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14 “The response”: H. P. Boody, Suggestions for the Actor (Ripon, Wis.: Pi Kappa Delta, 1926), p. 21.
15 Bad weather: My account of the Truth tour is drawn from Ripon College Days, 12/26/21 and 1/10/22, and Selden West’s interview with Lorraine Foat Holmes.
16 “I found”: Spencer Tracy, “Professor Boody Pointed My Nose Toward the Stage,” The Forensic, January 1936.
17 “His quiet manner”: Ripon Commonwealth, 1/17/22.
18 “As a result”: Deschner, The Films of Spencer Tracy, p. 35.
19 “There were two places”: Curtis MacDougall, “Rambling Reminiscences,” unpublished manuscript, February 1985 (SW) (courtesy of Priscilla Ruth MacDougall).
20 “home fires”: Ripon College Days, 2/22/22 (RC).
21 “anything like a skit”: Larry Swindell, Spencer Tracy (New York: World Publishing, 1969), p. 28. See also Roy Newquist, A Special Kind of Magic (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967), p. 144.
22 “sensitive & masculine”: Tracy’s original evaluation sheet is at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
23 “His ability”: Ripon College Days, 4/11/22 (RC).
24 Defects in speech: Details of the AADA curriculum are from the 39th Annual Catalogue of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Empire Theatre Dramatic School, 1922–23 (AADA).
25 “quite the place”: ST to Lorraine Foat, 6/2/22 (SW).
26 “very ambitious”: New Canaan Advertiser, December 1969 (SW).
27 “pulling wires”: O’Brien, “My Pal, Spencer Tracy.”
28 “two steep shaky flights”: O’Brien, The Wind at My Back, p. 55.
29 “Don’t worry”: Eleanor Cody Gould, Charles Jehlinger in Rehearsal (New York: American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1958), pp. 1–10.
30 He wrote “good”: The original evaluation sheet for Olive Lorraine Foat is at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
31 “Pat and I”: Lloyd Shearer, “Spencer Tracy,” Parade, 12/18/55.
32 “Dear God”: Scott Eyman, “Interview with Pat O’Brien,” Films and Filming, April 1982.
33 “couldn’t afford”: Films and Filming, March 1971.
34 “I didn’t know”: Spencer Tracy, “Making Faces at Life” (Part III), Milwaukee Journal, 5/1/40.
35 “Spence and I”: Pat O’Brien, “Spencer Tracy As Is,” Screenland, November 1951.
36 “hot stuff”: Chicago Tribune, 11/14/37.
37 “I shall always be grateful”: ST to Frances Fuller, 4/3/62 (AADA).
38 “soft spot”: Sobol, “Voice of Broadway.”
CHAPTER 4 THE BEST GODDAMNED ACTOR
1 “credit to dramatic stock”: Billboard, 10/11/24.
2 “a hard critic”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d. (JKA).
3 “My salary”: Ramsey, “Life Story of a Real Guy,” Part 2.
4 horrifying discovery: Louise Tracy always remembered that her son John was ten months old when she learned of his deafness, which would mean the discovery took place in April 1925. She also consistently remembered that she and her husband were planning to go out that night. In Grand Rapids, Spencer Tracy worked seven nights a week beginning April 12, 1925, so the event most likely occurred sometime between April 5, the day he began rehearsals for The Nervous Wreck (which was also his twenty-fifth birthday), and April 11, the last night he would have free.
5 “sleeping porch”: Ardmore, “John,” n.d. (JKA).
6 “awakening from a nightmare”: Louise Treadwell Tracy, The Story of John, unpublished manuscript, circa 1941, p. 1 (SLT).
7 “gained in poise”: Grand Rapids Herald, 4/13/25.
8 “hated the idea”: A. D. Rathbone IV, “Out of Spencer Tracy’s Yesterdays,” Photoplay, October 1940.
9 “naughtiest thing”: Emily Clagett Deming to Selden West, Grand Rapids, 3/21/93 (SW). See also Grand Rapids Press, 11/20/79.
10 “inconvenient indisposition”: Grand Rapids Herald, 4/21/25.
11 “John hears”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 3.
12 “deaf and dumb”: Ardmore, “John,” n.d.
13 “I was in love”: Larry Swindell to the author, Moraga, Calif., 6/28/05.
14 “Acting gave us”: Swindell, Spencer Tracy, p. 45.
15 “out of the faint”: Royle, unpublished autobiography, p. 51.
16 “no one I wanted to act with”: Swindell, Spencer Tracy, p. 45.
