Politics
Grant did not think film stars should publicly make political declarations. Grant described his politics and his reticence about them this way:
"I'm opposed to actors taking sides in public and spouting spontaneously about love, religion or politics. We aren't experts on these subjects. Personally I'm a mass of inconsistencies when it comes to politics. My opinions are constantly changing. That's why I don't ever take a public stand on issues."Throughout his life, Grant maintained personal friendships with colleagues of varying political stripes, and his few political activities seemed to be shaped by personal friendships. Repulsed by the human costs to many in Hollywood, Grant publicly condemned McCarthyism in 1953, and when his friend Charlie Chaplin was blacklisted, Grant insisted that the actor's artistic value outweighed political concerns. Grant was also a friend of the Kennedy brothers and maintained close ties with the Mankiewcz family, particularly Robert Kennedy's press secretary Frank Mankiewicz. He hosted one of Robert Kennedy's first political fundraisers at his home. He made one of his rare statements on public issues following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, calling for gun control.
In 1976, after his retirement from films, Grant made his one overtly partisan appearance in introducing his friend Betty Ford, the First Lady of the United States, at the Republican National Convention. Even in this he maintained some distance from partisanship, speaking of "your" party, rather than "ours" in his remarks.
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Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.”
—Cecil Parkinson (b. 1932)
“Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self- Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)