Fourteen: Exactly like Anybody
“Let me tell you about”: Dick Marshall, 1942.
“My father,” Bob said: Kral, “Robert Taylor.”
Barbara didn’t get angry easily: Elizabeth Wilson, Silver Screen, December 1936, 26, 66.
From years of experience with: Barbara Stanwyck, “Things I Don’t Like About Myself,” as told to Sara Hamilton, Movie Mirror, December 1939, 36.
“She’s so completely natural”: Grace Mack, magazine clipping, 1936, 201.
It was a relief to him: The Maverick Queen press book.
With Fay, Barbara was thought: Martha Kerr, Modern Screen, February 1936, 43.
Barbara would freeze up when: Elizabeth Wilson, Silver Screen, December 1936, 26.
This was the third remake: In 1919, Pathé made a version of the picture directed by George Fitzmaurice starring Fannie Ward; in 1930, Victor Fleming remade it for Fox starring Constance Bennett.
Small Town Girl opened: April 6, 1936.
“no more a Cuban patriot’s”: Variety, April 15, 1936.
Briskin welcomed Eddie Small’s: Ben Kahane to Sam Briskin, February 26, 1936, RKO legal files, Turner Archives.
“in Little America”: Amory H. “Bud” Waite Jr., April 29, 1935, courtesy of Eugene Vaslett.
“It’s always seemed to me”: Mook, “Barbara Lets Go,” 84.
“I would trade all five”: Sam Briskin to Leo Spitz, April 22, 1936, Turner/MGM files.
and Eric Blore: Blore was subsequently not in the picture.
“a real craftsman”: Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck. 80.
“In the first reel”: Ed Sullivan, “Garbo Is Right,” magazine clipping, n.d.
“to get away from”: Katherine Albert, “What Joan Crawford Thinks of Joan Crawford,” Photoplay, December 1936.
It wasn’t a fluke: Joan Crawford, Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1942, 125.
“a real inspiration”: Albert, “What Joan Crawford Thinks of Joan Crawford.”
“attuned in spirit”: Joan Crawford, “The Job of Keeping at the Top,” Saturday Evening Post, June 17, 1933.
Metro had originally purchased: AFI, 814.
Crawford went to Joe Mankiewicz: Joan Crawford, Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1942, 125.
Mankiewicz wanted to write: Joe Mankiewicz, oral history, 11, January 1959, Columbia University.
“I could build a fire”: Considine, Bette and Joan, 82.
“It was lovely”: Ibid., 83.
“an actress and not”: Sullivan, “Garbo Is Right.”
“Abusive and profane”: Joseph Breen to L. B. Mayer, October 7, 1935, 2.
Clarence Brown described Bob: Dorothy Manners, “Bob Taylor Sees All the Sights in New York,” Los Angeles Examiner, July 14, 1936.
Bob objected strenuously but: Alice Tildesley, Family Circle, September 26, 1941.
“in a distinctly Southern”: Considine, Bette and Joan, 93.
“to withstand the weight”: Ibid.
“a company man”: “Clarence Brown, Director of Garbo, Gable, Dies at 97,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1987.
“You’d have to watch”: Ibid.
After each dinner—the men: Wilson, “Carnival Nights in Hollywood.”
Invited to the Ambassador Hotel: Sidney Skolsky, New York Daily News, March 4, 1936.
“quieter than Beatrice”: “Robert Taylor’s Own Life Story,” Lincoln Journal, March 6, 1937, 6.
“exactly the same kick”: Manners, “Bob Taylor Sees All the Sights in New York.”
“hadn’t been cautious”: “Robert Taylor’s Own Life Story,” 6.
“dog just introduced”: Charles Darnton, “Alright I’ll Fight,” Screenland, February 1939, 83.
When Barbara did call: Manners, “Bob Taylor Sees All the Sights in New York.”
He got out of a cab: New York Times, June 6, 1936.
He dropped in on three: “Robert Taylor’s Own Life Story,” 6.
“to mischief rather than”: Will Hays to Sam Briskin, telegram, May 14, 1936.
Three weeks before production: Joseph Breen to Louis B. Mayer, May 25, 1936. Harlow is mentioned as the actress playing Rita Wilson.
Van Dyke was six feet: Cannom, Van Dyke and the Mythical City, Hollywood, 181.
one of the toughest guys: Alva Johnston, “Lord Fauntleroy in Hollywood,” New Yorker, September 28, 1935.
