In the spring of , Cary Grant told a fan magazine about his favorite fish dishes. That fall, fresh off of 18 rounds of golf, Grant and his roommate, fellow rising Hollywood star Randolph Scott, were interviewed while lunching together in Los Angeles.
It was Scott who ordered for the table. This Modern Screen feature was at once utterly typical and utterly atypical of its period. Here they could exert some media control. But for two supposed close friends to play ball for a pithy joint housekeeping profile? Certainly out of the ordinary. Their dynamic resembled that of the romantic couples profiled in those very same pages, and even 90 years ago some people wondered if there was more between Grant and Scott than met the eye.
From the moment they moved in together nearly a century ago, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were subjected to speculation about the nature of their relationship. Several men have since recounted queer sexual encounters with the pair, and still more have claimed to witness a romantic love between them. Other people who knew them firmly believed nothing went on beyond a rich friendship. In that messiness, biographers have been all over the map in their judgment of what exactly went on.
Yet none of that—the debates over gay or bi or straight, who witnessed what and when, the coding of certain photoshoots—approaches the question of what Grant and Scott meant to one another, or how this relationship shaped who they became both privately and on-screen.
At least one acquaintance of theirs has even quoted Grant calling Scott the love of his life. But the intimate contents of those articles, combined with the eventual testimony of men who knew Grant and Scott, paint a unique portrait of cohabitation, codependency, and love—platonic at minimum, and very possibly romantic. Who knows why Paramount agreed to have two of its hottest up-and-comers talk to Modern Screen about cooking and fine dining, just as career-ending—in those days, maybe life-ending—rumors started trailing them.
