Cary Grant/accents

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Something I've talked about in the past is my love for movies, especially old movies. One of my favorite older actors is Cary Grant. Cary Grant was British an interesting accent that I think he kind of combined with an American accent over the years. He was just a classy actor. The thing that always amused me about him is that no matter what role he was playing he never changed his accent. If he were an actor today he wouldn't be able to get away with that...then again maybe he could just because he's Cary Grant. I feel like actors today do need to study parts longer and work on different accents better because people will call them out on it. Even when Dick Van Dyke faked an accent in Mary Poppins back in the 60s people called him on it because it was that bad. I remember watching a few movies with Cary Grant and one he was supposed to play a Frenchmen and he had the same British accent. He played an American several times with the same British accent. I mean accents do evolve over the years especially when you're from one place and then later move to another. Mel Gibson comes to mind. He was born and raised in the US until he was about ten and then his dad moved the family to Australia and when Mel first came back he had an Australian sounding accent and later it evolved back into an American accent. Bob Hope was actually born in the England and moved to the US with his family when he was three or four and is seen as one of the most American actors which is sort of amusing but goes to show you how people evolve and adapt. I mean most of the people in the US have European roots because we are a fairly new country but it's interesting to see how many things have changed and how ingrained some things still are. I feel like Cary Grant represents the golden era of movie actors. He was super classy and his accent was it's own thing but I really don't think he'd get away with some of the stuff he did back then. I still think he's a great actor but I do feel he was able to get away with things he wouldn't be able to if he were an actor today. He was talented but was able to get away with things that wouldn't fly today.