Cannon talks in her book about the changes that took place in Grant’s behavior and attitude towards her following their engagement. She wrote, “He’d started criticizing my appearance and was agitated on our wedding day,” and added, “The following day, my ring finger started to swell up and we had to find a plumber to blowtorch my wedding ring off. If that wasn’t a sign, I don’t know what was.”
That does seem quite telling and makes you wonder if similar personality changes and bad omens occurred with any of his other wives.
A Rocky Start
According to Grant’s friend, Prince Rainer of Monaco, he finally did manage to make it work. Rainer said that in his last marriage, Grant was the happiest he had ever seen him. This happiness was not easily won, it took a lifetime of trial and error.
The 2017 documentary, 'Becoming Cary', includes a segment in which Grant talks about his first marriage and why it was doomed. He says, “I doubt if either of us was relaxed enough to trust what we had,” he recalled. “My possessiveness and fear of losing her brought about the very thing I had feared: the loss of her.”
Dear Cary
Dyan Cannon, Cary Grant’s fourth wife, published a memoir about their marriage and life, titled 'Dear Cary'. In the book, she talks about how much she liked Grant when they began dating, but that over time she began to see a dark side to him. She states that he was demanding and controlling, going so far as to ask her to alter her appearance and to give up on her acting career.
Following their divorce, Cannon’s career picked up and despite her ex-husband's criticism, she ended up being nominated for three Academy Awards.
A Difficult Pregnancy
Grant and Cannon’s problems did not end once they were married, and additional issues came up when Cannon was pregnant with the couple’s daughter, Jennifer. She talks about the changes in their relationship in her memoir, “By the time I was pregnant, [Grant] had also withdrawn from me physically – which is hard because, before that, we had been all over each other. Things became polite, almost cold, between us.”
Although Grant was ecstatic about being a father and doted on Jennifer, that was still not enough for the couple to make their marriage work.
Always with Him
Although Grant’s marriages didn’t typically last long, he carried the memories of all of his ex-wives with him. There was always a gold chain around his neck which held three charms.
Each one represented the religion of his previous wives: a St. Christopher medallion for Virginia Cherrill who was Roman Catholic, a small cross for Barbara Hutton and Betsy Drake who were Protestants, and a Star of David for Dyan Cannon who was Jewish. The necklace can even be seen in some of his films.