Young men are shaped by their upbringing. But it's easy to forget that those circumstances don’t have to decide the man you become.
Take Cary Grant. We all know the finished product: the voice, the charm, the clothes. But the reality is he had to work on it.
Born Archie Leach in Bristol in 1904, he was the son of a tailor's presser, and his mother was put in an institution when he was a boy. For years he was told she was dead.
At fourteen, he headed off with a troupe of acrobats, learned what he had to, and worked his way to America doing tumbles and stilt walks. Hollywood insisted he change his name. The rest he had to learn: how to speak, how to carry himself, how to walk into a room and not look out of place.
He said it himself:
“I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.”
And it wasn’t just for the cameras. The friends from the Bristol years stayed friends. When he found out his mother was still alive, he looked after her for the rest of her life. That’s the bit that matters. Plenty of men can play the part while someone’s watching. He kept it up when nobody was.
Carry on, gentlemen. 🫡