{"id":4223,"date":"2006-01-18T12:41:17","date_gmt":"2006-01-18T17:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4223"},"modified":"2022-10-09T22:25:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T02:25:46","slug":"archie-leach-day-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4223","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Stewart’s Hiccup in The Philadelphia Story<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Evenings With Cary Grant: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those Who Knew Him Best<\/a>\"\"<\/i>:<\/p>\n

Jimmy Stewart says in re: Philadelphia Story:<\/p>\n

I play a writer who falls in love with Katharine Hepburn. The night before her wedding I have a little too much to drink. This gives me the courage to go and talk to Cary, who’s playing her ex-husband. So I go to Cary’s house and knock on the door. It’s obvious I’ve had too much to drink, but he lets me in.<\/p>\n

It was time to do the scene, and Cary said, “George, why don’t we just go ahead? If you don’t like it, we’ll do it again.” So, without a rehearsal or anything, we started the scene. As I was talking, it hit me that I’d had too<\/i> much to drink. So, as I explained things to Cary, I hiccuped. In answer to the hiccup, Cary said — out of the clear blue sky — “Excuse me.” Well, I sort of said, “Ummm?” It was very difficult for me to keep a straight face, because his ad-libbed response had been so beautifully done … Cary had an almost perfect humor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Watch that scene again. It’s the first take. You can almost see Jimmy Stewart lose it at Grant’s improvisation – but he keeps it together. It’s so obvious how much they loved acting with each other – because of that spontanaeity.<\/p>\n

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