“It’s their funeral, not mine”: Howard Sharpe, “The Star Creators of Hollywood,” Photoplay, December 1936, 71.
Van Dyke saw the spark: W. S. Van Dyke, “Rx for a Thin Man,” Stage 14, no. 4 (1937).
“Everything that man did”: Cannom, Van Dyke and the Mythical City, Hollywood, 24.
When the rushes from: Samuel Marx, Mayer and Thalberg, 103–4.
“We set pictures back”: Hollywood Life Stories (1952).
“the greatest care”: Breen to Mayer, May 25, 1936.
At the end of the twenty-four: Alva Johnston, “Lord Fauntleroy in Hollywood,” The New Yorker, September 28, 1935, 20.
Writers were known: Ibid.
“The first rehearsal”: John Gallagher, “W. S. Van Dyke,” in World Film Directors (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1988), 1121.
“Figure out how you”: Johnston, “Lord Fauntleroy in Hollywood.”
he let it be known: Ibid., 20.
By twenty, he’d been just: Ibid.
“Being together socially”: Los Angeles Evening Herald Star, 51.
“She gives everybody”: Daily Mail, August 20, 1937.
“warm and glowing”: Hall, “Barbara Stanwyck’s Advice to Girls in Love,” 4.
“It’s stupid to be cynical”: Ibid.
“one of the great”: Faith Service, Modern Screen, October 1936.
She denied having: Hollywood Life Stories (1952).
“he is the same Bob”: Faith Service, Modern Screen, October 1936.
“Diversion of this sort”: Ibid.; Gladys Hall, original manuscript, Gladys Hall Collection, AMPAS.
“I can’t burst into”: Faith Service, Modern Screen, October 1936; Gladys Hall, Gladys Hall Collection, 48.
Bob shook her hand: Alice Tildesley, Family Circle, September 26, 1941.
Hearst’s newspapers accused: Boller, Presidential Campaigns (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004), 240.
Fifteen: Good Luck at Home
“I never cared for”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 229.
The life of Mary Stuart: Jane Dunn, Elizabeth and Mary (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).
Barbara had read: Nancy Anderson, clipping, n.d.
Ford laughed in Davis’s face: Davis, Lonely Life, 138.
Berman was a sport: Ginger Rogers, Ginger: My Story (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 170–71.
“play him for comedy”: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford, 69.
“Oh, if I could”: Arthur Miller, introduction to Sean O’Casey: Plays (London: Faber and Faber, 1998).
“They may let us do it”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 162.
“What did George Washington”: John Ford, oral history, interview with Dan Ford, Southern Methodist University Oral History Program, July 16, 1991, August 12, 1993, Ford, J. mss., Box 30, Folder 15, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Thereafter, when Ford: New York Times, July 26, 1936.
Up to ten days: The Plough and the Stars budget sheet.
“absolute poison at the box”: Ned E. Debinet to Leo Spitz.
(“My chest measured 46): Bosley Crowther, “Who Is Then the Gentleman?” New York Times, October 14, 1934.
The Plough and the Stars captured: The Plough and the Stars press book.
“what they fought for”: John Ford to Sean O’Casey, January 27, 1936.
He had traveled to: Gish, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me, 328.
“production would remain”: Robert Sisk to Sean O’Casey, January 27, 1936.
Ford had been brought up: Ford, interview with Dan Ford, 10, the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
/> He grew up in a time: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford, 4.
“God damn ridiculous”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 177.
RKO wanted to reduce: Lillie Messinger of RKO/New York to Sisk in Hollywood, March 11, 1936.
“despot and professional”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 156.
thought he was a “sadist”: John Carradine, in ibid., 163.
“enormously rough, terribly arrogant”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 232–33.
“fascinating but impossible”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 155.
The Informer had been: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 214.
“Let him make it”: Ibid., 215.
“In Hollywood,” Ford said: Michael Mok, “The Rebels, If They Stay Up This Time, Won’t Be Sorry for Hollywood’s Trouble,” New York Post, January 24, 1939.
“company union with nothing”: Ernest Pascal (president of the SWG) to Los Angeles Times, in Mason and Bona, Inside Oscar, 63.
In addition, Frank: McBride, Frank Capra, 337.
“D.W. made the virginal”: Herb Sterne, in Gish, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me.
“Strangely enough”: McBride, Frank Capra, 337.
