Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [562]
Dante’s Inferno was shot at Western Avenue, not Fox Hills, and Sol Wurtzel would have been summoned in such an instance, not Sheehan. Claire Trevor, who would have been present, recalled no such incident, and Ralph Bellamy, who, according to Davidson, “vividly” remembered it, makes no mention of it in his 1979 autobiography. Moreover, there is nothing about Tracy damaging a set in any of the trade papers, nor in his Fox legal file, where a penalty would doubtless have been documented had Tracy caused anywhere near that much damage.
Davidson, incidentally, first reported such an incident in his 1962 profile of Tracy in Look. In that article the incident is said to have occurred in 1933, not 1935, and the alleged quotes are attributed to a “movie executive” who was a reporter at the time.
26 “finest actor”: Mook, “Checking Up on Tracy.”
27 “I am Spencer Tracy”: Los Angeles Examiner, 3/5/33.
28 “ranch life”: Hall, “Why My Wife and I Are Together Again.”
29 “They fired me”: Hollywood Citizen News, 4/14/52.
30 “Old pact”: Variety, 11/13/34.
31 “successful in securing”: Leo Morrison to ST, 4/10/35 (SLT).
32 “no question in my mind”: Astrid Allwyn Fee to Selden West via telephone, 1/9/78 (SW).
33 “half loaded”: Charles Higham, Hollywood Cameramen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970), p. 141.
34 “go off to Virginia”: Frank Tracy to Selden West.
35 “drunk and resisting”: Los Angeles Times, 3/12/35. See also Los Angeles Examiner, 3/12/35.
36 “so sadly lacking”: Hollywood Reporter, 3/25/35.
37 “should rest before”: Los Angeles Examiner, 4/1/35.
38 “wounding his vanity”: Allvine, The Greatest Fox of Them All, p. 153.
CHAPTER 11 THAT DOUBLE JACKPOT
1 “Without stars”: Irving G. Thalberg, undated draft memo to Nicholas Schenck (author’s collection).
2 “We recognize”: Memorandum of Agreement between Spencer Tracy and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 4/2/35, Turner Entertainment/SW.
3 “by mutual consent”: Cancellation Agreement between Spencer Tracy and Fox Film Corporation, 3/30/35 (SLT).
4 “very flattering offer”: Los Angeles Times, 4/3/35.
5 “most valuable stars”: Los Angeles Examiner, 3/12/44.
6 “pieces of property”: Tracy, The Story of John, p. 161.
7 “a million dollars”: Los Angeles Examiner, 5/16/35.
8 “first-rate yarn”: The Murder Man, synopsis by Edward Hogan, 3/21/35 (MGM).
9 binge-drinking insomniac: In the original dialogue continuity by Tim Whelan and Guy Bolton, Steve Gray is “morose and drinks too much” but is not a binge drinker. The scene introducing Gray on the merry-go-round after a disappearance of several days first appears in a dialogue continuity by John C. Higgins dated May 22, 1935 (AMPAS).
10 “quiet, compelling conviction”: Daily Variety, 7/6/35.
11 Loew’s Capitol: Figures for The Murder Man are from Variety, 8/7/35. According to the Mannix ledger, the film cost $167,000 and returned a profit of $78,000 on total billings of $397,000.
12 “criminal reporter”: Variety, 7/31/35.
13 “fairly exciting”: New York Telegraph, 7/28/35.
14 “greedily accepted”: Screen and Radio Weekly, 8/25/35.
15 final tally: According to the research library of Karl Thiede, domestic and foreign rentals for Dante’s Inferno totaled $786,200. With a negative cost of $748,900, the film posted a loss of $269,900.
16 “went to pieces”: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 149.
17 “sat around talking”: Tracy, “My Pal, Will Rogers.”
18 “my sense of humor”: Los Angeles Examiner, 8/19/35.
19 “sorry you were sick”: Judith Wood to Selden West, via telephone, 2/3/93 (SW).
20 “Tracy’s gassed”: David Stenn, Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 195.
21 “A press agent”: Teet Carle, “Magnificent Katharine Hepburn: A Study in Magnetism,” Hollywood Studio Magazine, August 1974.
22 “wiped me out”: Eddie Lawrence to Selden West, Los Angeles, 8/6/93