Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father Cary Grant

While Cary Grant's private life has always been open to wide speculation, as a father he kept a thorough family archive for his only child. Grant's daughter pays loving tribute to her father in a memoir interspersed with intimate photos, notes, and endearing transcripts of a parent dedicated to love and learning; along the way she gives insight into Cary Grant as caregiver, friend, teacher ("Dad ‘homeschooled' me in life seven days a week"), traveler, style icon, businessman, and husband to his last wife, Barbara Harris. She fondly notes his favorite pursuits like the racetrack and Dodger games, but she also addresses being the daughter of a star ("inherent fame left me entirely ill-prepared for the realities of the world), money matters (one Christmas Grant gave his seven-year-old stock shares), and even addresses the gay rumors. She writes sparingly here of her mother, Dyan Cannon (she and Grant divorced when Jennifer was one), but records her feelings as Grant remarries and a new family emerges as the octogenarian Grant struggles to father another child. Grant nicely chronicles for her father's fans the life behind the legend and the authentic image of parental love off the screen. (Mar.)