax, and write with his left-hand, and do things the way he normally would.
My 11-year-old, Hayden, is left-handed. Well, let me rephrase: Hayden is left-bodied. We first noticed it when he was about two; he always reached for things with this left hand and always held toys in his left hand. When I pointed it out to the pediatrician, he said, “Oh, handedness is never decided until they’re about three.” I just went, “Yeah, right.”
One night when Hayden was about two, my husband called for me to come look at something. They were banging pegs on a little Fisher-Price peg board and Danny would take the hammer and make Hayden hold it in his right hand, then hit. He couldn’t even hit the BOARD, much less the pegs. With his LEFT hand, however, he could bang the crap out of the pegs.
He’s had some difficulties being a lefty in a righty world, mainly because he can hardly use his right hand at all. It was hard for him to adapt right-handed directions to his left hand. They had to bring in an aide (who was left-handed) to his kindergarten class to teach him how to write his letters, because the directional arrows on the letters are for right-handed kids. He didn’t learn to tie his shoes until he was about six or so because it was too frustrating for two right-handed parents to teach a lefty. My grandpa (who isn’t left-handed but is infinitely more patient) finally taught him.
I’ve noticed more and more that there are a lot of actors that are left-handed. Must be a right-brained issue. We always point lefties out to him when we see one on TV or the news (Bill Clinton is a lefty.) so he won’t feel so weird.
Eminem is a leftie. Julia Roberts is a leftie.
I grew up in a half-and-half family. My mom’s a leftie – so is my brother and one of my sisters. I’m a rightie. But I grew up in a kitchen geared towards left-handers – fridge opening with the left hand and stuff. I still feel a bit odd in kitchens geared towards righties.
You ARE certifiable!
Well, I’m also an actress, and have been studying acting since I was pretty much 9 years old. It’s a lifelong passion. Other people have specialties in science or car engines. I notice this shit because it’s my field. My realm.
Also because I’m nuts.
Danny and I are both righties. I guess it’s a myth that two righties can’t have a a lefty!
Wonder if anyone’s ever done any studies about how many people in “creative” fields are lefties. It seems like a lot, once you start noticing.
Danny’s grandmother told us a story about one of her friends who was a lefty, and the teachers back in elementary school would TIE her left arm behind her back and make her right with her right hand, just like poor old King George. I think they used to believe that the left hand was the “devil’s hand” or something. Weird.
(If you have a chance, click on my new little blog. I just started it. Be kind.)
God. That’s “WRITE with her right hand.” Jeez Louise.
I have a bitchin’ cold, and I’m hyped up on meds, so spelling is optional today, apparently. But on the bright side, we got snow yesterday. SNOW. In ARKANSAS. Saints be praised. There is actual sledding going on just outside my door even as we speak.
Also, Lisa, Mistletoe is, as we speak, shrieking its way towards your part of the country. Sadly, not in time for Kwanzaa this year – but it will definitely be there for Kwanzaa 2005!
Squee! ::cough:: ::hack:: ::sneeze::
Stupid cold.
I didn’t know Cary Grant was left-handed. Yet another vindication of the glories of left-handedness!
I am left-handed, and when I was doing my doctoral defense, one of the professors pointed out that all of us, myself and all five professors on my dissertation committee, were left-handed. He exclaimed, “The odds of that are astronomical!”
Normally, left-handedness is not something that I’m aware of. I don’t go through life thinking, “Wow, I’m left-handed in a right-handed world.” One incident that brought my status as an anomaly to my attention, however, occurred when I was doing my assistant instructorship in graduate school. It was the first day of class, and I wrote some stuff on the blackboard, and after class a student came up to me and asked, “Do you always write like that?”
All the time, dude.
My wife and I are both left-handed. As you’d figure, Ethan (our oldest) is right-handed and Gavin (our two-year-old) looks to be as well, though he occasionally grabs a crayon with his left to keep us guessing.
I do nearly everything left-handed. Exceptions include playing bass and guitar, using a mouse, and shooting. I do those things right-handed because that’s what I had available when I started.
One of my (otherwise) favorite professors once told me I’d probably die untimely, because I appear to be a “traumatic left-hander” (i.e., it doesn’t run in my family). The idea is that if you don’t have left-handed genetics you become a lefty via brain injury.
He cited a study of baseball players or something–apparently, all the southpaws who had no family history of left-handedness died out before the actuarial tables said they should.
We were drinking Guinnesses at the time, and I didn’t catch all the details. My parents inform me, however, that when I was an infant I did a spectacular face-plant off the changing table and that on another occasion I ran a 106 fever during a bout of roseola (I was a little Human Torch as a baby, my folks say–used to run really high fevers, and I remember running a 105 with tonsilitis when I was about eight or nine).
Anyway–if I should die suddenly, I’ll try to hang on long enough to scrawl a note in my own blood that Professor W—— was right.
I wonder if there’s not somthing to that theory, Ken. We have only one lefty on either side of our families, my first cousin Michael. I had pre-eclampsia when I was pregnant with Hayden and he suffered, for lack of a better word, from intrauterine growth retardation. (He was term minus 10 days when he was born, but only weighed 5 lbs. 3 oz.)
Who’s to say that in those weeks some switch was flipped in his brain development? Some “trauma” that made him left-handed? Hmmmm. Of course, now I’ll be watching him like a hawk, what with the whole “dying untimely” thing. :)
He does everything left-handed, even shoot, except use a mouse. The rest of us are righties, and I figure making him use his right hand to do ONE thing won’t hurt him; it might even help.