'Leaked' pictures of Cary Grant and Randolph Scott hint at a gay relationship that never was

He was one of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, with Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly among his leading ladies on screen and five wives in real life.

But 1930s “leaked” photographs of Cary Grant with his friend and fellow actor Randolph Scott have led to the assumption that he preferred men.

Intimate shots showed them sunbathing shirtless on adjacent loungers, sitting on a diving board, with Scott’s hands seemingly poised to encourage his friend into the water or even to caress his shoulder, and a romantic silhouette of them together, with the sun setting in the distance as Scott lights Grant’s cigarette.

But the gay image is now being dispelled following the realisation that the photographs were actually commissioned by Grant’s and Scott’s studio and carefully staged by a professional photographer in a home that they shared.

Evidence in the studio’s archives reveals that they were part of a publicity campaign promoting both stars as Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors.

The discovery has been made by film historian Mark Glancy, who told The Telegraph: “Previous biographers have mistaken these for photographs of their real home life that somehow got leaked or mistakenly released to the press.

"But I went to the Paramount Pictures archive and found that actually these photographs were commissioned by Paramount as part of a publicity campaign that ran throughout the 1930s, that promoted their relationship as that of two bachelors who were very heterosexual and they used it for them to endorse products such as soups. It was like ‘we’re two bachelors who don’t have a wife to cook for us … '

“Of course, today they look like photographs of a very happy gay marriage, but in the 1930s, there was no such thing.”

Film magazines were then read by millions of fans, particularly women.

The studios supplied press releases and images to shape a star’s image and Grant and Scott – then in their 30s – appeared under headlines such as 'Movie Bachelors at Home'.

Even when Grant was married to actress Virginia Cherrill, a profile in Modern Screen pictured the two men under the headline: “Still Pals: Not Even A Wife Could Separate Randy and Cary – But Then, Virginia Wouldn’t Want To.”

Dr Glancy said that “the sight of these ‘strapping he-men’, as they were described in Hollywood magazines, doing dishes and living in ‘an Eve-less Eden’, was intended to highlight both their availability for marriage and the idea that they were desperate for a woman’s care.

His research will be included in his forthcoming biography, titled Cary Grant, the Making of a Hollywood Legend, to be published by Oxford University Press on October 15 in the US and in January in the UK.

He writes: “From a modern perspective, the photographs of Cary and Randy at home are easily misconstrued. The pictures of them smiling as they eat meals, make coffee, listen to the radio and even collect mail from their mailbox together suggest that they are an inseparable, very happy, gay couple. Indeed, many contemporary observers assume that these photos are candid snapshots of their private life together.”

He adds: “What many of the modern accounts overlook is that, at the time, Cary and Virginia were pictured together far more often than Cary and Randy.”

It was then a more innocent age, but the studio was clearly sensitive about what was appropriate because, while the images are freely available online today, many of Paramount’s original copies were marked as “kill shots”, indicating that they should not be published.

Dr Glancy, reader in film history at Queen Mary University of London, said: “They are all the more intimate ones, including the two men in silhouette. So clearly the studio was aware of what’s acceptable.”

He added that the photographer, Jerome Zerbe, was gay and idealised the actors’ bodies in his portraits: “I think he is perhaps projecting [his] desire on to them.”

Grant, who died in 1986, was a British-born American actor whose dashing looks and debonair charm seduced audiences and directors alike. He has been described as one of the most handsome men in film history.

Alfred Hitchcock cast him in the thrillers Notorious and North by Northwest, among other classics, George Cukor cast him in the romantic comedy, The Philadelphia Story, and Howard Hawks directed him in His Girl Friday, which has been called one of the greatest comedies in movie history.

Grant was once described by a studio publicist as difficult to promote because he had a “phobia” about publicity.

Dr Glancy said: “Posing for photos with Randy may have been a means of keeping studio publicists happy. Randy, too … was so publicity shy that, when he married in March 1936, he kept it a secret from both the studio and the press for six months.”

Despite his adulation as a film star, Grant faced the devastation of rejection by his own father, a previously unpublished letter reveals.

Dr Glancy’s research has unearthed a 1963 letter in which his mother, Elsie Leach, informed him: “Your Dad did not want you.”

Grant was then in his late 50s, and already a huge star who had long ago changed his name from Archibald Leach, son of an alcoholic tailor.

However, he was clearly hurt, judging by the exaggerated joy of the cable that he sent her six days later: “A wonderful letter from you today darling thank you.”

He had escaped a life of poverty in Bristol, joining a vaudeville troupe and eventually making his way to the US.

Dr Glancy has been taken aback to discover the extent of the family’s poverty and Grant’s truancy from school.

He said: “Part of what made him such a good comedian and good in thrillers was that a lot of what he does as an actor is cover up anxiety and awareness of what’s going on around him.”