Sir, - Brian Finnegan's article "Hollywood's all straight A-list" (Weekend, June 9th)resurrects the canard that Cary Grant was homosexual merely because he shared a house with another male.
Grant's house-mate, the actor Randolph Scott - about whom there was no suggestion of homosexuality either before or after this period - is dubbed by Mr Finnegan as Grant's "lover". However, Mr Finnegan does not tell the reader how he knows this.
David Niven writes in his memoir Bring on the Empty Horses that the most important things in Cary Grant's life were "film-making, physical fitness and - women". There is ample evidence for the latter claim on account of Grant's five marriages - one of which produced a daughter - as well as several affairs with his female co-stars.
According to Graham McCann in his biography of Grant, A Class Apart, the particular complexion that was put on the Grant/Scott relationship was due Grant's disdain for gossip columnists. In refusing to speak to them about his private life he was challenging their power to make or break careers. As a result, innuendo about him began to appear in their columns about Grant, rumours which have been picked up by others with agendas of their own.
In reality there is no primary evidence that Cary Grant was gay, and he denied it throughout his life. It is worth quoting what Katherine Hepburn said about such rumours: "Everyone is called a homosexual in Hollywood". - Yours, etc.,
Paul Butler, Terenure, Dublin 6W.