by Anne Edwards
* Mervyn LeRoy (1900– ) had directed Tracy in Thirty Seconds over Tokyo and had known him for years at Metro. LeRoy had directed such powerful social dramas as Little Caesar (1931), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) and They Won’t Forget (1937) earlier at Warner Brothers. At Metro he made many films as both producer and director.
* Co-starring with Tracy were Clift, Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, and Maxmilian Schell, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.
* Jason Robards, Jr. (1922– ), son of the famous American stage and film actor, Jason Robards, Sr., did not come into his own until the production of The Iceman Cometh (1956). He has appeared in a rather mixed bag of films but has given some brilliant performances. He won Best Supporting Actor for All the President’s Men (1976) and Julia (1977). He later married and divorced Lauren Bacall,
† O’Neill began work on Long Day’s Journey into Night in the early summer of 1939 at the age of fifty and completed it the following year. He died in 1951, noting in his will that the play was not to be presented until twenty-five years after his death. His widow, Carlotta, decided to ignore the will and gave her approval for the 1956 Broadway production.
* Ralph Richardson (1902-1984), more noted for his stage work, formerly a leading member of the Old Vic and one of their most prestigious players. He gave memorable performances, however, as Karenin in Anna Karenina (1948), as Buckingham in Olivier’s Richard III (1955), in Our Man in Havana with Alec Guinness (1959), and in The Fallen Idol the same year he was knighted (1947). His portrayal of Dr. Sloper in The Heiress (1949) brought him a nomination as Best Actor,
† Sidney Lumet (1924– ) had directed Stage Struck, the 1958 remake of Morning Glory, the least successful of this sensitive, intelligent director’s films, which include Twelve Angry Men (1957), The Fugitive Kind (1960), The Pawnbroker (1965), Network (1976) and Tootsie (1982).
‡ Hepburn did win the 1962 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for Long Day’s Journey into Night.
CHAPTER
23
Kate still kept up appearances. She rented a hillside house close to Tracy. Their liaison was a known fact. In January, 1962, Look magazine published a story that revealed that Tracy had been an alcoholic, that he had “a mean streak,” that he had not been living with Louise for years and that he and Kate were Something more than frequent co-stars.” Even so, Tracy still held it as a matter of principle that they not live together in an unmarried state. He continued to see Louise at least once a week at the Hill, visiting with her for several hours. Her attitude toward him was one of loving regard, and he had supported her exceptionally well through the years. Not only had her life-style never had to change, he saw to it that she had the resources to continue her “good work” (a term he frequently used). In 1956, she had won the Save the Children Foundation Award. The New York Journal-American (referring to her throughout the article as Mrs. Spencer Tracy) had called her “one of the great women of the American progress, in the humanitarian tradition of Clara Barton and Jane Addams” (two women who were dignified by the use of their first names). Four universities had bestowed honorary degrees upon her.
A kind of deification clung to Louise. Those close to her are ready to vow that there had been no man in her life except Tracy and that she accepted Kate’s presence in his life with “continuing good grace.” Until 1962, on occasion, she and Tracy were still photographed together for the purposes of publicizing the John Tracy Clinic, and his name remained on the letterhead, although he had nothing more to do with the organization than to encourage and finance Louise in her work—in which her absorption was total. The only social affairs she attended were those connected with raising funds for the clinic or in celebration of an award she might have been given.
Tracy had been deified in another way. Fellow actor David Niven called him “the Pope” and the name stuck. More and more, his whims had become law. On the set, no one dared eat or play cards while a scene was being shot. His co-stars and his directors treated him with a mixture of respect and obeisance generally given to aging geniuses—Picasso, Chaplin, Rubinstein. At sixty-two, he had taken on, but only within the world of film, the veneration these men received at eighty. As a so-called movie star, his popularity had waned. Gable at the age of sixty had retained his sex appeal sufficiently to star romantically opposite Marilyn Monroe.*
From Christmas, 1962, Kate sincerely believed Tracy could not function without her. On days when they weren’t to be together—visiting days to Louise or when she had errands to run— she would cook and pack his lunch and dinner in a basket and leave it on his front doorstep. She made sure the refrigerator had plenty of milk (he drank it with ice cubes like a cocktail) and just enough beer for the one a day the doctors permitted him (he claimed he could not survive without it). She insisted he exercise. Since he no longer was able to take the icy swims she had once prescribed for him, she accompanied him on “long, slow-paced walks in the hills.” On warm, windy days they flew kites together. Other times they painted or read to each other.
