James Curtis
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47 “And what a storm!”: Abilene Reporter-News, 3/14/37.
48 “a beautiful kid”: McGilligan, Backstory, p. 252.
49 “got away with it”: Zeitlin, “Manuel the Lovable.”
50 “When we emerged”: Beaudry, “Tracy and Beaudry.”
CHAPTER 13 THE NEW RAGE
1 “they hauled me out”: Spencer Tracy, “Film War Too Real to Suit ‘Private’ Tracy,” New York Daily Mirror, 5/8/37. Tracy’s datebook for 1937 shows that he completed Captains Courageous on Monday, February 15, and started They Gave Him a Gun the next day.
2 “anti-war document”: Los Angeles Times, 5/16/37.
3 most employees: Walter Seltzer remembered a meeting of the sixty-member M-G-M publicity staff in 1939: “Our boss, Howard Strickling, announced that through the generosity of the studio, all of us as of now are members of the Academy; he had enrolled everyone and paid the initiation fee. There was general jubilation and thanks, then he proceeded to tell us how we were to vote.” (“History of Hollywood Ups and Downs,” Associated Press, 2/23/05.)
4 “Critics”: Hollywood Citizen News, 3/5/37.
5 “haven’t been telling”: Howard Sharpe, “The Startling Story Behind Spencer Tracy’s Illness,” Movie Mirror, July 1937.
6 “game of handball”: Helen Gilmore, “Spencer Tracy’s Tribute to Jean Harlow,” Liberty, spring 1972.
7 “accept him as a heel”: Maurice Rapf to Selden West, 11/30/95 (SW).
8 “derby hat”: Newquist, A Special Kind of Magic, p. 149.
9 “stiff-shirted gentlemen”: Los Angeles Evening Herald-Express, 5/15/37.
10 “man to be thanked”: Los Angeles Times, 5/16/37.
11 “magnificent job”: Hall, “You Can’t Put Spencer Tracy into Words.”
12 “Fifth Avenue”: Zeitlin, “Manuel the Lovable.”
13 “publicity value”: McEvoy, “Will They Get Wise to Him?”
14 “heavy responsibility”: Chicago Daily News, 5/28/37.
15 “She doesn’t nag”: Hall, “You Can’t Put Spencer Tracy into Words.”
16 “He saw you”: Ted Shane, “He Should Worry,” Liberty, 12/15/45.
17 “despises chi-chi”: Mook, “Spencer Tracy’s Home Life.”
18 “I can’t believe it”: Gilmore, “Spencer Tracy’s Tribute to Jean Harlow.”
19 “She meant to pull her punch”: Darnton, “Down With Romance!”
20 “He came home”: Jane Feely Desmond to Selden West.
21 “wonderful man”: Luise Rainer to the author, via telephone, 12/30/03.
22 “It isn’t worth it”: New York World-Telegram, 4/16/38.
23 “I never acted”: Marie Brenner, Great Dames (New York: Crown, 2000), p. 175.
24 “a marvelous time”: Dore Schary, Heyday (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 88.
25 already seen it: The first time Johnny saw his father on-screen was in Sky Devils. “I remember him sitting there,” Louise said. “Suddenly, the first time John saw him on the screen, he just sat there and said, ‘Fa-ther.’ ” He saw Captains Courageous for the first time with his cousin Jane: “I cried and cried when he drowned, and John looked around and, even though he couldn’t hear, he could see people looking at me, so he tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry. Father dived in the water, went under the boat, and came up on the other side.’ ”
26 “staring at the screen”: Susie Tracy to the author, via telephone, 1/10/08.
27 the boat: Tracy sold the Carrie B to director Michael Curtiz for $12,000. The next time he saw the boat, it was dirty and renamed the Do De Do. Eventually ownership fell to actor Dick Powell.
28 “any kind of actor”: Mook, “For More Than Money.”
29 holding his nose: Milwaukee Sentinel, 6/28/67.
30 “spoiled it all”: Spencer Tracy, 1937 datebook (SLT).
31 “whitewashed a little”: Lucile Sullivan, “Marry for Money” coverage, 6/11/36 (MGM).
32 “Pure male”: Joan Crawford, as quoted in the program for a Tracy Retrospective at Wesleyan College, 1973.
33 “an absolute muddle”: Roy Newquist, Conversations with Joan Crawford (Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel, 1980), p. 81.
34 “For crissake”: Bob Thomas, Joan Crawford (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), p. 125.
35 “hot fudge sundaes”: Alice Mannix to the author, via telephone, 8/2/06.
36 “what kind of ice cream”: Jean Wright to the author, via telephone, 9/21/06.
