Leon Bibb: Actors who won Oscars taught me about martinis, tuxedos

CLEVELAND - In my mind, the scene of sophisticated Cary Grant wooing the beautiful Grace Kelly on that couch in the chandeliered hotel room in Monte Carlo is as romantic as they come.

The film was "To Catch A Thief," directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cary Grant, the very popular Hollywood leading man smoothly moved toward Grace Kelly while fireworks outside the window exploded in the night air of romantic Monte Carlo.

Of course, in that film, made in 1956, there was no on-camera sex, but with the fireworks exploding while the two movie stars kissed, you got the idea.

I also got the idea of how to dress. Grant was in a well-fitted tuxedo with a bow tie neatly placed at his neck. The cummerbund rested neatly at his waist. The creases in his trousers appearing sharp enough to cut your hand. The shoes had a high gloss.  Grant was the epitome of style.

Years later, when I donned my first tuxedo for my high school prom, I recalled Cary Grant. It was not only the way he wore it; it was the way he moved in it. It was Cary Grant who taught me how to wear it; not the guy in the tux rental shop where I plopped down a few dollars on the rental fee.

Of course, I had no Grace Kelly to woo, but my 18-year-old prom date realized there was something different at our prom. "You seem older tonight," she said.

"I feel like a movie star tonight," I said, deciding against using that distinctive Cary Grant pitch in my voice. That certainly would have been too much for my date also, not to mention the older women chaperones who watched every move of every student at the prom.

It was early in my life I realized what I could learn from the actors who uttered their lines and from the screenwriters who penned them in those  wonderful Hollywood movies. 

On Saturday afternoons at neighborhood movie theaters in Cleveland, I would drink in the snappy dialogue of Richard Widmark.  I would try to imitate that suave walk of Fred Astair as he promenaded along New York's Park Avenue.

When Sean Connery, playing James Bond ordered a martini, "shaken not stirred," I couldn't wait until I was old enough to slide into a leather bar stool in a plush dimly-lit restaurant and order the same.  With a cigarette dangling from my lips, I sipped on a shaken martini.  No one seemed to notice me, but I felt good inside anyway.

Movies have had major impact on my life.  Maybe yours, too.  For those fans of the great Hollywood movies, sometimes the darkened theaters were classrooms. 

I felt a huge sense of pride when Sidney Poitier uttered that classic phrase to Rod Steiger when Steiger, who was awarded Best Actor for his role,  asked Poitier's name in "The Heat of the Night. " The film involved racially-charged subjects in a changing American South.  The film was awarded Best Picture by the Academy in 1967.  Answering Steiger's question,  "They call me MISTER Tibbs," said Poitier, his eyes flaring and pointed.  Poitier, a black man, who a few years earlier had won the Best Actor award for "Lillies in the Field," brought much special racial pride to American blacks. I connected right there to Poitier.

Connections can be made in many areas. Do you remember the stylish dress shirts with the distinctive patterns worn by Michael Douglas in "Wall Street?"  Suddenly, they appeared in men's clothing stores.  Douglas won the Best Actor Oscar for the 1987 film.

When Elizabeth Taylor wore that white strapless dress in the scene when she met Montgomery Clift in "A Place in the Sun," there was a rush to stores by debutantes who wanted "the dress that Liz wore."  The film was awarded the Oscar for best film editing of 1951.

When Clark Gable, in the Academy Awards Best Picture of 1934,  "It Happened One Night," took off his shirt and showed the world he wore no undershirt, sales of men's undershirts in America plummeted.  So significant were sales after the very popular film hit the screens,  the undergarments industry asked Gable to wear an undershirt in his next film.  He did. 

So in the movies of our times and on the night of the Oscars in Hollywood, pay attention to what the stars are wearing.  They are not only dressing the stage for themselves; they may be setting the stage for what ends up in your closet.

See you at the movies.
bibb@newsnet5.com