Abe Lastfogel knew enough not to submit any scripts to her. Kate was determined to dedicate 100 percent of her time to Tracy. But in the spring of 1963, with Tracy miraculously improved from eighteen months of Kate’s close supervision, both Lastfogel and Stanley Kramer convinced her that Tracy’s spirit needed some energizing and that she should persuade him to take a role in Kramer’s next film, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The film was to be shot on location in the desert not far from Los Angeles, and the doctors assured Kate that the dry climate was good for Tracy’s emphysema. Although Tracy received top billing over such stellar performers as Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, and Mickey Rooney, to name only some of the great comedians Kramer gathered together, he did not appear in more than 20 percent of the footage. This meant his presence would be needed for only a number of weeks—not months. As an added inducement, Kramer agreed that Tracy’s working day would never exceed six hours.
At its roots, Kramer’s comedy was really about greed, and Tracy plays his role of a police captain out to recover a stolen fortune in a cynical manner that gives the film whatever validity it has. Bosley Crowther at The New York Times wrote: “Mr. Tracy seems the guardian of a sane morality in this wild and extravagant exposition of clumsiness and cupidity. While the mad seekers are tearing toward the money in their various ways—in automobiles that race each other in breathtaking sweeps of hair-pin turns in the wide open California desert, in airplanes that wobble overhead—Mr. Tracy sits there in wise complacence, the rigidity of the law. And then, by a ruse I dare not tell you, he shows how treacherous his morality is.”
When the film was finished, Tracy once again announced his decision to retire. No one but Kate and Kramer believed him. Kramer recalled that “During the filming of Mad World . . . Spencer Tracy was in poorer health than I could remember; he had bad color and no stamina whatever. But then, even though this lack of energy showed, I think he had his best time ever during the making of a film. The comedians worshipped him. Never before or since has a king had the court full of jesters who strove only to entertain him so that his majesty might say ‘that was funny,’ or just laugh or smile.”
Kate’s concern for Tracy kept her from fully enjoying the antics of the comedians on the set. The film and the heat of the desert had taken their toll on Tracy’s ebbing strength. He returned home hardly able to walk. During the early summer of 1963, he seldom left the cottage, except to sit on the terrace or move a short distance to a cool spot under some giant elms. By the beginning of July, he had recuperated enough to drive the car. He visited Louise, and he and Kate took rides down to the beach. On July 21, with a picnic-basket lunch in the back of his Thunderbird, he and Kate headed for Malibu for a picnic. As they neared their destination, Tracy suddenly began to gasp for breath. Kate brought the car to a jolting halt at the gas station they were just passing, jumped out and called the local (Zuma Beach) fire depart
ment and then—fearing this might be a final attack—Louise, to alert her to stay by the telephone. When she returned to the car moments later, Tracy had slumped into unconsciousness. Kate loosened his collar and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The rescue car from the fire department arrived in less than five minutes, an ambulance shortly after. The interns were certain Tracy had suffered a heart attack. On the way to the hospital he regained consciousness and smiled weakly at Kate, who had left the car to go with him. On their arrival at the hospital, the heart attack was diagnosed as pulmonary edema. Kate called Louise, who came directly over. For two weeks the women set a schedule so that each would have time alone by Tracy’s bedside. At the end of that time, his health had improved enough for him to go home with a nurse to care for him under Kate’s supervision.
They now saw even their closest friends infrequently. Tracy’s house looked like a nursing home. An oxygen machine sat in the corridor outside his small bedroom, which had taken on a monastic, cell-like appearance; all unnecessary clutter had been removed in case any equipment had to be wheeled in for an emergency.
