Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [554]
5 “one of the strongest actors”: Ripon College Days, 3/17/21 (RC).
6 trip herself up: Milwaukee Journal, 7/22/45. See also Clemens E. Lueck, undated manuscript (RC).
7 “proved himself”: Ripon College Days, 6/23/21 (RC).
8 “My God”: Ibid.
9 “fond of Spence”: Lorraine Foat Holmes to Selden West, Wellesley, Mass., 6/20/92 (SW).
10 “more arguments”: Sobol, “Voice of Broadway.”
11 “The Dean”: Carol Holmes Phillips to Selden West, 1/22/92 (SW).
12 “Of all the wonders”: These lines, from Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II, are reversed.
13 flunked Zoology: Spencer B. Tracy, Ripon College Student Record.
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19 “There were two places”: Curtis MacDougall, “Rambling Reminiscences,” unpublished manuscript, February 1985 (SW) (courtesy of Priscilla Ruth MacDougall).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