Cary Grant's Malaga mansion: the first pictures of Archie

Cary Grant is due back on our screens soon and when he does, he'll be in Malaga. This is true, but only in the series that revisits the life of the legendary actor who died in 1986. Archie, whose title refers to the actor's real name Archibald, is set in two periods: the character's greatest glory in the 60s in Hollywood and conversely his traumatic childhood in Great Britain during the 1910s and 20s.

Filmed in November 2022, ITV has already set a date for its premiere and has released the first images that reveal both Jason Isaacs in the role of the actor and his spectacular California mansion in Benedict Canyon (Los Angeles) which, in reality, was filmed in a luxury villa in Pinares de San Antón in Malaga, as previously reported by SUR .

An impeccable Cary Grant with a ground-breaking phone in hand talking beside the swimming pool of his residence, or holding a cocktail in his pyjamas and dressing gown with the outline of the supposed California coastline behind him - which is really Malaga - are the stills released last week from this new four-part series. It will premiere in November on ITV's streaming channel, ITVX, although it is still to be confirmed where it will be released in Spain.

The series, written by the award-winning screenwriter Jeff Pope (who has already brought the story of Stan & Ollie to the screen) and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (A Confession), cleverly contrasts the powerful image of the iconic star of North and Northwest, Notorious and Charade with the deceit, cruelty and lies that marked his life from his childhood.

Born in Bristol (England) in 1904, this series narrates the trauma of the young Archibald Alexander Leach, who lived in poverty and whose family was torn apart by his father's adultery and the loss of his older brother, John, which led his mother into a spiral of pain and depression.

To escape his unhappy home life, young Archie auditioned at the age of 14 for a troupe of acrobats, stilt walkers, clowns and comedians, with whom he ended up going on tour in the United States. Away from his family, he decided to stay in America to try to make his way in show business. A chance meeting with the comedian George Burns led to his first contract with a film studio that felt he should change his name. And so Cary Grant was born.

However, the sad childhood would never leave the memory of the actor who, despite his image as the personification of success in the 1960s and his blockbusters with Hitchcock, Blake Edwards and Stanley Donen, was desperately unhappy in his private life.

To set his time in Hollywood, the British production company Etta Pictures and ITV Studios turned to the Malaga-based production services company Fresco Film, already experienced in using the city and Marbella in this type of fiction set in Los Angeles.

The setting for the Hollywood part of the series is Cary Grant's mansion, whose real name is Huerta del Conde and can be found in Pinares de San Antón on the outskirts of Malaga city.

This exclusive estate has 63,000 square metres of gardens with waterfalls, swimming pools and terraces overlooking the bay of Malaga and belonged to the honorary consul of Panama, Baldomero Rodiles-San Miguel. Today it is rented out as a luxury residence.

Alongside the starring role of Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter saga), actors Dainton Anderson (a child actor from Bristol), Calam Lynch (Bridgerton) and Oaklee Pendergast (The Impossible) play the younger versions of Cary Grant, while Laura Aikman (Death in Paradise) plays the actor's late wife, actress Dyan Cannon - thirty years his junior - and Harriet Walter (Succession and Killing Eve) plays the Hollywood star's mother.