Further complications arose in September, 1965, when Tracy was diagnosed as having prostate problems. A prostatectomy was performed in the hospital, and for the next six weeks he struggled to hold on to life as his lungs and heart suffered from the trauma. Again, Kate and Louise arranged their visits so they would not conflict, all reports on Tracy’s health being issued by his wife.
By now Hollywood knew that Spencer Tracy was dying. People spoke about him in a hushed way and of Kate’s devotion with much admiration. Cukor came down from “the big house,” the Erskines dropped by, Abe Lastfogel and the Kanins visited when they were in town, Phyllis still handled all secretarial chores, Kramer kept bringing scripts. Tracy never abandoned his love of gossip and “as soon as a visitor came through the door, he started digging for the latest dirt, his face crinkling with mischief as he caught up on who was doing what with whom.”
Kramer gave Kate the script of Ship of Fools (based on Katherine Anne Porter’s novel) in the hope that she might play the role of Mary Treadwell, the aging but beautiful grande dame who strikes back at a drunken lothario with the stiletto heel of her evening pump. Kate refused and Kramer cast Vivien Leigh. Tracy and Hepburn visited the set on several occasions; and Vivien, divorced from Olivier now and not well herself, came by the cottage to visit with them and her old friend Cukor.
By the fall of 1966, Kramer, a frequent guest, could see the miraculous improvement Tracy had made. He felt Tracy needed to work again and told Kate about a script, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, that Tania and Bill Rose* (writers of Mad World) were working on. The story was a social comedy about a liberal couple whose daughter brings home a black fiance. Kramer had signed Sidney Poitier† as the fiance and asked Kate and Tracy to consider playing the girls’ parents. The suggestion took a great deal of courage on Kramer’s part. He knew he could not get insurance on Tracy and that if he died halfway through the film, that would be it. Kate and Tracy knew this too, and perhaps this extraordinary act of faith on Kramer’s part was the deciding factor in Tracy’s agreement to make the film with Kate, even before either of them had read the script. Incredibly, as soon as the decision was made, Tracy began to show signs of dramatic improvement. The old vigor came back into his attitude, his step became steady and the feisty humor returned.
Kramer made a deal with Columbia Pictures only after Kate and Tracy agreed to place their salaries of about $250,000 each—as did Kramer his salary of $500,000—in escrow to guarantee the studio against loss in the event of Tracy’s inability to complete the film.‡ Kate and Tracy accepted such stiff terms only after Kramer swore to them that he would not make the film without them. A ten-week shooting schedule was set to begin in February, 1967. The San Francisco home of Tracy and Kate’s characters in the film, Matt and Christina Drayton, was built on the Columbia back lot as Kramer assembled the rest of his cast. News was made when Kate’s niece, Marion’s daughter, Katharine Houghton (Grant), was signed by Kramer to play Kate’s daughter. Kathy had not had any previous film experience, but she had played a small role in the Garson Kanin-Ruth Gordon Broadway comedy of the previous season, A Very Rich Woman.
On February 19, the eve of the scheduled start of production, Tracy suffered a severe attack of emphysema. Kate called the local fire-department rescue squad. Production was postponed for a few days while Tracy regained his strength, and it only went forward after Kramer agreed that Tracy’s scenes would all be shot between nine and twelve in the morning, when his energy was at its peak. The entire schedule was arranged around him. Most of his dialogue scenes were shot so that when the camera came in for a close-up on the other person, a stand-in was substituted for Tracy. And luckily the script did not call for many scenes in which he had to be part of a group.
The first morning of shooting, Kate, “all dowdied up in her trouser-suit,” appeared on the set before Kramer, Tracy or any other member of the cast, even though the schedule did not call for her services that day. As she checked the interior set, she announced to the crew, “In case my niece drops dead from the excitement, I’m here and I know all her lines, too.” When Kramer appeared, she turned to him to complain about the fake fireplace in the living-room set. He assured her that once lit the fireplace would not look fake, but not until she first demanded it be torn out and replaced by the real thing. She then went on to discuss with the lighting man the placing of a key light, insisted the wardrobe woman select other accessories for Kathy to wear with her first costume in the film, and engaged a hairdresser in a discussion about shampooing (“I’m the best hair washer in the world,” she proclaimed). By now the first shot had been set up—a short confrontation between Tracy and Sidney Poitier. Kate crouched and squinted through the camera viewfinder and reported to Kramer that the angle of the shot did not look quite right to her.
