European Film Star Postcards: Betsy Drake

22 July 2025

Betsy Drake

Betsy Drake (1923-2015) was a French-born American actress, writer, and psychotherapist. She played in films such as The Second Woman (1950), Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) with Jayne Mansfield. She was also known for being the third wife of Cary Grant, with whom she co-starred in Every Girl Should Be Married (1948) and Room for One More (1952).

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 659. Photo: R.K.O. Radio.

French postcard. Photo: Keystone - L'Illustration. Cary Grant and Betsy Drake in Every Girl Should Be Married (Don Hartman, 1948).

Every girl should be married

Betsy Drake was born in Paris in 1923. She was the eldest child of two American expatriates. Her grandfather, Tracy Drake, and his brother had opened the Drake Hotel in Chicago on New Year's Eve in 1920. The Drakes lost their money in the 1929 stock market crash. As a result, she returned to the U.S. on the SS Île de France with her parents, brothers, and a nanny. Betsy grew up in five different cities and went to 12 different schools, both private and public.

Then, she concentrated on theatre and acting at the National Park Seminary. Drake began looking for work as an actress in New York City, supporting herself by working as a Conover model. She met the playwright Horton Foote, who offered her a job as an understudy in his play 'Only the Heart', which enabled her to join the Actors' Equity Association and thus become a professional actress. After coming to the attention of producer Hal Wallis, Drake was pressured by her agent to sign a Hollywood contract.

She hated Hollywood and managed to be released from the contract by declaring herself insane. She returned to New York City and, in 1947, read for the director Elia Kazan for the lead role in the London company of the play 'Deep Are the Roots'. Later that year, Drake was selected by Kazan as one of the founding members of the Actors Studio. Cary Grant spotted her in 1947 while she was performing in London. The two, who both happened to be returning to the U.S. on the RMS Queen Mary, struck up an instant rapport. At the insistence of Grant, Drake was subsequently signed to a film contract by RKO Pictures and David Selznick, where she appeared, opposite Grant, in her first film, the romantic comedy Every Girl Should Be Married (Don Hartman, 1948). New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther called her performance “foxily amusing”.

On Christmas Day 1949, Drake and Grant married in a private ceremony organised by Grant's best man, Howard Hughes. They chose a low-key, introspective private life. They delved into transcendentalism, mysticism, and yoga. She took up causes including the plight of homeless children in Los Angeles. The couple co-starred in the radio series 'Mr. and Mrs. Blandings' (1951). They appeared together in the comedy drama Room for One More (Norman Taurog, 1952), and Drake appeared in more leading roles.

Betsy Drake was with her husband in Cannes in 1954 while Cary Grant made To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955). In 1954, they bought the 'Las Palomas' estate in the Movie Colony neighbourhood of Palm Springs, California. Betsy was also with him in Spain in 1956, when Grant filmed The Pride and the Passion (Stanley Kramer, 1957).

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 879. Photo: United Artists.

British postcard in the Film Star Series, no. P 1167, by Show Parade Picture Services, London. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Taking LSD to recover from her divorce from Cary Grant

In Spain, Betsy Drake learned Cary Grant was reportedly in love with co-star Sophia Loren. Drake left before the press found out and sailed back to New York on the ill-fated Italian liner Andrea Doria in July 1956. She boarded it along with dozens of other wealthy travellers and tourists at Gibraltar, which was one of many stops the ship made between her home port of Genoa and her final destination of New York City. Drake sailed as a first-class passenger, occupying a single cabin on the ship's boat deck. When the SS Andrea Doria collided with the Stockholm, Drake waited with the other passengers for rescue, as the ship's severe list rendered half of its lifeboats useless. She was among more than 1600 people rescued from the ship by the famed French passenger liner SS Île de France. She lost more than $200,000 worth of jewellery as well as a book manuscript on which she had been working.

Betsy Drake had written the original script for the film Houseboat (Melville Shavelson, 1958) under a pseudonym, basing it on an unpublished story she had written. Starring Grant, Drake anticipated co-starring in the film. Grant, who indeed had begun an affair with Sophia Loren while filming The Pride and the Passion (Stanley Kramer, 1957), arranged for Loren to take Drake's place in Houseboat. For the rewritten script, Drake did not receive credit. The affair ended in bitterness before The Pride and the Passion's filming ended, causing problems on the Houseboat set.

Grant and Drake separated in 1958, remaining friends, and divorced in 1962. She was awarded more than $1 million in cash plus a percentage of the earnings from the 13 films Grant had made during their marriage. Their marriage constituted his longest union. Grant credited her with broadening his interests beyond his career and with introducing him to the then-legal LSD therapy and hypnosis. Later, Drake took LSD as a way of recovering from the trauma of divorce.

Betsy Drake had a supporting role in the satirical comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin, 1957) with Tom Ewell and Jayne Mansfield, and a leading role in the British thriller Intent to Kill (Jack Cardiff, 1958) with Richard Todd. She subsequently gave up acting and pursued other career interests. She earned a Master of Education degree from Harvard University and became a children's therapist. Drake was a director of psychodrama at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, worked at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and maintained a private therapy practice. She taught at UCLA, Pepperdine University and presented research at the 52nd Annual Meeting American Orthopsychiatric Association in 1975.

She made one more film, Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion (Andrew Marton, 1965). Under the name Betsy Drake Grant, her novel 'Children, You Are Very Little' (1971) was published by Atheneum Books. Drake did not have children with Grant and did not remarry. Her last screen appearance was in the documentary film Cary Grant: A Class Apart (2005), in which she reflected on Grant and their time together, and denied rumours alleging he was bisexual. Betsy Drake spent the latter part of her life in London, where she died, aged 92, in 2015. Upon her death, she was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea.