Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [552]
13 “He’s a throwback”: Walter Ramsey, “Life Story of a Real Guy,” Part 1, Modern Screen, June 1934.
14 “He was in dresses”: Peggy Hoyt Black, “That Tough Tracy Kid,” Picture Play, February 1937.
15 kindergarten: According to archival records maintained by the Milwaukee Public School District, Spencer Bernard Tracy was registered for A.M. Kindergarten in June 1906. I am grateful to Montina Nelson of Trowbridge Elementary School of Discovery and Technology for checking this for me.
16 “signs of wanderlust”: Chicago Daily News, 12/26/36.
17 “Being sentimentally Irish”: Louis Sobol, “Voice of Broadway,” undated (NYPL).
18 “Spencer’s exploits”: Kay Proctor, “Ex-Bad Boy,” Screen Guide, April 1937.
19 “Uncle Andrew”: Jane Feely Desmond to the author, via telephone, 2/19/04.
20 “He was terrible”: Bertha Calhoun to the author, Freeport, 7/19/06.
21 “wild ideas”: Ramsey, “Life Story of a Real Guy,” Part 1. The Jesse James picture was likely G. M. (later “Broncho Billy”) Anderson’s The James Boys in Missouri (1908), a particularly appealing attraction since it had been banned in Chicago. The life of Christ may have been the French import The Birth, the Life, and the Death of Christ (1906). Each film ran approximately twenty minutes.
22 “bag full of candy”: Frank Tracy to Selden West, 11/21 and 11/22/91 (SW).
23 “round him up”: Harriett Gustason, “Looking Back,” Freeport Journal-Standard, 7/14/84.
24 “all these things”: Jane Feely Desmond to the author.
25 “tiny lad”: Buck Herzog, “Older Brother Helped Him Over Rough Spots,” Milwaukee News-Sentinel, 8/27/38.
26 “gone back”: McEvoy, “Will They Get Wise to Him?”
27 “Spencer was always punished”: Herzog, “Older Brother Helped Him Over Rough Spots.”
28 “A tough kid”: Black, “That Tough Tracy Kid.”
29 St. John’s Cathedral: Details of the third-grade curriculum at St. John’s are from Manual of the Course of Studies for the Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee (Milwaukee: Edward Keogh Press, 1903).
30 “He remembered this nun”: Frank Tracy to Selden West.
31 “unlit taper”: Milwaukee News-Sentinel, 8/27/38.
32 “Admission”: “Jaunts with Jamie,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 6/28/67. The oft-repeated story of Tracy having set fire to one of his childhood homes doesn’t appear to be based in fact. It first appeared in a 1940 autobiography issued by the studio in which Tracy supposedly confessed to having “accidentally started a fire in our basement and the fire department had to be called.” In his 1962 profile of Tracy for Look, Bill Davidson ran with the incident and reported the fire as coming “close to burning down the family home.” By 1988 Davidson had decided that Tracy had deliberately started the fire after a furious argument with his father. Ten years after that, Christopher Andersen, in his book An Affair to Remember, added fresh details: “As flames shot out of the basement windows, fire trucks came roaring up the street. The entire neighborhood gathered outside on the street to watch the firemen battle the blaze for twenty minutes before finally bringing it under control. John was rigid with rage, but Carrie placed her hand on the trembling boy’s shoulder while she explained to the fire captain that Spencer had been experimenting with cigarettes in the basement.”
In 1992 Selden West spent long hours with Captain Jeff Burke of the Milwaukee Fire Department, reading the huge handwritten ledgers of Milwaukee fire calls from 1908 through 1918. Although it’s possible such an event took place prior to 1908, there was no record of a call to any of the Tracy addresses.
33 movie emporiums: My information on early Milwaukee movie theaters comes chiefly from Larry Widen and Judi Anderson, Milwaukee Movie Palaces (Milwaukee: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1986). Individual issues of Milwaukee Journal were also consulted.
34 “the wrong kids”: Jane Feely Desmond to Selden West.
35 “a good one