Kramer grumbled that she had repressed directorial ambitions. “I’ll give you the whole thing,” he said, turning away as if to leave.
“Now, now, Stanley,” she cooed, “let’s not lose our equilibrium. I’m only trying to keep the set alive so everyone won’t go to sleep.”
Tracy entered and hostilities immediately ended. Kramer reflects that “[Kate] and I had a strange relationship, because I loved Tracy, and I think he loved me, and in a way, I felt for a while Kate and I were rivals. We had some tensions on the picture. I was irritated by her fear over her so-called ‘ugly neck’*—she wore scarves and high collars, and ‘played low.’ . . . Many times she would come into a room and kneel, or sit down at once, so people wouldn’t be aware of her neck. During rehearsal, Tracy would be sitting there; suddenly she’d come in and she’d kneel. He’d say, ‘What the hell are you doin’, kneeling?’ and she’d say, very grandly, ‘Spencer, I just thought it would be appropriate,’ and he’d mock her high-falutin’ accent, saying ‘Spensuh! Christ you talk like you’ve got a feather up your ass all the time! Get out of there, will yah?’ and she’d start to say, ‘I just thought that—’ and he’d snap out, ‘sJust do what the director guy tells you, will yah?’ and she’d reply, humbly, ‘All right.’ She’d take anything from him. She’d take nothing from anybody else.”
Thinking for a moment, he added, “Spencer Tracy is the greatest actor I ever worked with. He had no physical energy for the shooting of this film. . . . Columbia doesn’t know to this day that we shot only half-days. They didn’t believe the film would be a commercial success, anyway, and if they’d known our schedule would have been doubly furious.”
In describing Kate’s attitude on the set, Kramer comments, “She had to run free, with and around a director. She was always creative, one of the two or three most creative artists I’ve ever worked with. I’ve never known anyone who matched her in terms of independence vis-à-vis a director. She thinks like a director. She’s a set-decorator also . . . a driving worker. Work, work, work. She can work until everybody drops.” Tracy, Kramer claims, was a reactor, Kate a p
rotagonist. "With Spencer, you could give another actor all the pages, he’d listen—and he’d steal the scene, nobody would look at the man who read the lines.”
At five A.M. on shooting days, Kate would drive through the heavy early morning California fog to Tracy’s house to rehearse with him until the time they had to leave for the studio. Kramer nostalgically recalls that when “he had finished a scene that was satisfactory from his viewpoint,” Tracy would yell to Sam Leavitt, the cameraman, “ ’Did you get that, Sam?’ and wait apprehensively until Sam waved him a sign of approval.”
Although there was a difference of thirty-eight years in their ages, Kate and her niece Kathy shared a strong family resemblance. The similarities were more than physical. Kathy quickly picked up Kate’s work ethic. Late afternoons they would return from a day’s shooting (Kate remaining to film her scenes after Tracy had finished) to “Aunt Kat’s” house for “force-feed sessions.” “I had the part down cold,” Kathy says. “So what she got me to do was go at it intellectually to begin with and then forget what I knew about the character and just fade into her. Whenever I tended to lapse into thoughtfulness, she’d say, “I can hear the wheels turning.’”
Kathy also had much of her aunt’s distaste for the press. Kramer, who was not happy with her casting, found the young woman uncooperative: “the publicity guys would want to take stills of her, and she’d say, ‘I don’t want to do that kind of publicity.’ We had a Vogue layout all ready to go . . . and she nixed it. My publicity man, George Glass, had aggravation all the time.” Kate, to the contrary, was cooperative with the press for one of the few times in her life.
