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A long time ago Cary Grant said, "I pretended to become a certain type of man on screen and I became that man in life. I became Cary Grant . . . an athlete . . . a dream man . . . one who sails on yachts and gives expensive presents." But the truth is that Cary Grant never completely became that person, and all his long life the women who have loved him have - perhaps - loved only an image, an image of the world's most attractive man, an image he himself created and one which has possibly destroyed his hope for love.

It was never anyone's fault . . . not his wives, not his ill-fated loves, not even his own miscalculations . . . it was only a mistake born first of intent and then later of habit. They say, for example, that Dyan Cannon and Cary might still be together now if he had taken her out more often, if he had spent more time on her, if he had paid more attention to the things she needed and wanted. But by the time he married Dyan a pattern of some fifty years of living had been established too solidly to break.

The blueprint for his heartbreaking love affairs started back in 1934 when he married a tall, beautiful, blonde actress named Virginia Cherrill. He had fallen so hard for Virginia the first time he ever met her that he never, for a moment, considered that the love was wrong or that she wasn't the girl he should marry. That first time- at a party he and fellow bachelor Randolph Scott gave at their beach house - he declared her to be "the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

With Cary the mere sight of Virginia kindled such an infatuation that he secured her phone number and began calling her the moment she left his party. She didn't get back home, which she shared with her mother, for two hours, and then she learned he had called her every ten minutes during that time.

They made a date, and from that date on he practically never let Virginia out of his sight. She had been married and divorced before, and she had always been tremendously popular all her life, but Cary's campaign was overwhelming. Almost at once, she was as infatuated as he, but they did not marry for more than a year (a pattern he followed in all his marriages). Then they stayed married only seven months, and even during that short time, they parted and reconciled, parted and reconciled.

Cary's explanation was, "We were married February 9th, 1934 at Caxton Hall, a London registry office, amid a flurry of photographers, newsmen and serio-comic adventures. We separated seven months later. I doubt if either of us was capable of relaxing sufficiently to trust the happiness we might have had. My possessiveness and fear of losing Virginia brought about the very condition I feared: the loss of her."

Virginia was more specific. She charged he drank excessively - that he became a different person once he was her husband - that he refused to pay her bills and ridiculed her acting. On October 1st that year, they had their most violent quarrel. Once again, Virginia went home to mother. The distinguishing difference of that quarrel was that this time Cary couldn't get her on the telephone.

Virginia got her divorce, and went on to marry the Earl of Jersey . . . but Cary was depressed. His career began to move quickly and successfully, yet Cary remained withdrawn. When he did start dating again, it was another tall blonde beauty named Phyllis Brooks . . . but in the end they didn't marry. He said he would never marry again, and for eight years he didn't. Then at a party given by the Countess de Frasso in 1941 he met Barbara Hutton.

De Frasso was then the social leader of Hollywood, and Barbara Hutton, the fabulous heiress to the Woolworth dime-store chain, was her guest of honor. Barbara's first husband had cost her over $2 million . . . her second husband, Count Reventlow, had also cost her a huge sum to divorce . . . and it was right after this second divorce that she met Cary. Or more exactly, remet him. They had met aboard a luxury liner one time crossing from England.

As with Virginia, when Cary was with Barbara Hutton he knew he was instantly in love. She was different from the other girls he'd always fallen for . . . they had been gay, laughing types . . . Barbara was mostly solemn and Cary devoted himself to making her happy.

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