Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master

Notes

Notes Direct quotations in the text that do not have a corresponding note identifying the source are drawn from interviews or correspondence with the author or his research associate. The names of such sources are provided in the acknowledgments. Introduction 3 “A composite between”: Paramount publicity, 1928; the screenwriter cited is Louise Long (Rough House Rosie, 1927; Interference, 1928), who never worked on any of Fleming’s pictures. 3 “the Lincoln type of melancholia”: Lion’s Roar, Jan. 1944. 3 an appreciation of her father: The New York Times, Nov. 15, 1998. 4 “a man like Fleming”: Carle to Grover Jones, May 1, 1939, Victor Fleming file, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 5 When the author of: Schulberg, Moving Pictures. 5 “Clark Gable on the screen is Fleming”: Henry Hathaway’s description of Fleming as Gable is from his interview in the Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, collection number A1980.0154; viewed at Margaret Herrick Library. 5 “Every man that ever worked”: Interview in Focus on Film, No. 7, 1991. 6 “Nice legs, sister!”: From a letter written by Eleanor Saville to her husband after the U.S. Olympic swimming team, escorted by Johnny Weissmuller, visited MGM that July, shortly before the Summer Olympics began in Los Angeles. The team met Fleming and other movie directors at a reception at the Ambassador Hotel. Letter held by Roger van Oosten. 6 he wired back, simply: The telegram is recalled by Louis Lighton’s sister Betty. 6 “He is probably the only guy”: Lion’s Roar, Jan. 1944. 6 “Fleming was quite inarticulate”: Kaplan to David Stenn. 7 “Every dame he ever worked with”: Kobal, People Will Talk. Srag_9780375407482_3p_bm_r2.z.qxp 10/13/08 10:37 AM Page 515 7 “Victor Fleming knew as much”: Maltin, Behind the Camera. 7 “Fleming was the realist”: Hathaway, SMU oral history. 8 “he had an inner power”: Lewis, The Creative Producer. 8 “Eddie Sutherland, the gay sophisticate”: Brooks to Kevin Brownlow, Jan. 6, 1971. 9 “he was part Indian”: Interview with John Lee Mahin in McGilligan, Backstory. 9 “He was always the biggest star”: Torchia made this comment to Selden West when the latter was researching the life of Spencer Tracy. Katharine Hepburn told West that when she first entered MGM to make The Philadelphia Story, she saw Gable and Tracy flanking an imposing figure and asked her group, “Who’s the one in the middle?” It was Fleming. 10 When Hathaway, Tracy, Gable: For example, Hedda Hopper devotes her entire column of January 23, 1944, to the comparison of Rhett Butler to Fleming, and begins with Tracy calling him “the Clark Gable of directors.” 1 Born in a Tent 11 February 20, 1888: The date is indicated in an autograph book signed by friends and neighbors of the Flemings the day before they left Missouri. 11 tornado: The date of that tornado is in the 1889 History of Laclede, Camden , Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas, Pulaski, Phelps & Dent Counties, Missouri , from Earliest Times to the Present. 12 “publicity, settlement agents”: McWilliams, Southern California Country. 12 “half an acre in lemons”: Dumke, Boom of the Eighties. 12 claims of Cherokee blood: According to a Bledsoe County historian Elizabeth Robnett, the earliest traced Fleming ancestor is Samuel Fleming , born in 1795. In 1850, he, his wife, and nine children lived south of Pikeville, Tennessee. Since in that Census his place of birth is given as “Unknown,” the family roots beyond him are open to speculation. 14 pig roasts and brass bands: Dumke, Boom of the Eighties. Irving Stone memorialized the period in Men to Match My Mountains: It was said that the boom did not burst, it gradually shriveled up. By April 1, 1888 a few harsh facts began to emerge: tourists simply had not settled in anything like the numbers expected. Notes 516 Srag_9780375407482_3p_bm_r2.z.qxp 10/13/08 10:37 AM Page 516 The banks, nervous about the paper boom, had cut down on credit involved in real estate. Many who had made large profits buying and selling land realized that their gains amounted to soft signatures by people who had been speculating precisely as they had. Those who had property left to sell saw that they had to sell their land quickly and get out some cash, or they would be left empty-handed. 15 February 23, 1889: Since his...