Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [570]
35 “you seemed upset”: ST to Eddie Mannix, 8/24/39 (SLT).
36 “very intuitive”: Maltin, “Conversations: Robert Young.”
37 “big tow line”: Jane Feely Desmond to the author, 2/23/04.
38 “I couldn’t do that”: Interview with Ardmore, 7/5/72.
39 “Frank NEVER asked”: Dorothy McHugh to Selden West, Cos Cob, Conn., 1/31/92 (SW).
40 “Spence was at M-G-M”: Frank McHugh to Ralph Bellamy, 7/5/77, Ralph Bellamy Papers, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.
41 “There was no thought”: James Cagney to Selden West, 2/11/78 (SW).
42 “I did the entire picture”: Dowd and Shepard, King Vidor, p. 182.
43 “historical character”: Grace Wilcox, “Injuns!” Sunday Magazine, Detroit Free Press, 2/4/40.
44 “THE PREVIEW”: Kenneth Macgowan to ST, 7/11/39, Kenneth Macgowan Papers, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
45 “severely scholarly”: Hollywood Reporter, 8/1/39.
46 “Comes the revolution!”: Los Angeles Times, 8/27/39.
47 survey by Elmo Roper: Full results of the survey can be found in Fortune, November 1939.
CHAPTER 16 SOMEONE’S IDEA OF REALITY
1 “make these changes”: Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, 10/27/39.
2 “believe everything”: Flo Marshall, “Six Characters in Search of Spencer Tracy,” Movies, November 1940.
3 “civilized comedy”: Ben Hecht, Charlie (New York: Harper, 1957), p. 160.
4 “They didn’t want me”: Hedy Lamarr, Ecstasy and Me (New York: Bartholomew House, 1966), p. 71.
5 “did one rehearsal”: Laraine Day to Barbara Hall.
6 “was an alcoholic”: Lawrence Weingarten, American Film Institute Seminar with James Powers, 1/23/74 (AFI).
7 Tracy was “onto him”: Bosley Crowther, notes, Spencer Tracy interview, 5/10/53, Bosley Crowther Collection, Brigham Young University.
8 “a very prayerful guy”: Adela Rogers St. Johns to Ralph Story, Spencer Tracy: An Unauthorized Biography.
9 a “quickie” questionnaire: Hall, “You Can Only Defeat Yourself.”
10 “a bet I had”: Dallas Morning News, 1/25/40.
11 “the kind of stuff”: Daily Variety, 2/8/40.
12 humiliation: While Tracy’s personal reviews were good, I Take This Woman was variously described in the press as “lame and inept,” a “pretty sorry affair,” and an “amazing blend of tedium and trash.” Stubbornly, the studio booked it into Radio City Music Hall—a real shocker for the industry, given the picture’s almost legendary status—and the results were predictably disastrous. It did well enough in playoffs, however, to hold the overall loss to $325,000 on a final cost of nearly $1.3 million.
13 “They spent half their time”: Adela Rogers St. Johns to Ralph Story, “Spencer Tracy.”
14 “THIS YEAR’S GREATEST”: Gable, “My Pal, Spencer Tracy.”
15 “thought I was crazy when”: Callahan, “Spencer Tracy.”
16 “Can you imagine that?”: Harry Evans, “Hollywood Diary,” Family Circle, 8/23/40.
17 “One evening”: Stewart Granger, Sparks Fly Upward (New York: Putnam, 1981), pp. 348–49.
18 “ideas of experience”: John Erskine, “The Private Mind of Spencer Tracy,” Liberty, 8/24/40.
19 “What’ll you have”: Milwaukee Journal, 6/10/40.
20 “Today marks”: The Ripon Alumnus, June 1940.
21 “Roosevelt”: Louise, a Republican, supported Willkie in the election.
22 “Another picture”: Washington D.C. News, 9/13/40.
23 “you got a rotten deal”: Gene Buck to Rev. E. J. Flanagan, 8/23/39 (BT).
24 “step out”: Boys Town Times, 2/23/40.
25 “stuffy”: Ardmore, “Tracy,” n.d.
26 “You would not be good”: Frank McHugh to Ralph Bellamy.
27 “never forget”: Adela Rogers St. Johns to Ralph Story, “Spencer Tracy.”
28 “always been fascinated”: Katharine Hepburn, Me (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 274.
29 “Barrymore”: Richard Mansfield, who predated Tracy’s theatergoing years, was also reputed to have accomplished the transformation sans makeup.
30 “the change”: Unidentified clipping, January 1941 (SW).
31 “tests without makeup”: J. D. Marshall, Blueprint on Babylon (Tempe, Ariz.: Phoenix House, 1978), p. 31.
32 “Ingrid came to Fleming”: Roy Mosley, Evergreen: Victor Saville in His Own Words