“The Screen Writers Guild was”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 225.
“Now we are three”: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford, 53.
“They’ve got to turn”: E. Eisenburg, “John Ford: Fighting Irish,” New Theatre, April 1936.
“Ford was always”: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford, 87.
He wore a sport: Henry Fonda, oral history, 35, Columbia University, March 1959.
Barbara was getting $42,500: RKO production budget, July 8, 1936.
“the feel, the mood”: Bonita Granville, oral history II, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, August 1976.
“almost no direction”: Bonita Granville oral history, Columbia University, June 1959.
“We’ll do no such”: Jerry Lane, Motion Picture, November 1936, 70.
“He had the true”: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford, 67.
“I can take a thoroughly”: Ibid., 147.
“He didn’t want big”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 158.
He went for the truth: Darryl Hickman to author, March 16, 2007.
“I wouldn’t say we stole”: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford, 22.
Ford often worked with: Eyman, Print the Legend, 162.
“I am a man”: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford, 37.
“could get more drama”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 248.
“a great treat for scholars”: Hollywood Reporter, July 24, 1936.
“length and finish”: Variety, August 5, 1936.
“a mass movement from”: Newspaper clipping, October 1936.
“One of the merriest”: Muriel Babcock, Los Angeles Examiner, July 2, 1936.
“for sending Barbara Stanwyck”: Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, July 2, 1936.
Sneak previews had taken: “Robert Taylor,” Film Fan Monthly.
When Bob and Barbara: Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, July 30, 1936.
“Only the grand work”: Jimmy Starr, Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, August 8, 1936.
In Los Angeles the broadcast: Billips and Pierce, Lux Presents Hollywood, 4–20.
“No one identified with”: Liberty, August 11, 1945.
The Lux Radio Theatre presentation: Billips and Pierce, Lux Presents Hollywood, 116–17.
“staggers the imagination”: Liberty, August 11, 1945.
“Always wear it”: James Reid, Modern Screen, January 1939, 74.
“All in all”: Robert Sisk to Sean O’Casey, September 3, 1936.
“Why make a picture”: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend, 242.
Ford refused to reshoot: James Kotsilibas-Davis and Myrna Loy, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 67.
She somehow got him: Eyman, Print the Legend, 172.
Pan Berman had the assistant: George Nichols and Ed Donahue direct retakes (October 10, 11, 17, 18, 29), The Plough and the Stars dailies; David Chierichetti to author, December 2, 2005.
Sea Devils: An Eddie Small Production later titled We Who Are About to Die.
“The final result wasn’t”: BS in Bernard Drew, Film Comment, March–April 1981, 44.
Sixteen: Fresh Passion, Fresh Pain
Fox planned to use Barbara: Lew Schreiber (Fox) to George Wasson (RKO), memo, March 25, 1936.
“natural for the role”: Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck, 90.
Zanuck, like Bill Wellman: Ibid., 221.
Sometimes he opened a desk: Roy Newquist, Conversations with Joan Crawford (Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1980), 172.
“just the right quality”: Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck, 90.
“would be perfect for”: Zanuck, story conference notes, August 15, 1936, 1.
“an egotistical little bastard”: McCrea, unpublished manuscript, 201.
underplayed as much: Ibid., 60.
Gary Cooper was his idea: Ibid., 373.
He didn’t drink: Ibid., 93–94.
“purely from hunger”: Walter Brennan, oral history, August 11, 1971, Columbia University.
“an amazing quality”: Joseph McBride, Hawks on Hawks (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 107, 108.
Fox decided to use: Lew Schreiber (Fox) to George Wasson (RKO), memo, August 28, 1936, file 2929, UCLA Research Library.
“Sam was class”: Brennan, oral history.
“just like a high school”: Jeanne De Kolty, “He Can Do Anything,” Silver Screen, August 1937, 73.
Stories of the Deep South: New York Times, December 13, 1936.
“If he asked me to”: Nora Johnson, Flashback (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 63.
“more money than”: Tom Dardis, Some Time in the Sun (New York: Limelight, 1988), 88.
“Shoot it as it is”: Joseph Blotner, Faulkner (New York: Random House, 1984), 307.
“goddam place”: McCarthy, Howard Hawks, 196.
Zanuck thought it full: Conference notes with Zanuck, March 5, 1936.
“I wish I was at”: Blotner, Faulkner, 367.
