Archie Explores the Grit Behind the Glamour of Cary Grant — Watch the Trailer (Exclusive)

Cary Grant will always be remembered as one of the greatest actors of Hollywood's Golden Age, starring in unforgettable film classics like Charade, North by Northwest and An Affair to Remember. But his journey to stardom was rife with cruelty, deceit and poverty.

The four-part limited series Archie, premiering on Dec. 7 on BritBox, chronicles the celebrated actor’s rise from a troubled childhood — one marred by his father’s adultery, the death of his brother John and his mother Elsie’s (Harriet Walter) deep depression — to the “birth” of Cary Grant (Jason Isaacs), the actor. Archie also explores the superstar’s unhappy private life, including his five failed marriages and fourth marriage to Dyan Cannon (Laura Aikman).

In PEOPLE’s exclusive debut of the trailer, a young Archibald Alexander Leach (Calam Lynch) is asked by a secretary at a movie studio to change his name to something American audiences might gravitate towards.

“Archie Leach doesn't cut it. Anything come to mind?” she asks.

The young man barely has to think about it. “Cary Grant?” he suggests.

The trailer cuts to a dinner party with a grown-up, boisterous Cary.  

“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Weekend Box Office,” he says. “Cary Grant is a character. Have to be very careful about how he's perceived.”

In the next moment, a youthful Dyan Cannon, donning oversized sunglasses, strolls up the driveway of Cary’s home.

“This is the dreamiest guy in the world we're talking about,” she explains.

“You’re not going to break my heart, are you?” Cary muses.

“Probably,” she quips.

“Ugh. I walked into that one,” the actor retorts.

Over the next several scenes, the trailer revisits the younger Cary, who is struggling to even get noticed as a performer.

“What accent you got, kid?” a man offstage asks Cary during one audition.

“Uh, English,” he says. 

“Okay, thank you. Next,” the man says, dismissively.

Back to middle-aged Cary, he admits he "spent most of my life wondering who I was supposed to be."

“You’ll find that we’re all fakes in this town my dear, aren’t we, Cary?” Alfred Hitchcock (Ian McNeice) muses while being charming to Dyan.

Meanwhile, a montage of a young Cary reveals several moments from his life, including a tender moment with his mother at bedtime, Cary and Dyan standing at the altar, and his mother being restrained in a hospital. The emotional sequence is followed by a snippet in which a swimsuit-clad Dyan declares, “So it’s okay to have a silly child like me in real life, but in La La Land, it makes you look ridiculous?”

In another scene, a somber Grant walks the hallways of the hospital, presumably the one his elderly mother remains in. “You’re Cary Grant,” his mother says.  

“Not to you. Just Archie,” he replies.

Emerging from a maternity ward later in the trailer with a baby swaddled in a knitted blanket, Cary addresses a group of reporters eagerly snapping photos. “My daughter Jennifer, she is by far my best production,” Cary says.

“What a journey you’ve been on,” Grace Kelly (Lily Travers) tells the actor during a stroll.

The final scene ends on a surreal note, with Cary, sporting a suit, falling backwards in slow-motion into a pool while Dyan stands by the edge of the pool looking on.

“Now, I know exactly who I am,” he says, before the trailer ends.

Archie's cast includes Isaacs, Aikman, Travers, Walter, Lynch, Oaklee Pendergast, Lolly Jones as Mae West, Stella Stocker as Audrey Hepburn, Alexandra Guelff as Doris Day, Ellie MacDowall as a grown-up Jennifer Grant and Kara Tointon as young Elsie. The Hollywood legend's real-life daughter Jennifer Grant and ex-wife Dyan Cannon served as executive producers on the limited series.

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Archie premieres its first two episodes on Dec. 7, with episodes 3 and 4 airing Dec. 14, on BritBox.