Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [566]
30 “practicing dialect”: “Spencer Tracy’s Learned a Lesson.”
31 “Tracy was sore”: Capt. J. M. Hersey, “The Log of the We’re Here,” Woman’s Home Companion, April 1937.
32 “full schedule”: Mickey Rooney, Life Is Too Short (New York: Villard Books, 1991), p. 94.
33 “purposely set out”: Victor Fleming, “Filming Captains Courageous—A Director’s Own Story,” Captains Courageous souvenir program, 1937.
34 “put on a clean shirt”: New York Times, 12/13/36.
35 “educated Portuguese”: Hall, “You Can’t Put Spencer Tracy into Words.”
36 “warm feelings”: Freddie Bartholomew in M-G-M: When the Lion Roars (Part Two—“The Lion Reigns Supreme”), Turner Pictures/Point Blank Productions, 1992.
37 “Slick as a whistle”: Spencer Tracy, “The Log of the We’re Here,” Picturegoer, 12/11/37.
38 “There is a drawbridge”: S. R. Mook, “For More Than Money,” Screenland, May 1938.
39 “Stubby Kruger”: Hersey, “The Log of the We’re Here.”
40 “Anything for release”: Yvonne Beaudry, “Tracy and Beaudry,” Silurian News, May 1992.
41 “idealistic role”: Chicago Daily News, 5/29/37.
42 “I think of you”: ST to Lincoln Cromwell, 1/12/37.
43 “As everyone knows”: Oakland Tribune, 1/31/37.
44 “well on my way”: Los Angeles Times, 5/16/37.
45 “I’m alive today”: Sharpe, “The Adventurous Life of Spencer Tracy,” Part 3.
46 thyroid: A goiter is typically the result of low iodine in the diet, a condition the body attempts to correct by stimulating the production of hormones in the thyroid gland. In the days before iodine was routinely added to table salt, goiters were common in inland areas where the soil was often deficient in iodine. In the United States, Milwaukee was considered part of the “goiter belt.”
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.