Betsy Drake
Vorlage:Unreferenced Vorlage:Infobox actor Betsy Drake (born September 11, 1923) is an American actress and writer, remembered by some as the third wife of actor Cary Grant.
Drake, the eldest child of two American expatriates, was born in Paris in 1923. Although her grandfather, Tracy Drake, had built the Drake Hotel in Chicago, IL, the Drakes lost their money in the 1929 stock market crash when Betsy was five years old. As a result Betsy was forced to return to the USA, on the ship Isle de France, with her parents, her brothers and a nanny. She grew up variously in Chicago, Westport, Connecticut, Virginia, [[North Carolina and New York.
Betsy went to twelve different schools, both private and public, before concentrating on theatre and acting at junior college in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C.. She began looking for work as an actress in New York, supporting herself by working as a Conover model. She met the playwright Horton Foote who offered her a job as understudy in his play Only the Heart which enabled her to join Actor's Equity and thus became a professional actress.
After coming to the attention of the producer Hal Wallis Betsy was pressured by her agent to sign a Hollywood contract. She hated Hollywood and managed to get get herself released from the contract by declaring herself insane! She returned to New York and in 1947 read for the London company of the play Deep are the Roots.
Cary Grant first spotted her in 1947, in Deep Are The Roots in London, and the two, who happened to be returning to the United States on the same ship, struck up an instant rapport. Betsy was subsequently signed to a movie contract by RKO and David Selznick, appearing in her first film Every Girl Should Be Married, opposite Grant, in 1948.
On Christmas Day 1949 they were married, and deliberately chose a low-key, introspective private life. In 1952 they appeared together in the film Room for One More, and Drake appeared in a number of leading roles in England and the USA, and a supporting role in the 1957 film Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?.
In 1956, Drake survived the sinking of the Italian ocean liner the Andrea Doria|. At the time she was a first-class passenger on her way back from visiting Grant in Spain. In a bizarre coincidence, Drake was rescued from the sinking of the Andrea Doria by the ship the Isle de France.
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-legal LSD therapy, in which he claimed to have finally achieved a degree of mental peace. Drake herself had taken LSD as a way of recovering from the trauma of divorce. To Drake LSD was useful but frightening, which showed LSD meant different things to different people.
Drake subsequently gave up acting in order to focus on her other interests, such as writing. In 1971 Atheneum published - under the name Betsy Drake Grant - her novel Children You Are Very Little. She has since become a practicing psychotherapist. Her most recent screen appearance was in Cary Grant: A Class Apart, a documentary in which she reflected on Grant and their time together.
Sources
- The principal sources for this entry are conversations with Ms Drake herself.
