George Cukor: A Double Life

Notes

N O T E S 11 quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from interviews with or letters to the author. Key books are cited, but I have spared the reader a long bibliography . Cukor had literally hundreds of books in his personal library that acknowledged him as a source, or mentioned him in some context. C H A P T E R O N E Cukor's genealogy is drawn from an untitled document in the Stanley Musgrove papers in the Cinema-Television Archives at the University of Southern California (USC), and from similar material in the Cukor collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Additional family background was elicited in a conversation with Clarence Cukor, and from letters and an interview with Robert E. Gross. Cukor's boyhood is detailed in his extensive reminiscences on the subject, early abortive efforts of autobiography, on deposit at the Motion Picture Academy and USC. Stella Bloch and Edward Eliscu filled in important details. A day trip to Cukor's high school, De Witt Clinton, now relocated in the Bronx, produced yearbooks and school newspapers and records of his high school era. A computer printout of his graduation classmates was provided by the Alumni Association. Letters to all surviv355 A ing classmates produced only one or two sources who remembered Cukor, and who could recollect anything—tidbits—about him. Cukor's World War I service record was obtained from the National Personnel Records Center. Significant background on Cukor's theatergoing years is contained in unpublished letters to Alex Tiers, reminiscing about that time, on deposit in the Cukor collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Frank D. Chapman was my authority on the derivations of "chukor ," "schwel," and other exotic questions of vernacular. The quotation from Katharine Hepburn at the end of the chapter is taken from an August 30, 1989, letter to the author. Neal Gabler's An Empire of Their Own (New York: Crown, 1988) provided a valuable framework. C H A P T E R T W O Details of Cukor's early road-show life, his ambitions to write and direct, and his double-edged view of actors come from his unpublished letters at the Motion Picture Academy. "The prettiest girl I had ever seen ..." is from Goldwyn by A. Scott Berg (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989). "A small city, very American ..." is from "Cukor Remembers Rochester," an August 17, 1969, article by Bernard Drew in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Louis Calhern's letters to Cukor of February 18, 1924, and March 27, 1924, are in the Cukor collection at the Motion Picture Academy. Material about Cukor's dismissal from the Lyceum Players, and the founding of the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, is drawn from letters to Stella Bloch and Walter Folmer's father made available to the author by Stella Bloch. A train trip to Rochester produced a theatrical scrapbook of that era—lovingly kept by Pauline Claffey, and passed on, for safekeeping , to Jack Garner of the Gannett News Service—helpful clippings from the newspaper and local public library, and several interview contacts. Anyone who knew Cukor in Rochester in the early 1920s would have had to be at least eighty-five years old by 1989, yet I was fortunate indeed to make the acquaintance of two vigorous old-timers, Curt Gerling (in person) and Henry W. Clune (by correspondence). Both writers themselves, they were crucial sources with keen memories . Both wrote many letters to me, and in Gerling's case, I augmented this with an interview. Clune's memoir The Rochester I Know (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1972) and Gerling's books 356 Smugtown, U.S.A. (Webster, New York: Plaza Publishers, 1957) and Never a Dull Moment (Webster, New York: Plaza Publishers, 1974) were vital to my research, as well as enjoyable to read. The anecdote about Edward G. Robinson comes from his autobiography (cowritten with Leonard Spigelgass), AH My Yesterdays (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973). In this chapter and throughout the book, my key sources on W. Somerset Maugham were Robert Calder's Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), Garson Kanin's Remembering Mr. Maugham (New York: Atheneum, 1966), and Ted Morgan's Maugham (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980). Cukor 's unpublished letters were another source of information about his friendship with Maugham. Other books I...