“[He] wrote practically”: Ibid.
“Then he left me”: Tom Dardis, Some Time in the Sun, 107.
“It ain’t my racket”: Ibid., 90.
“Censors kill us”: Zanuck notes, May 15, 1936.
“Your reader has injected”: AFI Feature Films, 1931–1940, 114.
“We’re supporting you”: Ibid., 200.
Caryl, a Universal starlet: Roy Liebman, The Wampas Baby Stars (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000).
By didn’t raise his voice: Judith Stevens to author, June 1998–1999.
Barbara referred to Caryl: Judith Stevens to author, November 29, 1998, 10, # 27.
She had no choice: October 19, 1936, minutes from board of directors meeting, September 8, 1936.
Taylor was bewildered, overwhelmed: Alice Tildesley, Family Circle, September 26, 1941.
“The whole thing’s like”: Jerry Lane, Motion Picture, November 1936, 31.
To cope with the rush: Alice Tildesley, Family Circle, September 26, 1941.
Irving Thalberg had offered: Paris, Garbo, 330.
“Napoleon stumps me”: Lambert, On Cukor, 108.
Eleonora Duse had transformed: Helen Sheehy, Eleonora Duse (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 108–9.
“Camille [is] so like”: Paris, Garbo, 329.
The premise of Camille: Lambert, On Cukor, 109.
“remains in its combination”: Ibid., 112.
“She is such a tragic”: Paris, Garbo, 330.
“utter folly of her ways”: Joseph Breen to Louis B. Mayer, May 18, 1936.
“It lacked the garlic”: Ibid., 230.
“one of the finest pictures”: Harrison Carroll, Los Angeles Evening Herald Examiner, September 9, 1936.
“walk[ed] away with”: Louella Parsons, Los Angeles Examiner, September 3, 1936.
Thalberg felt the James Hilton:
David Lewis, Creative Producer, chap. 5.
Zoë Akins and pals: “Zoë Akins Arrives,” New York Times, October 12, 1919.
“to create a whole”: Lambert, On Cukor (New York: Putnam, 1972), 109.
“It is historically a terrible”: Paris, Garbo, 334.
He predicted that: Oliver Hensdell article. February 10, 1938, 3.
Barbara’s nephew Gene was: Gene Vaslett to author, October 1997, 16.
“What she’s done for me”: Jerry Lane, Motion Picture, November 1936.
“Can we sit in here”: Ronald Haver, David O. Selznick’s Hollywood (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 196.
“Fuck the applause”: Peters, House of Barrymore, 387.
A large open icebox: Annabelle Gillespie-Hayek, Silver Screen, December 1936, 22.
William Daniels, the cameraman: Ibid.
“Look, she’s human”: Jerry Lane, Motion Picture, November 1936, 31.
“I am very pleased”: Daily Mail, August 20, 1937; Dugal O’Liam, Modern Screen, March 1942.
“Listen, I grant you”: Liberty, August 11, 1945.
“She wouldn’t even”: Coronet, April 1961.
“Just explodes all of”: Dugal O’Liam, Modern Screen, March 1942, 97.
“practical a person”: Evening Mail, August 20, 1937.
“If I [get] to know”: Paris, Garbo, 335.
“She carried herself”: David Lewis, Creative Producer, 91.
“This isn’t Pomona”: Arthur Laurents to author, June 1997.
Garbo’s quality was her: David Lewis, Creative Producer, 91–92.
“There’s something about Garbo’s”: Dugal O’Liam, Modern Screen, March 1942.
“She’s never been quite”: Lambert, On Cukor, 112.
“a creature of the greatest”: Ibid., 113.
Cukor might get eight: David Lewis, Creative Producer, 98–99.
“a fine actor”: Paris, Garbo, 334.
A long way from Beatrice: Kral, “Robert Taylor,” Beatrice (Nebr.) Daily Sun, October 8, 1993.
On location in Griffith: Coronet, April 1962.
“She . . . was very funny and sweet”: Lambert, On Cukor, 113.
When he opened the box: Arlene Dahl to author, October 28, 2001, 2.
Eight million Americans were: Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 194.
“Mr. Roosevelt is the only”: Ibid., 189.
Five days later Thalberg: Thalberg died on September 14, 1936.
They were shocked: David Lewis, Creative Producer, 100.
He had three rules: Fleming, Fixers.
A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 Page 112