17 Spence was involved with: When Selden West asked Emily Deming if Tracy had affairs with any of the other women in the company, she replied, “Well, the ingénue and he had a pretty good time together. Betty—she was the ingénue.” Betty Hanna (1903–76) joined the Broadway Players on April 5, 1925, and remained with the company for the rest of the season. Later, when asked if Hanna had been an “item” with Tracy, Deming replied, “Rather briefly, as I remember it.” Larry Swindell interviewed Louise Tracy in 1968 and noticed that she would “freeze a bit” when Selena Royle’s name was mentioned. However, in her unpublished autobiography, Royle was mystified as to why Louise was so cool to her when she arrived in Hollywood in 1944, something that likely would not have surprised her had she actually slept with Spencer Tracy.
18 “all the crazy things”: Ardmore, “John,” n.d.
19 “lost her interest”: Ramsey, “Life Story of a Real Guy,” Part 2.
20 “just broke down”: Ardmore, “John,” n.d. In The Story of John, Louise remembered that she told her husband of their son’s deafness in July 1925. In “Life Story of a Real Guy,” Spencer Tracy remembered it was on a Sunday. The earliest Sunday on which Tracy would not have had to give a performance would have been July 5, almost exactly three months from the time when Louise first learned of John’s deafness.
21 “Words of encouragement”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 5.
22 “pin him down”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
23 “That good-for-nothing!”: McEvoy, “Will They Get Wise to Him?”
24 “gripping”: Stamford Advocate, 10/10/25.
25 savvy notice: Variety, 10/14/25.
26 “exactness”: Trenton Times, 11/10/25.
27 “evidence of a temper”: Ethel Remey to Selden West, via telephone, 1/3/78 (SW).
28 “Fortunately for John”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 11.
29 “no kind of a life”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
30 “last stand”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 12.
31 “nice young man”: Louise Tracy to Jane Ardmore, 7/5/72 (JKA).
32 “a reprieve”: Chicago Tribune, 11/14/37.
33 “best opportunity”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 33.
34 “purposes of prestige”: Variety, 9/29/26.
35 “Lambs Club”: ST to Pete Martin.
36 “direct his shows”: John McCabe, George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), p. 205.
37 “scared to death”: ST to Pete Martin.
38 “During rehearsals”: Royle, unpublished autobiography, p. 52. See also McCabe, George M. Cohan: “After giving an order or a change in direction,” she remembered, “he would say, ‘Gay-head, gay-head,’ which meant, ‘Go ahead, go ahead.’ We never knew why he used that particular pronunciation.”
39 Nat Goodwin: McCabe, George M. Cohan, p. 214.
40 “a wonderful night”: Tracy to Ardmore, 7/5/72.
41 “nervous theatrical dynamite”: Variety, 9/15/26.
42 “delighted the heart”: New York Journal, 9/22/26.
43 “rang the doorbell”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 27.
44 “very disturbed”: Ardmore, “John,” n.d.
45 “like any father”: Barry Norman, The Hollywood Greats (New York: Franklin Watts, 1980), p. 73.
46 “You see, Billy”: Pat O’Brien to Ralph Story, “Spencer Tracy: An Unauthorized Biography” (Ronald Lyon Productions, 1975).
47 “very happy”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, 2/28/27 (NYPL).
48 “Business is only fair”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, 3/7/27 (NYPL).
49 “never believed in
this”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
50 third week’s gross: Weekly figures for Ned McCobb’s Daughter are from Variety, 2/23, 3/3, 3/18, and 4/13/27.
51 “Wright’s proposition”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, 3/14/27 (NYPL).
52 “One evening”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 42.
53 “to avoid thunder”: Lima Sunday News, 5/15/27.
54 “How many bankers”: Lima News, 4/12/27.
55 “Miss Louise Treadwell”: Lima News, 4/25/27.
56 “threw me a line”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
57 “Things are running along”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, 5/14/27 (NYPL).
58 “specially written part”: New York Times, 10/9/27.
59 “It is the lead”: Chamberlain Brown to ST, 6/7/27 (NYPL).
60 “the big chance”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, 6/10/27 (NYPL).
CHAPTER 5 DREAD
1 “I sent your wire”: Chamberlain Brown to ST, 6/7/27 (NYPL).
2 “this clipping”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, 7/1/27 (NYPL).
3 “terrible mess”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, 9/19/27 (NYPL).
4 “cocked my head”: ST to Pete Martin.
5 “Listening”: “Cohan Was Original Good Listener,” undated clipping (SLT).
6 “her latest letter”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 51 (SLT).
