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What roles did Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn play in Bringing Up Baby?
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Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks (right) directing (from left to right) John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo (1959).
In the 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, directed by Howard Hawks, the lead actors portrayed the following characters:
- Katharine Hepburn: Played Susan Vance, an eccentric and "dotty" heiress who repeatedly embarrasses the film's protagonist while attempting to win his affection.12
- Cary Grant: Played Dr. David Huxley, a bookish and hapless paleontologist who becomes the target of Susan's antics while trying to secure a donation for his museum and recover a rare dinosaur bone.12
The film is celebrated for the electric chemistry between the two leads, whose nonsensical banter and reactions to increasingly farcical situationsāsuch as dealing with a pet leopardāhave made it a definitive classic of the screwball comedy genre.12