"Cary Grant," declares Graham McCann in an inspired moment, "made men seem like a good idea." McCann has plenty of such moments - which is just as well, since Cary Grant's essentially decent life makes him an unpromising subject for a biography, legend notwithstanding. The best a biographer can hope to do is echo the gracefulness of the man, trip lightly through the theses put forward by previous studies (was he a Jew? was he gay? was he a mother-hater? No, no, no, says McCann firmly) and propose a thesis of one's own, namely, that "Cary Grant" was defined principally by everything his working-class alter ego Archie Leach could never be, and reproduce dollops of dialogue from a delightful body of film work. McCann not only does this with panache, he also uncovers anecdotes with the ease of a magician pulling rabbits from a hat - allowing his book to levitate well above the usual level of film biographies. A.W.