7 “ ‘feel’ his lines”: Spencer Tracy, “That Grand Guy Cohan,” Modern Screen, December 1932.
8 “look like a bum”: William F. French, “The Greatest Friendship in Hollywood,” Modern Movies, February 1938.
9 Radio: Tracy also mentioned working in radio in a letter to a Miss Cochrane dated December 19, 1927. The only radio program sponsored by the Standard Oil Company of New York (SOCONY) during the run of The Baby Cyclone featured the close-harmony team of Gus Van and Joe Schenck, two seasoned vaudevillians who delivered “rapid-fire comedy and high-altitude records in the vocal scale” over WEAF and six stations of the National Broadcasting Company. Whether Tracy was indeed the show’s folksy announcer, known simply as “Sam the Touring Man,” is seemingly lost to memory, for the man behind the voice was never publicly identified.
10 “Florida!”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
11 “a long time”: Jane Feely Desmond to Selden West.
12 “up at your apartment”: John E. Tracy to ST, 3/1/28 (SLT).
13 “He adored this son”: Lorraine Foat Holmes to Selden West.
14 “Spence, at that time”: Charles R. Sligh, Jr., to Selden West, Delray Beach, Florida,11/23/91 (SW).
15 “a very separate part”: Jane Feely Desmond to Selden West.
16 “I am desperate”: John E. Tracy to ST and Carroll Tracy, 4/21/28 (SLT).
17 “He got sick”: Garson Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn (New York: Viking Press, 1971), p. 146.
18 “Dry times or wet”: O’Brien, The Wind at My Back, p. 122.
19 “Mother dear”: ST to Carrie Tracy, n.d. (SLT).
20 “An unemployed actor”: O’Brien, The Wind at My Back, p. 76.
21 “I didn’t like my part”: Clark Gable (as told to James Reid), “My Pal, Spencer Tracy,” Screen Life, July 1940.
22 “The final impression”: New York Times, 3/7/29.
23 “So there we all were”: Jean Dalrymple Oral History, Columbia University, 1979.
24 “Next season”: ST to Chamberlain Brown, n.d. (NYPL).
25 “we had played together”: Royle, unpublished autobiography, p. 53.
26 “nothing stagy”: Providence Journal, 6/25/29.
27 “Upstairs and down”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 59.
28 “The women”: Newquist, A Special Kind of Magic, p. 145.
29 “You’ll—never—have”: The unpublished text of Dread is in the Copyright Office’s Drama Deposits collection at the Library of Congress.
30 “spit fire”: Washington Post, 10/21/29.
31 “going to Brooklyn”: Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn, p. 41.
32 “parlance of the stage”: Brooklyn Standard Union, 10/30/29.
33 “most enthusiastic”: New York Herald Tribune, 5/26/40. Tracy told Broadway columnist Ed Sullivan the same thing.
34 “laugh about Dread”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 42.
35 “I don’t remember”: Jane Ardmore, “Mrs. Spencer Tracy’s Own Story,” Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1972.
36 “Louise flamed”: Mook, “Checking Up on Tracy.”
37 “a pretty disconsolate guy”: O’Brien, The Wind at My Back, p. 120.
CHAPTER 6 THE LAST MILE
1 “how it will feel”: Robert Blake, “The Law Takes Its Toll,” American Mercury, July 1929.
2 “Blake’s sketch”: Wexley originally cut Blake’s mother in for 5 percent of the author’s royalties. Once the play hit big on Broadway, friends in Texas sent Mrs. Ella Blake to New York, where she demanded a bigger share. Eric Pinkler, Wexley’s agent, arranged to raise her share to 20 percent when it became apparent that the entire first act was derived almost entirely from Blake’s work. Subsequently she attended a performance and was introduced to the cast.
3 “It was one o’clock”: Dallas Morning News, 4/13/41.
4 “A few of his performances”: Chester Erskine, “Spencer Tracy: The Face of Integrity,” The Movie (UK), No. 7, 1980.
5 “so violent”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
6 “The sixteen”: Herman Shumlin, “Teamwork and ‘The Last Mile,’ ” New York World, 5/20/30.
7 “cooperative and disciplined”: Chester Erskine, Spencer Tracy: A Biographical and Interpretive Symposium, treatment for a TV documentary, circa 1968, p. 15 (SLT).
8 “I cannot remember”: Spencer Tracy, “Long Runs Wear,” New York Telegraph, 4/6/30.
9 “rank melodrama”: Hartford Times, 2/7/30.
10 “Some individuals”: New York Sun, 3/31/30.
