Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [567]
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