Polio Wars
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44. [Cohn interview with] Rosalind Russell, April 20 1955.
45. Margaret Buell Wilder “Noted Nurse Gives Hope To Stricken” Los Angeles Examiner [1943], Clippings, MHS-K.
46. J. B. Hulett, Jr. “The Kenny Healing Cult: Preliminary Analysis of Leadership and Patterns of Interaction” American Sociological Review (1945) 10: 365.
47. McCarthy “Outline,” 16.
48. Cohn Sister Kenny, 203–204. In “Angel of Mercy” New York Times November 21 1946 the amount was $100,000.
49. “Famed Paralysis Nurse Here to Discuss Film” Los Angeles Times July 14 1942.
50. Aubrey Pye, interview by Douglas Gordon and Ralph Doherty, November 8 1980, [transcript of sound recording], Fryer Library.
51. Kenny to McCarthy, August 26 1942.
52. Kenny “Data Concerning Introduction of Kenny Concept and Method of Treatment of Infantile Paralysis into the United States of America” [April 1944], Board of Directors, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Dr. Diehl, September 16 1942, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K.
53. RKO had, for example, produced The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943).
54. McCarthy to Sister Dear, February 25 1944.
55. Mary McCarthy to My Beloved Elizabeth, February 7 1944; Russell in Newquist Showcase, 396.
56. Hedda Hopper “Looking at Hollywood” Los Angeles Times September 22 1944; Louella O. Parsons “ ‘Roz’ Russell Seriously Ill” Los Angeles Examiner September 24 1944; Russell and Chase Banquet, 146–147.
57. Hedda Hopper “Fans Object to Cancellation of Film About Sister Kenny” Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus-Leader February 26 1944, Clippings 1944, MHS-K; James F. Bell to My Dear Mr. O’Connor, March 8 1944, Public Relations, MOD-K; Editorial “Heard and Read” The A-V (November 1946) 54: 152. On Russell, Hopper, and Kenny see Bernard F. Dick Forever Mame: The Life of Rosalind Russell (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 103–104.
58. Kenny to Dear Mary [McCarthy], February 17 1944, Mary McCarthy, 1942–1944, MHS-K; see also Mary to Sister Dear, February 25 1944.
59. Kenny to Hedda Hopper, [telegram] September 23 1944, RKO-Misc., 1942–1948, MHS-K; and see Louella O. Parsons “In Hollywood: Sister Kenny Protests Blaming of Rosalind Russell for Polio Film Delay” Los Angeles Examiner September 27 1944.
60. Jean Renoir My Life and My Films transl. Norman Denny (London: Collins, 1974), 220–221. See also Redelings “The Hollywood Scene”; Erskine Johnson “Hollywood Diary” Los Angeles Daily News September 12 1946; “Russell” in Steen Hollywood Speaks, 83; Russell and Chase Banquet, 145. Russell recalled that Nichols and Renoir had gone to Minneapolis and returned enthusiastic, and then bought McCarthy off; [Cohn first interview with] Rosalind Russell, August 18 1953. Nichols recalled that RKO executive Charles Koerner had “begged” him to take it, and that he had later gone to Russell’s house where he met Kenny and was “terribly impressed”; [Cohn interview with] Dudley Nichols, [c.1955], Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
61. “The Comic Spirit,” 44.
62. The other credited screenwriters were Alexander Knox and Mary McCarthy. Most of the featured cast were respected studio actors, without Russell’s star reputation. Alexander Knox, a Canadian character actor who played Anneas McDonnell, had been nominated for an Oscar for best actor for his role as Woodrow Wilson in Wilson (1944). Kevin Connors was played by Dean Jagger who had roles in Woman Trap (1936) and Revolt of the Zombies (1936), and as the central character in Brigham Young (1940). Kenny’s mother was played by Beulah Bondi, a well-known character actor who had played Arrowsmith’s mother-in-law in Arrowsmith (1931), another mother in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and Jimmy Stewart’s mother in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), and had been nominated for 2 best supporting actress Oscars in the 1930s [The Gorgeous Hussy (1936) and Of Human Hearts (1939)].
63. Dudley Nichols to Dear Mr. Cohn, November 1 [1954], Cohn Papers, MHS-K; [Cohn interview with] Rosalind Russell, April 20 1955.
64. Milton L. Gunzburg (circa 1910–1991) was the founder and president of Natural Vision 3-D Corporation. He was not credited in the film.
65. McCarthy “Outline,” 3; Milton Gunzburg to McCarthy, [1942] in Kenny Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.
66. Kenny to McCarthy, September 1 1943, Mary McCarthy, 1942–1944, MHS-K.
67. [Cohn interview with] Mrs. Mary McCrae, April [n.d.] 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
68. McCracken interviews with Rogers, November 1993; see also Cohn Sister Kenny, 195.
69. “Sister Kenny” [Sydney] People Magazine June 20 1951, 7.
70. Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, November 9 1945, [enclosed cable to] Kenny, November 2 1945, [copy in] Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
71. [Cohn interview with] Rosalind Russell, April 20 1955; [Cohn interview with] Mary McCarthy, April 4 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
72. [Cohn interview with] Mary and Stuart McCracken, [El Monte] April 15 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; Chuter to Dear Sister Kenny, September 6 1945.
73. McCarthy “Outline,” 7.
74. John F. Pohl and Betty Pohl to Dear Sister Kenny, August 17 1944, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
75. Milton Gunzburg “ ‘Sister Kenny:’ Rough Outline of Fictionized Fact” [1943], Kenny Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, 82. See also Gunzburg’s suggestions that the appearance of paralyzed children be “done for laughs” so that the audience is not “wincing” with the tragedy of children becoming ill, “Rough Outline,” 12.
76. Pohl and Pohl to Kenny, August 17 1944.
77. [Milton Gunzburg] “Final Script: Sister Kenny” October 27 1945, Kenny Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.
78. Kenny with Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 18–19. Kenny vaguely mentioned working in a “private hospital” for 3 years and winning “my certificate.”
79. Curie, born in 1867, a generation before Kenny, was certainly the best-known woman scientist of the early and mid-twentieth century. In 1921 Curie had traveled to the United States, been greeted by President Warren Harding, and been widely feted. She died in 1934 at 67.
80. Gunzburg “Rough Outline,” 36. Gunzburg also proposed that an angry father or grandfather threaten Brack with a gun and that Kenny save his life, “Rough Outline,” 57.
81. [Gunzburg] “Final Script.”
82. John McCarten “Experiment Perilous” New Yorker September 28 1946; see also RKO Studios “Call Bureau Cast Service” June 10 1946, Clipping File, Kenny Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.
83. [Gunzburg] “Final Script.”
84. Ibid.
85. On the “somewhat hollow victory of Sister Kenny, who receives the acclaim of the children and families helped by her therapeutic methods but remains a figure on the margin of the medical profession,” see Jacqueline Foertsch Bracing Accounts: The Literature and Culture of Polio in Postwar America (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2008), 170–181.
86. Pohl and Pohl to Kenny, August 17 1944.
87. Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, August 12 1944, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, September 18 1944, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
88. Kenny to RKO Studios, August 2 1946, RKO-Misc., 1942–1948, MHS-K.
89. On the movie “jam-packed with crippled kids” with all but 6-year-old Doreen McCann “actual Institute patients” see anon. Liberty October 12 1946; and see Kenny to Edward Donahoe, October 4 1945, RKO-Misc., 1942–1948, MHS-K; Eddie Donahoe to Sister Kenny, October 12 1945, RKO-Misc., 1942–1948, MHS-K. Donahoe told Kenny that in most of the scenes “the little boy, David Martinson, appears. His affliction is spinal abifida [sic], and I don’t know whether you would want to use him or not.”
90. Kenny to RKO Studios, August 2 1946; Kenny to Manager, RKO Studio, August 3 1946, RKO-Misc., 1942–1948, MHS-K.
91. McCarthy “Kenny” [Script 1943], Kenny Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, 24. This battle would have made sense only if Kenny’s background had been portrayed as working-class or lower middle-class. In the film her background is left ambiguous, but in other scri
pt versions McCarthy had tried to distance Kenny from nurses’ typical class origins by making her family middle class. “When Elizabeth announced to her startled family that she wished to become a nurse, they objected heatedly. They were in quite comfortable financial circumstances, and were horrified that their daughter should set out to take a job of any kind,” McCarthy “Outline,” 5; on the Kenny family home as large and comfortable with many verandas and a beautiful garden, see McCarthy “Kenny,” 2.
92. McCarthy “Kenny,” 24–29. On Latham see Kenny and Ostenso And They Shall Walk, 127–129. Kenny supposedly said that what she “hated most” was to “go to teas with a lot of fat, overdressed, overbejewelled [sic] women who’ve never done one honest day’s work in their lives”; Cohn Sister Kenny, 168.
93. Gunzburg “Rough Outline,” 51.
94. McCarthy “Outline,” 7.
95. [Gunzburg] “Final Script.”
96. Ibid.
97. Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, August 12 1944.
98. [Cohn interview with] Rosalind Russell, April 20 1955; [Cohn interview with] Basil O’Connor, June 20 1955, Cohn Papers, MHS-K.
99. Anon. Liberty October 12 1946.
100. McCracken interviews with Rogers, November 1993. Guards had to be stationed to give warning when Kenny appeared on the set, for Russell “between takes, could not resist throwing out her chest in a burlesque of the woman she admired”; Louis Berg “A Tomboy Grows Up” Los Angeles Times February 22 1948.
