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Archibald Alexander Leach (January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986), better known by his screen name, Cary Grant, was a British film actor. With his distinctive Mid-Atlantic accent, he was noted as perhaps the foremost exemplar of the debonair leading man, handsome, witty and charming. Archibald Alexander Leach was born in Horfield, Bristol, England in 1904. An only child, he had a confused and unhappy childhood. His mother Elsie (who had apparently never overcome her depression after the death of a previous child in infancy), was placed by his father in a mental institution when Archie was ten. His father (who had a son with another woman) told him that she had gone away on a "long vacation", and it was only in his thirties that he found out she was still alive, and institutionalized. After being expelled from Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1918 (for investigating the girls' bathroom), he joined the Bob Pender stage troupe and traveled with the group to the United States in 1920 for a two-year tour. When the troupe returned to England, he decided to stay in the U.S. and continue his stage career. Still as Archie Leach, he performed on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri, in such shows as Irene (1931); Music in May (1931); Nina Rosa (1931); Rio Rita (1931); Street Singer (1931); The Three Musketeers (1931); and Wonderful Night (1931). After some success in light Broadway comedies, he came to Hollywood in 1931, where he acquired the name Cary Grant.