Born January 18: Maulik Pancholy, Cary Grant

Having played Jack Donaghy's jealous, lovesick, quasi-closeted assistant Jonathan on 64 of 30 Rock's 138 episodes, Maulik Pancholy came out in November and nine days ago tweeted this photo of his engagement to his longtime boyfriend Ryan Corvaia at the Taj Mahal. Maulik also played Sanjay in 26 of Weeds' 102 episodes, the bisexual Neal on 22 episodes of Whitney, and voices the straight-A neighbor Baljeet Tjinder in nearly all episodes of Phineas and Ferb, the Disney Channel's longest running series. Today he's 40.

 

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott met on the set of Hot Saturday and soon began living together in a house nicknamed Bachelor Hall, which they would share for twelve years, 1932-1944. Their affair has always been spun, desperately, as two stars who lived together merely because both were "tightwads." During that time, Grant was married to Virginia Cherrill from February 1934 to March 1935 and to Barbara Hutton from 1942 to 1945. Two questions: What sort of man keeps his house with his bud even after he gets married, and what sort of tightwad prefers spending the money to maintain two households rather than one? George Cukor confirmed that Randolph Scott talked about their affair to friends, and a slew of recent biographers have also verified their relationship. Grant himself told an interviewer that his first two wives, overlapping with Scott, "accused him of being homosexual," though, of course, he always denied it and was as quick to sue for libel. (He sued Chevy Chase for saying, "What a gal!") Several other men have said they had affairs with Grant, including his chauffeur in 1957 and fashion arbiter Richard Blackwell, who wrote in his autobiography of having sex with both Grant and Scott. Nevertheless, mainstream media continues to portray Grant as the apex of hetero elegance. His fifth and final wife was 47 years his junior. Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England he died at 82 in Davenport, Iowa in 1986 rehearsing his one-man show.

Comments

[lore]

I love the Cary Grant and Randolph Scott affair. It's just so intriguing, mysterious and romantic. I think I first read about it on here, ye olde Band of Thebes, and have been smitten by the idea ever since. It's certainly brought another and more subtle layer to the film My Favorite Wife!