This Hollywood Legend declined to play opposite Judy Garland in this screen epic because she was a drug addict. However, eight years later, he became a very vocal advocate of LSD.

Congratz to our own dear Timmer, who got it right with Cary Grant and A Star Is Born.

His objection was not some moral judgement on Judy’s drug use itself. But Grant was known for having one of the strongest work ethics in Hollywood. And, like most upper/downer addicts, Judy was quite unreliable.

While Grant used LSD, in a clinical setting, over 100 times, I have no indication that he ever “dropped acid” recreationally. But LSD was being widely used by psychiatrists in the ’50s and early ’60s. LSD didn’t become illegal in the US until 1968

This from Archie Leach, Cary Grant’s autobiography (chapter 14):

Now, I believe in caring for my health; and I trust you do too. Physical health is a product of, and dependent upon, mental health — one nurtures and nourishes the other. And so, together with a group of other interested Californians — doctors, writers, scientists and artists — and the encouragement of Betsy, who was interested herself, I underwent a series of controlled experiments with Lysergic Acid, a hallucinogenic chemical or drug known as LSD 25. Experiment is perhaps a misleading word; to most people it signifies patronization and objectivity. For my part I anxiously awaited their personal benefits that could be derived from the experiences, and was quite willing to be less than objective. Any man who experiments with something that cannot benefit himself, or add to his happiness, and that of his fellow man in turn, is a fool and a menace to society. I’ve heard that a man here and there died during LSD25 sessions; but then I’ve heard that men died during poker games and while watching horse racing; but that didn’t seem to stop such occupations. Those men might have died anywhere while doing anything. Men have also died testing airplanes and parachutes, vaccines and common cold cures. In attempting to traverse the next step into progress and knowledge, men have always died. But there is a difference between the man who knows what he’s about with a high-powered airplane, and an idiot who puts wings on a bicycle and takes off from the edge of Niagra (sic) Falls.

LSD 25 is a psychic energizer and the exact opposite in reaction to the addictive drugs and opiates. Indeed, Seconal, or similar sedative, is usually given as an antidote, to quell and offset the effects of LSD 25, if necessary. The action of the chemical releases the subconscious so that it becomes apparent to yourself. So that you can see what transpires in the depth of you mind — and what goes on there you wouldn’t believe, ladies and gentlemen — and learn which misconceptions, guilts and fears, with their resultant repressions, inhibitions and insecurities, have formed the pattern for your past behavior. A successively recurring pattern since childhood.

The feeling is that of an unmarshaling of the thoughts as you’ve customarily associated them. The lessening of conscious control, similar to the mental process which takes place when we dream. For example, when you’re asleep and your mind no longer concerned with matters and activities of the day, your subconscious often brings itself to your attention by dreaming. With conscious controls relaxed, those thoughts buried deep inside begin to come to the surface in the form of dreams. These dreams, since they appear to us in symbolic guise, are fantasies and, if you will accept the reasoning, could be classified as hallucinations. Such fantasies, or hallucinations, are inside every one of us, waiting to be released, aired and understood. Dreams are really the emotions that we find ourselves reluctant to examine, think about, or meditate upon, while conscious.