NONFICTION - Oct. 20, 1991

EVENINGS WITH CARY GRANT: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those Who Knew Him Best by Nancy Nelson (William Morrow: $23; 333 pp.). Gossip lovers, beware--no one in this book says anything bad about Cary Grant. But who, really, would want to? Grant is the archetype of the suave and debonair, and some images just aren’t worth tarnishing--especially when the man behind the image tries to live up to public perception. Nancy Nelson, president of a lecture-booking agency, enticed Grant out of retirement in 1982 to join the speaking circuit, and “Evenings with Cary Grant” is the result--more tribute than biography, as Nelson acknowledges, but a fit substitute for the autobiography Grant never wrote. The book takes a peculiar form--it’s essentially a documentary history, Nelson having reconstructed Grant’s life using direct quotes from friends, family papers, published articles and lecture transcripts--but it’s actually a relief to read a Hollywood bio that’s neither breathless hagiography nor a pop-psych trashing. Grant was truly one of a kind: Few actors would dare admit, as he does, that “I played at being someone I wanted to be until I became that person. Or he became me.”