Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [573]
44 Tracy’s “business”: George Stevens, unpublished interview with Pete Martin, December 1960 (USC).
45 “a lot of confusion”: Katharine Hepburn to George Stevens, Jr.
46 “the definitive play”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to Heeley and Kramer.
47 “too feminist”: McGilligan, Backstory 3, p. 204.
48 “Mayer was away”: Ibid., p. 249.
49 “meaty hunk of business”: Evans, “Hollywood Diary.”
50 “the kind of looks”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to George Stevens, Jr.
51 “great unity”: John Steinbeck to ST, 1/9/40 (SLT).
52 “peculiar and strong affection”: John Steinbeck to ST, 1/9/40 (SLT).
53 “a great heart”: Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten, eds., Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (New York, Viking Press, 1975), p. 216.
54 “a little afraid”: Ibid., p. 224.
55 “don’t want money”: Ibid., p. 225.
56 “charming bosses”: John Steinbeck to ST, 6/12/41 (SLT).
57 screen rights: Paramount purchased the rights to Tortilla Flat at the behest of writer-producer Benjamin “Barney” Glazer, but the project went nowhere after George Raft declined the role of Danny. Glazer subsequently acquired the rights from Paramount when he moved to Warner Bros. in 1938. Paul Muni, who expressed a keen interest in doing the film, asked Steinbeck to write the screenplay, an offer which met with much the same answer that Metro received a few years later. Glazer sold the rights to M-G-M for $65,000 in April 1940.
58 “butched it up”: New York Times, 11/30/41.
59 “a lot more fun”: Marshall, Blueprint on Babylon, p. 32.
60 “kind of truth”: Erskine, “The Private Mind of Spencer Tracy.”
CHAPTER 18 I’VE FOUND THE WOMAN I WANT
1 Katharine Houghton Hepburn: For details on the history of the Hepburn family that differ from other published sources, I am grateful to Katharine Houghton.
2 “I’ve never discovered”: Katharine Houghton to the author, via e-mail, 11/3/06.
3 “Leland and Howard”: Myrna Blyth, “Kate Talks Straight,” Ladies’ Home Journal, October, 1991.
4 “The best”: Brooke Hayward, Haywire (New York: Knopf, 1977), p. 317.
5 “Why in the world”: Hepburn, Me, pp. 89–90.
6 “liked bad eggs”: Ralph G. Martin, “Kate Hepburn: My Life and Loves,” Ladies’ Home Journal, August 1975.
7 “our first picture”: Hepburn, Me, p. 395.
8 “off their feet”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to Selden West.
9 “outdo me”: Emily Torchia to Selden West, via telephone, 8/2/93.
10 “line of conquests”: Claire Trevor to Selden West (SW).
11 “something you didn’t print”: Sheilah Graham Oral History, Columbia University.
12 “a great artist”: Tim Durant to Katharine Hepburn, 1967 (KHLA).
13 the Tracy-Hepburn affair: Norman Lloyd to the author, Studio City, 9/4/06.
14 “imagined I was a lesbian”: Hepburn, Me, p. 400.
15 “the only two men”: Katharine Houghton to the author, via e-mail, 5/7/08.
16 like Louise: It’s interesting to note that both women played The Man Who Came Back in stock—Louise in 1923, Hepburn in 1930.
17 “appearing at gunpoint”: Ingrid Bergman (with Alan Burgess), Ingrid Bergman, My Story (New York: Delacorte Press, 1980), p. 108.
18 “never have a year”: Rooney, Life Is Too Short, p. 188.
19 “he isn’t on the radio”: Peggy Gough to Mrs. Frances Rasinen, 12/1/41 (courtesy of Patricia Mahon).
20 “We of America”: Los Angeles Examiner, 1/12/42.
21 “suited to each other”: Spencer Tracy (as told to James Reid), “My Pal, Clark Gable,” Screen Life, May 1940.
22 “a very big star”: Adela Rogers St. Johns, Love, Laughter and Tears (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978), p. 329.
23 Mt. Potosi: Locals knew the mountain as Double Up Peak, after the Double Up Mine on its eastern face. In news accounts of the time, the crash scene was erroneously identified as “Double or Nothing” or Table Mountain. One later account mysteriously placed the crash at Mt. Olcott.
24 “pretty upset”: Peggy Gough to Mrs. Frances Rasinen, 3/23/42 (courtesy of Patricia Mahon).
25 “Clark, beyond consolation”: Loy, Being and Becoming, p. 169.
26 “People were clustered”: Harriett Gustason, “Looking Back,” Freeport Journal-Standard, 6/23/84.
27 “just as common”: Ibid.