Betsy Drake

Betsy Drake was an actress best known for her roles in the comedies Every Girl Should Be Married and Room for One More opposite her husband at the time, Cary Grant.

Drake was the third of Grant’s four wives. The couple met in 1949 when they were both returning from England to the U.S. aboard the Queen Mary. Drake was already working as an actress at the time, and had been selected by director Elia Kazan as one of the founding members of the Actors Studio in New York. Grant had seen her perform on the London stage as the lead in Kazan’s Deep Are the Roots and arranged a meeting. The two were married several months later.

Grant later had the actress signed to RKO Radio Pictures, where the couple made the aforementioned films together. She also appeared in the movies Dancing in the Dark, The Second Woman, Pretty Baby, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Intent to Kill, Next to No Time and Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion.

Additionally, she appeared on television, including roles on General Electric Theater and Wanted: Dead or Alive. 

She also wrote the screenplay for the 1958 film Houseboat, which she had written as a vehicle for her and Grant. The co-starring role later went to Sophia Loren after she and Grant separated the same year. She retired from films shortly after their 1962 divorce.

Drake died October 27, 2015, in London, England. She was 92.