Cary Grant's close friend reveals Hollywood icon's true sexuality, identifies his male lover

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Rumors concerning Cary Grant's sexual orientation have long persisted, regardless of him getting married five times, the last time to a woman 46 years younger than him.

The 'North By Northwest' star, who spent over thirty years as the most sought-after leading man in Hollywood, is said to have had affairs with several gorgeous women, including Grace Kelly and Sophia Loren.

While the film industry easily portrayed Cary as the most ardent ladies' man, Tinseltown's elite had a different opinion.

Cary Grant reportedly had at least one homosexual love affair

For over a century, people have been debating the sexuality of the matinee idol Cary, who famously declared that "making love is the best form of exercise."

Alluding to rumors that the actor was gay, Hollywood gossip reporter Hedda Hopper once posed a petulant question, "Whom does he think he is fooling?"

Cary's wives and only child are among those who frequently maintain that he was heterosexual, although men, especially gay men, have begged to differ.

The actor's close friend from his later year has now come forward to confirm that Cary informed him straight out that he had at least one homosexual love affair.

It was apparently none other than Randolph Scott, whose unusual relationship with Cary has long drawn curiosity, as per Daily Mail.

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were allegedly inseparable in the 1930s

Ex-editor of a fan magazine and the author of 'Cary Grant: The Wizard of Beverly Grove', Bill Royce, claims that in 1976, he brought up the delicate subject of Scott with Cary. At that point, the 'Charade' actor was no longer performing and hence was not as concerned about maintaining his reputation.

Cary and Scott lived together in a Malibu oceanfront home known as "Bachelor Hall" in the 1930s and became inseparable. The strange house-share, which they said was purely platonic and mostly meant to save money, continued intermittently for a period of 12 years.

According to the most recent edition of Vanity Fair, Cary "set aside several hours to admit to Royce that he’d been in love with Scott from his earliest days in Hollywood."

Cary revealed to Royce that he and Scott were "somewhere in between" when it came to being gay or straight, that they had affairs with both men and women and that "Scott never wanted Grant in the same way that Grant wanted Scott."

Royce alleged that the 'North By Northwest' and 'To Catch A Thief' star asked him, "Have you ever heard of gravity collapse? Some people call it love at first sight. This was the first time I’d felt it for anyone."

Cary continued, telling Royce that they did connect romantically and that they did have sex, albeit often uncomfortably. He apparently noted, "There was no way Randy would have experimented with me…if he didn’t truly love me on some profound level."

Cary Grant apparently found a homosexual life unrewarding

According to Royce, Cary acknowledged being "basically gay as a young man, later bisexual, still later straight" and that homosexuality was "part of the journey, not necessarily the final destination."

Royce once told Cary's biographer, Scott Eyman, "My sense of it was that he found homosexual life unrewarding. As he got older, he wanted children, and he didn’t think he had any chance at a child as long as he was living that life."

Although Royce has previously discussed Scott, who died in 1987 and was married to Patricia Stillman for 43 years, his disclosures of what Cary told him were never as detailed.

Royce also disclosed that the controversial academic studies of human sexual behavior known as the Kinsey Reports, which found that many people's sexuality is not strictly defined but rather falls on a continuum, had an impact on Cary.

The 'Notorious' actor's sexual orientation has been asserted by other men throughout the years, but he was never able to come out as gay or bisexual during the period when homosexuality was immediately frowned upon in Hollywood, and sodomy was banned in the US.

On the other hand, Cary's living relatives still maintain a different narrative. His only child, actress Jennifer Grant, has stated that she "never saw a hint" of homosexuality.

Jennifer's mother and the actor's fourth wife, Dyan Cannon, had similarly stated that she had never seen any evidence that her husband was gay. He was always critical and prone to unexpected outbursts of wrath, she claimed, which is why they split after only three years of marriage in the 1960s.