Archibald Leach arrived in New York on 28 July 1920, on tour with the Pender Troupe of Acrobats at the beginning of his journey to becoming Cary Grant.

To celebrate the centenary of Archie's emigration to America, we had planned exciting events in New York City, including a one-day symposium in partnership with The Graduate Centre at CUNY, which sadly had to be cancelled due to the global pandemic. But, our keynote speaker, Professor James Naremore, has kindly agreed to go ahead with an online event: Some Versions of Cary Grant, an illustrated talk analysing Cary Grant's range of performances styles across his oeuvre, followed by a Q&A chaired by Dr Charlotte Crofts.

The event will take place on Zoom and be live streamed to our Facebook Page.

James Naremore is Chancellors' Professor Emeritus of Communication and Culture, English, and Comparative Literature at Indiana University Bloomington and author of one of the seminal texts on Acting in the Cinema which includes a wonderful chapter on "Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959)". Naremore has made numerous contributions to film studies in the areas of authorship, acting, adaptation, and genre. He is the editor of the Contemporary Film Directors series of books at University of Illinois Press and a writer at large for Film Quarterly.

Dr Charlotte Crofts is director of the Cary Comes Home For the Weekend Festival and Associate Professor of Filmmaking at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). She co-convenes the UWE Moving Image Research Group, with Dr Mark Bould (Reader in Film and Literature). Her research concerns screen heritage and cinema history. She has developed the Curzon Memories App; The Lost Cinemas of Castle Park App and is on the steering committee of Bristol City of Film, a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network since October 2017. She is currently developing the Looking for Archie App.

This event is hosted by The Cary Comes Home Festival, in partnership with the UWE Moving Image Research Group.

Cary Comes Home is a biennial festival which aims to celebrate Cary Grant's Bristol roots, develop new audiences for his work and recreate the golden age of cinema-going. This year's festival proper is due to take place from 20-22 November 2020. We've decided not to go ahead with physical events this year, but we are programming more exciting online events. So save the dates and sign up to our Mailing List to keep up to date with our evolving plans.

You might also be interested in this event: Sailing with Cary Grant.