37 “Voting contests”: Chicago Tribune, 11/14/37.
38 “most attractive”: Hall, “You Can’t Put Spencer Tracy into Words.”
39 “The characters are excellent”: Joe Richardson, “Wings of Tomorrow” coverage, 1/27/36 (MGM).
40 “King” and “Queen”: The voting tallies are from the Hollywood Citizen News, 12/7/37.
41 “big plush crowns”: Gable, “My Pal, Spencer Tracy.”
42 “That broadcast tonight”: Hollywood Citizen News, 12/11/37.
43 “our would-be coronation”: Loy, Being and Becoming, p. 152.
44 “From start to finish”: Gable, “My Pal, Spencer Tracy.”
45 “went off for lunch”: Marshall Schlom to the author, Brea, Calif., 8/14/06.
46 “be my best”: John Lee Mahin to Lyn Tornabene, 10/17/73 (AMPAS).
47 “Directors’ Table”: Howard Strickling to Lyn Tornabene, 10/25/73 (AMPAS).
48 “Any other star”: Jean Garceau (with Inez Cocke), “Dear Mr. G——” (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961), p. 76.
49 “I noticed that the fliers”: Loy, Being and Becoming, pp. 152–54.
50 “That plane was used”: Laraine Day, Southern Methodist University Oral History with Ronald L. Davis, 7/17/79.
51 “We saw each other”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to Selden West (SW).
52 “come home at night”: Norman, The Hollywood Greats, p. 78.
53 “in the guest room”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to Heeley and Kramer.
54 “very attractive woman”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to Selden West, Bedford, New York, 10/3/91 (SW).
55 “I wear this Irish costume”: Hollywood Citizen News, 2/4/38.
56 “achieving dramatic effect”: Los Angeles Examiner, 11/3/36.
57 “open approbation”: Norman, The Hollywood Greats, p. 77. Tracy told a version of the story to Garson Kanin that suggests purposeful avoidance of the banquet, claiming that Dr. Dennis had merely told him he had an “incipient hernia” and that the surgery was entirely elective. However, Tracy’s 1937 datebook makes it clear that the diagnosis was conclusive. “Have definite hernia,” he wrote on December 17, long before his Best Actor nomination for Captains Courageous. “Should be operated upon.”
58 “I had to get home”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
59 “an Academy renaissance”: Hollywood Citizen News, 3/11/38.
60 “If you have to go up”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
CHAPTER 14 ENOUGH TO SHINE EVEN THROUGH ME
1 “the pattern of Oliver Twist”: Monsignor E. J. Flanagan, “The Story Behind Boys Town,” Photoplay, November 1938.
2 “After reading”: Schary, Heyday, p. 93.
3 “I expected robes”: McGilligan, Film Crazy, p. 194.
4 “just a straight man”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
5 “grimly alone”: Beaudry, “Tracy and Beaudry.”
6 “written in gold”: Rev. E. J. Flanagan to ST, 2/4/38 (BT).
7 “win space”: Rev. E. J. Flanagan to John Considine, Jr., 2/12/38 (BT).
8 “All actors”: Rt. Rev. Edward J. Flanagan, “I Meet Myself in Spencer Tracy,” Liberty, 10/8/38.
9 “do him good”: Variety, 4/27/38.
10 “the restless type”: Gable, “My Pal, Spencer Tracy.”
11 discovered bleeding: Details of William Powell’s 1938 battle with cancer are from an interview with the actor in Time, 5/10/63.
12 “pretty blue”: Spencer Tracy, 1938 datebook (SLT).
13 “what was left”: Kanin, Tracy an
d Hepburn, p. 146.
14 “I was sick”: Franc Dillon, “Meet Father Tracy,” Picture Play, December 1938.
15 “saw a figure coming”: Swindell, Spencer Tracy, p. 152.
16 “Tracy will sail”: Los Angeles Times, 4/17/38.
17 “huge supply of liquor”: David Wayne to James Fisher, 12/14/92, as quoted in James Fisher, Spencer Tracy: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 17.
18 “should not see”: Swindell, Spencer Tracy, p. 153.
19 a private plane: Details of Tracy’s evacuation from New York are in notes taken from Spencer Tracy’s M-G-M personnel files by Selden West in 1992, Turner Entertainment/SW. The same day, according to Lambs Club records, Tracy was suspended from the privileges of the club for violation of House Rule #13 “pending action by the Council.” A violation of House Rule #13 was “conduct unbecoming a member” (NYPL).
20 “able to find him”: Dore Schary in M-G-M: When the Lion Roars (Part Two—“The Lion Reigns Supreme”).