11 “No detail”: New York Daily News, 2/14/30.
12 “Nothing this season”: New York American, 2/14/30.
13 “I was supposed to”: Newquist, A Special Kind of Magic, p. 146.
14 “say I was gone”: Howard Teichmann, Smart Alec (New York: Morrow, 1976), p. 149.
15 “A prison play”: New York Evening Post, 2/14/30.
16 “desperation and fury”: New York Telegram, 2/14/30.
17 “taut, searing”: New York Times, 2/14/30.
18 “grimly effective”: New York Sun, 2/14/30.
19 “thrillingly savage”: New York World, 2/14/30.
20 “the final seal”: Commonweal, 4/9/30.
21 practically sold out: Weekly figures for The Last Mile are from Variety, 2/19, 2/26, 3/5, 3/12, 3/26, and 5/28/30.
22 “Mr. Erskine’s direction”: New York Times, 2/17/30.
23 “enthralled by the terrible”: Life, 3/7/30.
24 “Nobody ever said”: Newquist, A Special Kind of Magic, p. 145.
25 “doesn’t photograph well”: McEvoy, “Will They Get Wise to Him?”
26 “What have I done”: The first reel of Taxi Talks is preserved at the Library of Congress, but no audio is known to exist. A dialogue continuity for the film is in the Warner Bros. Archives at the University of Southern California.
27 “It was all strange”: Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn, p. 47.
28 “I liked it”: Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/16/73.
29 “I’d meet Spencer”: John Ford and Katharine Hepburn to Dan Ford, n.d., John Ford Collection, Manuscripts Department, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
30 “ ‘I’d like to have him’ ”: Newquist, A Special Kind of Magic, p. 146.
31 “The producer”: Elisabeth Goldbeck, “Some New Evidence About Spencer Tracy,” Movie Classic, December 1932.
32 “AS SHOW MUST OPEN”: Tracy’s contract for Up the River is in the 20th Century-Fox collection at UCLA.
33 “Sheehan wanted”: Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 52. Variety credited the idea of the two men breaking back into the prison to a Fox publicity man
named Joe Shea.
34 “I’m in Hollywood”: Frank Tracy to Selden West.
35 “That’s all John needs”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 65.
36 “[Ford] called us to the studio”: Claire Luce, unpublished autobiography (courtesy of Mrs. Jeanne Selvin) (SW).
37 “It was interesting”: Joan L. Jacobsen to the author, via telephone, 5/1/07.
38 “some base color”: Michael F. Blake to the author, via e-mail, 4/23/07.
39 a new contract: A letter dated August 16, 1930, advised Tracy that the studio intended to exercise a six-month option on his services commencing June 1, 1931, as allowed in his contract.
40 “must get home”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 66.
CHAPTER 7 QUICK MILLIONS
1 “Poor Tommy”: Swindell, Spencer Tracy, p. 77.
2 “Well acted”: Variety, 9/3/30.
3 “THOUGHT OF DEAR DAD”: ST to Carrie Tracy, 8/31/30 (SLT).
4 “walking down Park”: Charles R. Sligh, Jr., to Selden West (SW).
5 Gardner’s offer: Jack Gardner to Sol M. Wurtzel, 9/1/30 (FOX).
6 “Forwarding you today”: Sol M. Wurtzel to ST, 9/4/30 (FOX).
7 “magnificent and terrifying”: Deschner, The Films of Spencer Tracy, p. 20.
8 “My Dear Mr. Wurtzel”: ST to Sol M. Wurtzel, 9/12/30 (FOX).
9 “a pack of fools”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 69 (SLT).
10 “Sheehan refused to go”: Bogdanovich, John Ford, p. 52.
11 “Can you imagine”: New York American, 10/13/30.
12 “worst actor”: Ramsey, “Life Story of a Real Guy,” Part 2.
13 “William Fox”: Details on the battle for control of Fox Film are from “The Case of William Fox,” Fortune, May 1930; and various issues of Variety.
14 “The Sheehan influence”: Motion Picture Herald, 7/28/45.
15 “The remarkable thing”: S. N. Behrman, “You Can’t Release Dante’s Inferno in the Summertime,” New York Times Magazine, 7/17/66.
16 “Terrett knew well”: Philippe Garnier, Honni Soit Qui Malibu (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1996), p. 123.
17 negative cost: The cost of Quick Millions is from the research library of Karl Thiede.
18 “Look at that man”: Lewis Yablonsky, George Raft (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), p. 60.
19 “what a time I had”: John Ford to Dan Ford, n.d., John Ford Collection.