Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [574]
28 capacity business: Figures for Woman of the Year are from Variety, 2/11 and 2/18/42; and the Mannix ledger.
29 “new Music Hall offering”: New York World-Telegram, 2/6/42.
30 “tossing his old hat”: New York Times, 2/6/42.
31 “The boy had told me”: Matie E. Winston to Louise Tracy, circa June 1967 (SLT).
32 “He can’t see your lips!”: Ardmore, “John,” n.d.
33 “mistaken idea”: Howard Dietz, Dancing in the Dark (New York: Quadrangle, 1974), p. 280.
34 “Benny Thau called”: Loy, Being and Becoming, p. 154.
35 Bonaventure: Milwaukee County Certificate of Birth No. 3714, corrected 8/24/42 “by order of State Board of Health.”
36 “They were exhausted”: Eddie Lawrence to Selden West.
37 “no condition”: F. L. Hendrickson, internal memo, 3/12/42, Turner Entertainment/SW.
38 “I’d been picked up”: Granger, Sparks Fly Upward, p. 283.
39 “Kate … was miserable”: Charles Higham, Kate (New York: Norton, 1975), p. 117.
40 “just stopped off”: Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, 5/12/42.
41 “Mr. Tracy said he”: Pittsburgh Press, 5/12/42.
42 “His symptoms”: Johns Hopkins Hospital, History No. 260076, May 1942 (SW).
43 The property: The New York Times reported that M-G-M acquired the rights to the story from RKO for $50,000, but the studio script files at USC show the book was submitted for consideration by the Frank W. Vincent Agency.
44 Hepburn committed: As late as April 10, Hepburn was expected to appear in Frenchman’s Creek at Paramount. The first mention of her doing Keeper of the Flame appeared in Edwin Schallert’s column of April 18. Her twelve-page contract for the picture, calling for a fee of $100,000, was dated July 18, 1942.
45 “I’m most anxious”: Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5/5/42.
46 “She is a woman”: Dorothy Manners, “La Hepburn Chooses to Ignore Stage-or-Screen Enigma,” n.d.
47 “impotent eunuch”: Donald Ogden Stewart to Ella Winter, as quoted in Patrick McGilligan, George Cukor: A Double Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 168.
48 “We assume”: Joseph I. Breen to Louis B. Mayer, 5/2/42 (AMPAS).
49 “A full conference”: Mosley, Evergreen: Victor Saville in His Own Words, pp. 156–57.
50 “another flier”: Matie E. Winston to Louise Tracy, 7/5/42 (SLT).
51 “Christine is guilty”: Joseph I. Breen to Louis B. Mayer, 7/7/42 (AMPAS).
52 change pages: The writing of Keeper of the Flame is documented in the M-G-M script files at USC and AMPAS.
53 “open set”: Emily Torchia to Selden West.
54 “hundreds of suggestions”: Gavin Lambert, On Cukor (New York: Putnam, 1972), p. 101.
55 “take one”: Darryl Hickman to the author, via telephone, 11/21/05.
56 “she finally carried”: Lambert, On Cukor, p. 172.
57 “What are you up to”: Theresa Helburn to Katharine Hepburn, 8/9/42 (TGC).
58 Appear on the set: As Darryl Hickman said, “He was clearly not a happy man. He would come in in the morning and he would be so shut down. It was so strange. Personally he was that way, but when the camera rolled, whatever was there would open up and he would use it.”
59 “He felt the miseries”: Katharine Hepburn to Phil Donahue, Donahue, Transcript #3358, 12/13/91.
60 “I MUST ADVISE YOU”: Theresa Helburn to Katharine Hepburn, 9/1/42 (TGC).
61 “I want to talk to you”: Katharine Hepburn to Theresa Helburn, Lawrence Langner, and Philip Barry, 9/7/42, Philip Barry Papers, Georgetown University. A preliminary draft of this letter, minus the “for personal reasons” appeal, is preserved in the Katharine Hepburn collection at New York Public Library.
62 “you are in pain”: Theresa Helburn, undated notes (TGC).
63 “A SHOCK”: Theresa Helburn to Katharine Hepburn, 9/13/42 (TGC).
64 “insomnia”: Johns Hopkins Hospital, History No. 260076, November 1942 (SW).
CHAPTER 19 NOT THE GUY THEY SEE UP THERE ON THE SCREEN
1 “have a project”: Ardmore, “Clinic,” 7/20/72 (JKA).
2 The meeting took place: Minutes of Mothers’ Meeting, 7/18/42 (JTC). See also Louise Tracy to Neil S. McCarthy, 7/20/43 (JTC).
3 “got my wits”: Ardmore, “Clinic.”
4 The first meeting of the Mothers: Minutes, 10/17/42 (JTC). The $5 check came from a doctor at L.A.’s Orthopedic Hospital.