21 “Unfortunately”: John Considine, Jr., to Rev. E. J. Flanagan, 4/27/38 (BT).
22 “Mickey Rooney … was a pretty cocky”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to Heeley and Kramer.
23 “darn near died”: James Reid, “Even Barrymore Calls Him the Best,” Motion Picture, November 1938.
24 “He was artless”: Gene Reynolds to the author, via telephone, 2/6/06.
25 “eyes bore into mine”: Dickie Moore, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), p. 161.
26 “one of the first scenes”: Tom and Jim Goldrup, Growing Up on the Set (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002), p. 306.
27 “can’t explain it”: Moore, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, p. 73.
28 “During lunch”: “The Story Behind the Movie: Alumni Remember Boys Town,” posted at boystownmovie.org.
29 “Tracy off the booze”: Beth Day Romulo to Selden West, 10/17/92 (SW).
30 “schooling was insufficient”: Tracy, “My Complicated Life,” Part 1.
31 “that’s the worst picture”: Robbin Coons, “Plain Guy,” Screen Guide, February 1948.
32 “Washington—no!”: Rev. E. J. Flanagan to Frank Whitbeck, 8/12/38 (BT).
33 “There was applause”: Motion Picture Herald, 9/10/38.
34 “Pure sentiment”: Daily Variety, 9/2/38.
35 “brilliant, restrained performance”: Hollywood Reporter, 9/2/38.
36 “dying hog”: Omaha Morning World-Herald, 9/8/38.
37 “If you have a diamond”: Howard Strickling to Lyn Tornabene, 10/25/73 (AMPAS).
38 “Early on”: Gary Carey, All the Stars in Heaven (New York: Dutton, 1981), p. 108.
39 “an honest question”: Washington Star, 9/17/40.
40 “like the children”: Hall, “Spencer Tracy Speaks His Mind.”
41 “world unto itself”: Maureen O’Sullivan in M-G-M: When the Lion Roars (Part Two—“The Lion Reigns Supreme”).
42 “In Howard’s book”: Ann Straus, Southern Methodist University Oral History with Ronald L. Davis.
43 “made it difficult”: June Caldwell to the author, Culver City, Calif., 9/22/04.
44 “I have often wondered”: Rev. E. J. Flanagan to ST, 11/1/38 (BT).
45 “Each detail of this film”: Josef von Sternberg, Fun in a Chinese Laundry (New York: Macmillan, 1965), p. 277.
46 “He wouldn’t stand”: Laraine Day to Barbara Hall, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oral History, January–March 1997 (AMPAS).
47 “There’s no mistaking”: Los Angeles Evening Herald-Express, 11/26/38.
48 “I Take This Woman”: Dallas Morning News, 12/27/38.
49 “Just imagine”: Dallas Morning News, 3/8/39.
50 “Humph!”: Frank Tracy to Selden West.
51 “in a wheelchair”: Jane Feely Desmond to Selden West.
52 “highway accident”: New York Times, 9/9/38.
53 “The omission”: Los Angeles Times, 1/13/39.
54 “it is disrespectful”: Dillon, “Meet Father Tracy.”
55 “I could tell”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
56 “I honestly do not feel”: Hollywood Citizen News, 2/24/39. The story that the name on the Oscar, due to an engraving error, was “Dick” Tracy instead of “Spencer” is apparently untrue. The origin of the story is unknown.
57 “all primed”: Gable, “My Pal, Spencer Tracy.”
58 “I didn’t see Boys Town”: ST to Pete Martin.
59 “Not dramatized enough”: Story conference notes, 6/16/37 (USC).
60 “Forget the silly business”: Philip Dunne, Take Two (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), p. 58.
61 loose loan-out: In a letter dated 9/2/39, 20th Century-Fox agreed to compensate Loew’s Incorporated $75,111.11 for the loan of Tracy (FOX).
62 “He came to me”: King to Perry, Directors Guild Oral History.
63 “In vino veritas”: Henry King, as quoted by Larry Swindell to the author. The old Irish equivalent: “Alcohol takes the varnish off anything.”
64 “soundproof stages”: Los Angeles Evening Herald-Express, 3/18/39.
65 “I’m slowly improving”: Reid, “Even Barrymore Calls Him the Best.”
66 “tuck in his chin”: Hall, “You Can Only Defeat Yourself.”
67 “Do you realize”: Dallas Morning News, 3/8/39.
CHAPTER 15 A BUOYANT EFFECT ON THE AUDIENCE
1 “Next time I come”: New York Times, 11/1/38.
2 “The crowd that charged”: New York Times, 5/14/39.
3 “What am I doing in London?”: Unidentified clipping, 4/27/39 (SLT).
