Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [109]
With After the Rain in progress and a baby due, Tracy moved his family to a larger house in Westwood, a sprawling six-bedroom Spanish showplace on a steep rise overlooking Holmby Avenue. “I could not but add up, from month to month, the ever-increasing grand total we had paid out in rent,” wrote Louise, “and mentally apply it instead to a house we might have bought and be paying for. But Spencer would not listen to any hints dropped on this subject. Although he had done fairly well and might reasonably hope to work out his contract, he personally never had any feeling of security and refused to obligate himself or to sign a lease for a period longer than the date of the next option.”
They were settled in the new house in time to celebrate Johnny’s eighth birthday on June 26. The five guests at the party were all girls, since neither John nor his parents knew any boys. Spence and Louise expected the new baby to be a girl, and had been referring to her for the better part of nine months as “Susie.” Five days later, on July 1, 1932, a Susie did indeed arrive at Good Samaritan Hospital, a seven-and-a-half-pound baby girl to be christened, at her father’s insistence, Louise Treadwell Tracy. Spence was on Catalina Island at the time, making location shots for After the Rain. When word came, he caught a speedboat to the mainland and arrived at the hospital early on a Saturday morning, able to stay just long enough to ascertain that everything was going to be all right. “I was so pleased because it was a little girl,” Louise said. “That was what he wanted. I thought that would be nice, but he was thrilled to death.”
John was especially excited and couldn’t wait to see his new sister. His mother had talked to him from time to time, telling him that he would soon have a little brother or sister, and approximately when that would be, but waiting the two weeks it would take to bring her home was almost more than he could stand. On the big day, his father, looking for a distraction, took him for ice cream, roaring eighty miles an hour down Sepulveda Boulevard between Sunset and Wilshire. Returning home, they both sat on the lawn eating their ice cream and waiting. When the car finally arrived, John rushed up excitedly and saw the baby for the first time. A look of utter bewilderment crossed his face. “He had very little to say,” said Louise, “and soon turned his attention to me. That something was wrong was obvious.”
The baby’s room was done up in pink with voluminous ruffled organdy curtains. After Susie was placed in her crib, John stood beside her for some time, touching her and making tentative efforts at play. “I was disappointed,” he said later. “I didn’t realize the baby would be so small. I had thought I’d play with her outdoors that afternoon.” At last he went to his mother and rendered his verdict. “Too small,” he said, again showing her the desired height, his hand about chest high. His mother explained as best she could that this was the way they came and that it wasn’t possible to exchange her for a larger size. John, however, was adamant.
“Back,” he said. “Too small.”
He would have nothing more to do with the baby for several days, and Louise felt that she had somehow lost standing because she could do no better than that. Then, finally, he was drawn back to the little pink room, and eventually he made his peace with her.
“Very sweet,” he said.
Sheehan returned to Fox in mid-June, just in time to see Society Girl released to scathing reviews and tepid box office. Dunn’s pose as a boxer drew laughs from audiences asked to believe he was a lean specimen of welterweight splendor when obviously tipping the scales at