Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [11]
The Gypsy Trail would mark Spencer Tracy’s first appearance in Cincinnati—not that there was much for him to rehearse. He had been cast in the utilitarian role of the house man, Stiles, and the extent of his duties was to appear occasionally, answer the phone or open the door, and say things like “Who is speaking, please?” and “I will inquire.”
Walker’s roster now consisted of sixty-seven players, among them Blanche Yurka, Albert Hackett, Spring Byington, and Beulah Bondi. His civilized practice of resting his actors from week to week made a slot in Cincinnati one of the most coveted in stock.
Louise had hopes of joining the Walker company, but her immediate goal was to make a good impression on the Tracys. She feared an awkward silence over the matter of religion, as she was an Episcopalian while Spence embraced his father’s Catholicism. Then she learned that Spence’s mother was a Presbyterian and all her anxieties fell away. John Tracy, in fact, laughed out loud when she confessed her fear of being asked to convert. “There’s no use in doing that!” he exclaimed, and Louise, relieved, chimed in, “No, no use at all!” The next thing she knew, Spence’s dad was taking her downtown to pick out a ring. “There was nothing like the present,” she said of his direct, almost impulsive nature. “You don’t wait around for anything—you do it now.” When Spence called to ask what they thought of her, his father was typically plainspoken: “If you don’t marry this girl, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were when you went on the stage!”
Tracy opened at the George B. Cox Memorial Theatre on September 10, 1923, and while he rated a mention in the lukewarm review that appeared the next day in the Post, the display ads accounted for his presence in the cast with the words “… and others.” Louise and the Tracys arrived by train on Tuesday afternoon, John and Carrie taking a room at the Hotel Gibson on Fountain Square, Louise putting up at the elegant Sinton a block away. The next afternoon, Spence played the Wednesday matinee, finishing just after 4:30 p.m. He then grabbed a cab to St. Xavier, a neighborhood parish some five blocks to the east, where he met his parents, his brother, and his bride-to-be.
Louise was wearing a dark blue suit over a patterned silk blouse with matching hat and shoes. The pastor of the church, Father Joseph P. De Smidt, had agreed to marry them, but there would be no mass with the ceremony. “I was lucky to get in the back door,” Louise commented. “We had a special dispensation and got married in the Priest’s study.” There were readings from the Old and New Testaments, a homily of sorts (considering the priest didn’t know either one of them), and the vows were exchanged. Carroll, the best man, stepped forward and handed Louise’s ring to the priest, who blessed it and passed it to the groom, who placed it on her finger in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. After the Lord’s Prayer and a blessing, they returned to the Gibson, where Stuart Walker joined them for a quick celebratory dinner. At 7:30 p.m., Walker and the newest member of his esteemed company took a cab back to the Cox, where the evening performance of The Gypsy Trail got under way at 8:20 p.m.
Walker went easy on Tracy during his brief stay in the Queen City. He did not cast him in Time, the following week’s play, which meant that Spence had his days free to roam the city with his new wife. Then rehearsals got under way for Seventeen, a perennial for Walker, and this time Tracy had