4 “think fast”: Film Weekly, 5/6/39.
5 “All the Kennedys”: Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn, p.65.
6 “Grapes of Wrath”: Hollywood Citizen News, 5/29/39.
7 “I had wires”: New York World-Telegram, 4/16/38.
8 “hope to do more”: Mook, “For More Than Money.”
9 “And it occurred”: Theresa Helburn to ST, 5/25/39 (TGC).
10 “motion picture business”: Interview with Ardmore, 7/5/72.
11 “Don’t worry”: Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, 7/31/39.
12 “well taken care of”: Nancy Dowd and David Shepard, King Vidor: A Directors Guild of America Oral History (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988), p. 180.
13 “I’ll play him”: Sullivan, “A Prediction That Came Doubly True.”
14 “Hunt Stromberg”: Dowd and Shepard, King Vidor, p. 182.
15 “no complete story line”: King Vidor to Eddie Mannix, 5/17/39, as quoted in Rudy Behlmer, “To the Wilderness for Northwest Passage,” American Cinematographer, November 1987.
16 “At this time”: Dowd and Shepard, King Vidor, p. 182.
17 “unsavory characters”: Harrold A. Weinberger, unpublished autobiography, circa 1972 (USC).
18 “renovated camp”: Leonard Maltin, “Conversations: Robert Young,” Leonard Maltin’s Movie Crazy, spring 2003.
19 “include me out”: Walter Brennan, Oral History with Charles Higham, Columbia University, 8/11/71.
20 “Young, Brennan and I”: Hall, “You Can Only Defeat Yourself.”
21 “wearing buckskin”: Maltin, “Conversations: Robert Young.”
22 “He becomes so thoroughly”: John R. Wolfenden, “Spencer Tracy as Seen by His Best Friends,” Australian Women’s Weekly, 1/6/40.
23 “marvelous performance”: King Vidor to Selden West, Los Angeles, December 1977 (SW).
24 “SERIOUS CHANGES”: ST to Eddie Mannix, 7/20/39, as quoted in “To the Wilderness for Northwest Passage.”
25 “He had an expression”: King Vidor to Selden West.
26 “AGREE WITH YOU”: Hunt Stromberg to King Vidor, 8/3/39, King Vidor Papers, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
27 “HAVE SCREENED”: Hunt Stromberg to ST, 8/4/39, King Vidor Papers.
28 “he blamed himself”: David Caldwell to the author, via teleph
one, 11/4/06.
29 “a close friend”: Interview with Ardmore, 8/1/72 (JKA).
30 he was so “nervous”: Spencer Tracy, 1939 datebook (SLT).
31 “a very good eye”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d. (JKA).
32 “motor running”: Frank Tracy to Selden West (SW).
33 “I was sorry”: Gable, “My Pal, Spencer Tracy.”
34 “It would be wonderful”: Reid, “Even Barrymore Calls Him the Best.”
35 “you seemed upset”: ST to Eddie Mannix, 8/24/39 (SLT).
36 “very intuitive”: Maltin, “Conversations: Robert Young.”
37 “big tow line”: Jane Feely Desmond to the author, 2/23/04.
38 “I couldn’t do that”: Interview with Ardmore, 7/5/72.
39 “Frank NEVER asked”: Dorothy McHugh to Selden West, Cos Cob, Conn., 1/31/92 (SW).
40 “Spence was at M-G-M”: Frank McHugh to Ralph Bellamy, 7/5/77, Ralph Bellamy Papers, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.
41 “There was no thought”: James Cagney to Selden West, 2/11/78 (SW).
42 “I did the entire picture”: Dowd and Shepard, King Vidor, p. 182.
43 “historical character”: Grace Wilcox, “Injuns!” Sunday Magazine, Detroit Free Press, 2/4/40.
44 “THE PREVIEW”: Kenneth Macgowan to ST, 7/11/39, Kenneth Macgowan Papers, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
45 “severely scholarly”: Hollywood Reporter, 8/1/39.
46 “Comes the revolution!”: Los Angeles Times, 8/27/39.
47 survey by Elmo Roper: Full results of the survey can be found in Fortune, November 1939.
CHAPTER 16 SOMEONE’S IDEA OF REALITY
1 “make these changes”: Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, 10/27/39.
2 “believe everything”: Flo Marshall, “Six Characters in Search of Spencer Tracy,” Movies, November 1940.
3 “civilized comedy”: Ben Hecht, Charlie (New York: Harper, 1957), p. 160.
4 “They didn’t want me”: Hedy Lamarr, Ecstasy and Me (New York: Bartholomew House, 1966), p. 71.