101. “War Veteran Expert on Set Authenticity” Hartford Courant December 9 1945.
102. Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, September 18 1944.
103. Ralph R. Doyle [managing director of RKO Radio Pictures in Sydney] to Dear Mr. Chuter, October 24 1945, OM 65-17, Box 3, Folder 12, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ; see also Chuter to Dear Sir, September 15 1944, Box 3, Folder 19, OM 65-17, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ. Nichols told the Sydney distributor to assure Chuter that “the whole script will be handled with the utmost dignity and in the pursuit of truth.” Nichols admitted that some “surface details” were “inexact” but this was “only because we want to grasp more fully the spirit of truth”; Dudley Nichols to Dear Mr. Doyle, October 29 1945, OM 65-17, Box 3, Folder 12, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ.
104. Chuter to Mr. Schneider [RKO Pictures, Brisbane] Memorandum: Re Script of Picture “Sister Kenny” October 23 1945, OM 65-17, Box 3, Folder 12, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ.
105. Chuter to Dear Duncan [McInnes, Secretary, Toowoomba Hospitals Board], January 9 1947, Box 1, Folder 1, OM 65-17, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ; Chuter to D. Schneider [RKO Pictures, Brisbane], October 15 [1947], Box 1, Folder 1, OM 65-17, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ; Chuter to George Bayer [manager of Brisbane’s Regent Theatre], October 30 [1947], Box 1, Folder 1, OM 65-17, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ; Chuter to Kenny, October 15 [1947], Box 1, Folder 1, OM 65-17, Chuter Papers, Oxley-SLQ. Kenny attended the film’s premiere in Brisbane, and also showed her technical films; on “the deep silence, and intense interest with which the films were followed” see Miss I. Martin to Dear Madam [Sister Kenny], November 6, 1947, Wilson Collection.
106. “RKO presents Sister Kenny” [advertisement] Life (September 16 1946) 21: 17.
107. Cedric Adams “In This Corner” Minneapolis Star-Journal July 5 1946.
108. “RKO presents Sister Kenny” [advertisement] Life (September 16 1946) 21: 17.
109. “The Wedding Gown that Waited” [advertisement] Woman’s Home Companion [1946] 81, author’s possession.
110. “RKO Presents Sister Kenny” [advertisement] Colliers (September 28 1946) 118: 31.
111. Poster in author’s possession; for other posters see Victor Cohn “Sister Kenny’s Fierce Fight for Better Polio Care” Smithsonian Magazine (November 1981) 12: 196; and see Hulett “Net Effect of a Commercial Motion Picture,” 267.
112. [Cohn interview with] Dudley Nichols, [circa 1955], Cohn Papers, MHS-K; [Cohn interview with] Mary and Stuart McCracken, April 14 1953, Cohn Papers, MHS-K. The McCrackens told Cohn that Kenny and McCarthy had broken up after McCarthy was drinking and it became obvious that Elizabeth Dickinson and she were lesbians; Kenny was shocked and did not want to have her working on the picture. But compare: McCarthy had confided in Kenny about a nasty breakup with her girlfriend, and later wrote delightedly to tell Kenny about a new friend, saying “I’m deeply fond of her and I know you would approve of her utterly;” Mary McCarthy to My Beloved Elizabeth, February 7 1944; Mary McCarthy to Sister Dear, February 25 1944.
113. Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, August 12 1944; Kenny to Dear Mary [McCarthy], August 28 1944, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Mary [McCarthy], August 12 1944, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; [Cohn first interview with] Rosalind Russell, August 18 1953; see also Alexander Maverick, 158–159.
114. Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, August 18 1944, Cohn Papers, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Mr. Nichols, September 18 1944.
115. Kenny to Dear Mary [McCarthy], August 12 1944.
116. Ibid.
117. “Kenny Film to Be Shown Here Tonight” Washington Times-Herald October 22 1944; Cohn Sister Kenny, 193.
118. [Cohn interview with] Rosalind Russell, April 20 1955.
119. Kenny to Dear Mr. Bell, May 4 1944, James Ford Bell 1942–1946, MHS-K.
120. Harold S. Diehl “Memorandum of Conference Concerning the Future Teaching of Sister Kenny’s Work and the Relation of the Medical School to the Kenny Institute and the Kenny Foundation” July 18 1944, [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am. 15.8, Folder 16, UMN-ASC; Kenny in [Minutes] Adjourned Meeting, Elizabeth Kenny Corporation, August 8 1944, Board of Directors, undated and 1944–1945, MHS-K.
