Betsy Drake | |
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 Drake inEvery Girl Should Be Married (1948) | |
| Born | (1923-09-11)September 11, 1923 Paris, France |
| Died | October 27, 2015(2015-10-27) (aged 92) London, England |
| Other names | Betsy Drake Grant |
| Education | Harvard University (M.Ed.) |
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| Years active | 1948–1965 (as actress) |
| Spouse | |
Betsy Drake (September 11, 1923 – October 27, 2015) was an American actress, writer, and psychotherapist. She was the third wife of actorCary Grant.
Betsy Drake, the eldest child of two American expatriates, was born inParis. Her grandfather,Tracy Drake, and his brother had opened theDrake Hotel in Chicago on New Year's Eve in 1920.[1] The Drakes lost their money in the1929 stock-market crash. As a result, she returned to the U.S. on theSS Île de France with her parents, brothers, and a nanny. She grew up in Chicago;Westport, Connecticut;Washington, DC;Virginia;North Carolina; and New York City. She went to 12 different schools, both private and public, before concentrating on theater and acting atNational Park Seminary.
Drake began looking for work as an actress in New York City, supporting herself by working as a Conover model. She met the playwrightHorton Foote, who offered her a job as anunderstudy in his playOnly the Heart, which enabled her to join theActors' Equity Association and thus become a professional actress.[2]
After coming to the attention of the producerHal Wallis, Drake was pressured by her agent to sign a Hollywood contract. She hated Hollywood and managed to be released from the contract by declaring herself insane. She returned to New York City and, in 1947, read for the directorElia Kazan for the lead role in the London company of the playDeep Are the Roots. Later that year, Drake was selected by Kazan as one of the founding members of theActors Studio.[3]
Cary Grant spotted her in 1947 while she was performing in London. The two, who both happened to be returning to the U.S. on theRMS Queen Mary, struck up an instant rapport. At the insistence of Grant, Drake was subsequently signed to afilm contract byRKO Pictures andDavid Selznick, where she appeared, opposite Grant, in her first film, theromantic comedyEvery Girl Should Be Married (1948).New York Times film criticBosley Crowther called her performance “foxily amusing”.[4]
On Christmas Day 1949, Drake and Grant married in a private ceremony organized by Grant's best man,Howard Hughes, and chose a low-key, introspective private life. They delved intotranscendentalism,mysticism, andyoga. She took up causes including the plight of homeless children in Los Angeles.[4] In 1954, they bought the "Las Palomas" estate in the Movie Colony neighborhood ofPalm Springs, California.[5]
The couple co-starred in the radio seriesMr. and Mrs. Blandings (1951).[6] They appeared together in thecomedy dramaRoom for One More (1952), and Drake appeared in leading roles in England and the U.S., and a supporting role in thesatiric comedy filmWill Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957).
Drake wrote the original script for the filmHouseboat (1958) under a pseudonym, basing it on an unpublished story she had written.[7][8] Starring Grant, Drake anticipated co-starring in the film. Grant, however, who began an affair withSophia Loren while filmingThe Pride and the Passion (1957),[9] arranged for Loren to take Drake's place inHouseboat with a rewritten script for which Drake did not receive credit.[10] The affair ended in bitterness beforeThe Pride and the Passion's filming ended, causing problems on theHouseboat set.[11]
Drake subsequently gave up acting and pursued other career interests. She earned aMaster of Education degree fromHarvard University[12][13] and became a children's therapist. Drake was a director of psychodrama at theUCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, worked atCedars-Sinai Hospital, and maintained a private therapy practice. She taught at UCLA,Pepperdine University,[14] and presented research at the 52nd Annual Meeting American Orthopsychiatric Association in 1975.[15] Under the name Betsy Drake Grant, her novelChildren, You Are Very Little (1971) was published byAtheneum Books.[16]
Drake's last screen appearance was in the documentary filmCary Grant: A Class Apart (2005), in which she reflected on Grant and their time together, and denied rumors alleging he was bisexual.
In July 1956, Drake survived the sinking of the Italian ocean linerSSAndrea Doria. At the time, she had been visiting Grant in Spain and was returning to the United States. She boarded it along with dozens of other wealthy travelers and tourists, atGibraltar, which was one of many stops the ship made between her home port ofGenoa and her final destination of New York City. Drake sailed as a first-class passenger, occupying a single cabin on the ship's boat deck. When theSS Andrea Doria collided with theStockholm, Drake waited with the other passengers for rescue, as the ship's severe list rendered half of its lifeboats useless. She was among more than 1600 people rescued from the ship by the famed French passenger linerSS Île de France.[17]
Grant and Drake separated in 1958, remaining friends, and divorced in 1962. Their marriage constituted his longest union. Grant credited her with broadening his interests beyond his career and with introducing him to the then-legalLSD therapy and tohypnosis. Later, Drake took LSD as a way of recovering from the trauma of divorce. Drake did not have children with Grant and did not remarry.[2]
Drake spent the latter part of her life in London, where she died, aged 92 on October 27, 2015.[18]
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Writing portalAmong the original twenty-six actors that Kazan selected wereJocelyn Brando,Joan Copeland, Betsy Drake, Lou Gilbert,Julie Harris,Steven Hill,Cloris Leachman,Nehemiah Persoff, andJames Whitmore.
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