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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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- “I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
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Tag Archives: Spencer Tracy
January 2023 Viewing Diary
Friday Night Lights No time like the present. I binged this entire series in a couple weeks. This took commitment, and a couple days of sick leave, while trapped in my hotel room in Memphis, too sick to move. I … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Aubrey Plaza, Baz Luhrmann, Bette Davis, biopic, Cary Grant, comedy, documentary, Dorothy Parker, drama, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, film noir, Hedy Lamarr, Hungary, Italy, Jean Renoir, Little Richard, Poland, Pre-Code, Ralph Bellamy, Raoul Walsh, reviews, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright, true crime, William Wyler, women directors
9 Comments
February 2016 Viewing Diary
X Files, Season 10, Episode 2 “Founder’s Mutation” (2016; d. James Wong) Mythology! Now listen: I haven’t seen the finale yet. I will this Saturday with my partner-in-crime Keith. So no spoilers – it has taken superhuman strength to stay … Continue reading
“What Was It, Spence?”
Gillian Anderson reads a letter Katharine Hepburn wrote to Spencer Tracy 18 years after his death. The letter is pretty famous, I’ve read it before, but it came to life for me in a different way, falling into Anderson’s beautiful … Continue reading
Libeled Lady (1936): It’s So Funny When William Powell lies
In Libeled Lady, William Powell plays Bill Chandler, a guy hired (or, actually, RE-hired) by newspaper editor Warren Haggerty (played by Spencer Tracy) to basically set up heiress Connie Allenbury (played by Myrna Loy) for a big fall, so that … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Truman Capote!
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite writers – Truman Capote. Truman Capote has been one of my many life-long obsessions – so forgive my autistic knowledge of this man – his life, and his work and his … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, writers
Tagged Answered Prayers, In Cold Blood, Marilyn Monroe, Music for Chameleons, Spencer Tracy, The Grass Harp, Truman Capote
10 Comments
The Books: “Kate Remembered” (A. Scott Berg)
Daily Book Excerpt: Entertainment Biography/Memoir: Kate Remembered, by A. Scott Berg The publication of this book was an event. It appeared only 13 days after Miss Hepburn’s death, so it seemed a bit iffy to me at first, like: Was … Continue reading
The Books: “Katharine Hepburn” (Barbara Leaming)
Daily Book Excerpt: Entertainment Biography/Memoir: Katharine Hepburn, by Barbara Leaming Barbara Leaming churns them out, man! This biography of Katharine Hepburn is so detailed it practically begins with the pilgrims in the Mayflower. Leaming saw (apparently) that one of the … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books
Tagged entertainment biography, John Ford, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy
18 Comments
Spencer Tracy Could Act Unshaven
Garson Kanin, from Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir: Spencer had an aversion to makeup. To most actors, beards and mustaches, putty noses and tooth work, wigs and contact lenses are not only tools, but toys. Spencer shuddered at the … Continue reading
Hepburn Miscellania
These quotes are scattered through the special edition of the New York Daily News. Hepburn seemed to have spoken in often-publishable words. I would love to rattle off one-liners in such a way.

