Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [577]
27 “expressed surprise”: Martin Gottfried to Selden West, 5/25/99 (SW).
28 “beaten hell”: Millard Kaufman to the author, Brentwood, 10/14/03.
29 “once told me”: Katharine Houghton to the author, via e-mail, 7/28/08.
30 “he’d ever hurt anyone”: Katharine Hepburn to Selden West.
31 “February 1”: According to studio records, when Bucquet needed a shot of Pat entering Jamie’s home in Washington, D.C., it was Carroll who doubled for his brother. The shot was made on February 7, 1945; Tracy was already in New York.
32 “delightful and amusing”: Playwrights’ Company, unpublished write-up for Elliott Norton, Boston Post, n.d., Playwrights’ Company Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.
33 “first place”: Katharine Hepburn to Selden West.
34 “new characterization”: Joseph L. Mankiewicz to Selden West.
35 tried to choke her: Katharine Hepburn to Selden West.
36 “Some sort of fight”: Katharine Houghton in an e-mail to the author, 12/4/09.
37 “got so loaded”: Dr. Robert Hepburn to the author, via telephone, 4/11/05.
38 “write another play”: Playwrights’ Company, write-up for Elliot Norton.
39 “I’ve got to go back”: Earl Wilson, Hot Times (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1984), p. 41.
40 “called upon”: ST to Robert Emmet Sherwood, 4/13/45, Robert Emmet Sherwood Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
41 “off the screen”: Los Angeles Examiner, 4/17/45.
42 Tracy objecting: Details of Leo Morrison’s talks with the studio are from F. L. Hendrickson, internal memos, 4/18/45 and 4/28/45, Turner Entertainment/SW.
43 “I couldn’t understand”: Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn, p. 64.
44 “Sherry-Netherland”: Dietz, Dancing in the Dark, pp. 280–81.
45 Agent Harold Rose’s: Suzanne Antles to the author.
CHAPTER 21 THE RUGGED PATH
1 cold-turkey detox: Details of Tracy’s stay are from Doctors Hospital Admission Record No. 61253, May 1945, Beth Israel Hospital/SW. In a telephone interview with Selden West on 2/7/96, actor Don Taylor repudiated Bill Davidson’s embroidered account of Taylor’s having seen Tracy at Doctors Hospital, calling it “melodramatic horse manure.” Taylor heard that Tracy had been admitted in restraints but emphasized that he never personally witnessed such a scene.
2 “finding his way”: Arthur Hopkins to Katharine Hepburn, 6/12/45 (KHNY).
3 “My best bet”: Travis Bogard and Jackson R. Bryer, eds., Selected Letters of Eugene O’Neill (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 548.
4 “ten times”: Lawrence Langner to Katharine Hepburn, 3/20/44 (TGC).
5 “things to say”: Eugene Kinkead, “The Rugged Path,” New Yorker, 11/24/45.
6 “making a mistake”: Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn, p. 96.
7 “going to work”: Jane Feely Desmond to Selden West.
8 escape clause: Out of town Tracy could leave the play for any reason with a two-week notice. In New York he would be able to give notice if the gross dipped below $16,000 for any three consecutive weeks.
9 “foolish question”: New York Times, 2/21/43.
10 “One of the banes”: Garson Kanin to David Heeley and Joan Kramer, New York, 1985 (TH).
11 a 25 percent stake: Rubin may have suggested the cut Tracy was taking in his weekly income more than justified an equity stake in the production. At capacity, Tracy’s 15 percent of the gross would have brought him roughly $3,900 a week, about $1,400 less per week than he would have made under the terms of his M-G-M contract. Later, when business slipped, he would have been earning closer to $3,000 a week, which put him on a par with Elliott Nugent, who was getting about the same for his turn in Voice of the Turtle. Frank Fay, by comparison, was making $2,500 to $3,000 a week in Harvey, a terrific hit, while Walter Abel was reportedly collecting $2,000 a week in The Mermaids Singing, a flop.
12 “quite friendly”: Victor Samrock to Robert E. Sherwood, 9/17/45 (PC).
13 “imaginative, resourceful”: Kanin, Tracy and Hepburn, p. 96.
14 “look ridiculous”: Garson Kanin, Together Again! (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981), p. 89.
15 “sold out”: ST