121. Kenny to Ladies and Gentlemen, [July 1944], [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am. 15.8, Folder 23, UMN-ASC; [Script enclosed with] C. A. Abbott [sales manager, Ray-Bell Films] to Dear Sister Kenny, July 28 1944, Ray-Bell Films, 1944–1945, MHS-K; Kenny to Dear Dr. Boines, April 5 1945, Dr. George J. Boines, 1941–1946, MHS-K.
122. Kenny to Honorable Sir [President Truman], October 12 1945, Board of Directors, MHS-K; and see Kenny to Lionel Moise, [March 1944] [Statement], The American Weekly, 1943–1945, MHS-K; Kenny “Data Concerning Introduction of Kenny Concept.”
123. Kenny to Gentlemen, September 25 1944, Committee to Review Request of Elizabeth Kenny Institute to National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis: General, Medical Sciences, 1944, National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C. (hereafter Review 1944, NAS).
124. National Research Council, Division of Medical Sciences, “Report of Special Committee to Review Request Submitted by Elizabeth Kenny Institute, Inc. to National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, Inc.,” November 8 1944, Public Relations, MOD-K, 17–18.
125. “Recommendations Suggested by GBD as a Basis of Discussion,” Review 1944, NAS.
126. “Sound Motion Picture on Infantile Paralysis Ready for Distribution” National Foundation News (June 1945) 4: 32; “Physical Therapy Film” Archives of Physical Medicine (September 1946) 27: 580.
127. “Kenny Film Shown to 700” Minneapolis Star-Journal October 13 1944; Diehl to Dear Sister Kenny, October 5 1944, Dr. Harold S. Diehl, 1941–1944, MHS-K; “Kenny Film to Be Shown Here Tonight” Washington Times-Herald, October 22 1944.
128. “Kenny Film Shown to 700” Minneapolis Star-Journal October 13 1944; “Sister Kenny Returns From East as Big Drive Opens” Minneapolis Star-Journal November 15 1944.
129. Kenny A Brief Description of the Film Presenting The Kenny Concept [pamphlet, 1945] [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], Am. 15.8, Folder 25, UMN-ASC, 9.
130. Kenny A Brief Description of the Film Presenting The Kenny Concept, 12; Notes taken by Naomi Rogers during the viewing of The Kenny Concept of Infantile Paralysis, Wilson Collection.
131. Kenny to Dear Sir [James Pooler], April 10 1945, Michigan-Newspapers, 1945, MHS-K.
132. Notes taken by Rogers of The Kenny Concept of Infantile Paralysis.
133. Kenny A Brief Description of the Film Presenting The Kenny Concept, 5; s
ee also notes taken by Rogers of The Kenny Concept of Infantile Paralysis.
134. Jean Anderson to Dear Sister Kenny, September 10 1944, Case Files—Misc., A-K, 1943–1946, MHS-K.
135. Proceedings Before the Board of Regents, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the matter of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, Elizabeth Kenny Institute, Inc., 18th and Chicago Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 10 1945, University of Minnesota—Board of Regents, 1945–1946, MHS-K; [Script enclosed with] C. A. Abbott [sales manager, Ray-Bell Films] to Dear Sister Kenny, July 28 1944, Ray-Bell Films, 1944–1945, MHS-K. For an example of a still from the film with caption see Sister Elizabeth Kenny My Battle and Victory: History of the Discovery of Poliomyelitis as a Systemic Disease (London: Robert Hale Limited, 1955), opposite 48.
136. Kenny to Dear Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen [of Board of Directors], [January 1945], Board of Directors, undated and 1944–1945, MHS-K.
137. Kenny to Dear Sir [James Pooler] April 10 1945.
138. Kenny A Brief Description of the Film Presenting The Kenny Concept, 5.
139. Notes taken by Rogers of The Kenny Concept of Infantile Paralysis.
140. Ibid.
141. Ibid.
142. Kenny A Brief Description of the Film Presenting The Kenny Concept, 7.
143. Notes taken by Rogers of The Kenny Concept of Infantile Paralysis; for a still of Wally see Kenny My Battle and Victory, opposite 65.
144. Kenny “This Is Elizabeth Kenny Speaking” [opening speech of campaign for Kenny Foundation, c.1945], [accessed in 1992 before recent re-cataloging], UMN-ASC.
145. Perkins was Harold Diehl’s brother-in-law; see “Biographic Sketch of Harold Diehl,” James E. Perkins, March 4 1958, Diehl, 1932–1959, Box 9, Myers Papers, UMN-ASC.
146. James E. Perkins to Dear Miss Kenny, May 15 1945, Dr. James E. Perkins, 1944–1945, MHS-K.
147. Ibid.
148. Ibid.
149. Kenny to Dear Dr. Perkins, May 23 1945, Dr. James E. Perkins, 1944–1945, MHS-K.