Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [194]
The release of Captains Courageous brought another wave of fan mail, and with it came offers of boats and ship models and long, rambling letters from Snug Harbor, the New York–based home for retired seamen. One envelope contained an invitation to cross the Atlantic in a thirty-four-foot ketch with the builder-owner, “age 62 and sound as a dollar.”1 Another, from an ex-army flyer, invited him to fly a low-wing monoplane across the ocean. “The publicity value of your presence,” the writer concluded, “would repay me for the slight risk involved.” A federal prisoner in Leavenworth offered to take him on a hunt for pirate treasure in the Caribbean if only Tracy could secure his release. Gold Star mothers wrote, having seen him in They Gave Him a Gun, and mail was still coming from his having played a priest, much of it now from Europe and Asia.
“I know that in my own case it never came so forcibly till now that pictures and the people in them carry a heavy responsibility,” he said. “That wasn’t the fact where the theatre was concerned. People weren’t particularly swayed by a show or an actor or actress. At least not to the extent that their personal lives were affected. But pictures evidently go deeper.”
Outwardly, the Tracy marriage was as solid as ever, and Spence credited Louise’s forbearance, as he always did, for making it so. “She doesn’t nag, you see. She respects my individuality, asks nothing,” he explained one day during a joint interview. “If I say suddenly in the afternoon that I’m going to Ensenada for a few days, she doesn’t ever ask why. She doesn’t say, ‘How long will you be gone? What’re you going to do down there? Can’t you take me with you?’ She just smiles and tells me she hopes I’ll have a good time.”
“But it’s a mutual freedom,” Louise interjected. “He does the same. I never ask if I may do something; the choice is mine. The reason for most divorces is this business of husband and wife keeping tabs on each other. I don’t wonder most of them go crazy. Anyway, if each really loves and trusts the other, what’s the sense in prying about?”
It had been a year and a half since Tracy had taken a drink of anything stronger than tea. “No, not even a beer,” he said.
Not even light wines. Nothing. And there’s all the difference between night and day in the way I feel now. Everything is different. Me. Our home life. It just isn’t the same at all, in any way. It’s normal now. It’s comfortable … I get a kick out of life such as I never had when I was on the merry-go-round. We take long drives in the evening, Louise and I. We sit home evenings and read and talk. We plan trips. The kids and I go swimming together. And riding. There’s a flavor in doing all the so-called “little things.” We have one or two couples in for dinner, the Walt Disneys, the Van Dykes, the Pat O’Briens.2 That’s social enough. We have our polo crowd, of course.
Despite such statements, Jane Feely could sense real tension when she came to visit over the month of June 1937. The ranch wasn’t movie star fancy nor nearly as spacious as the rented house on Holmby. One entered the sizable living room directly off the front porch. There was no grand portico, no entrance hall. The sideboard was an old pine dresser, gleaming with brass and copper and Delft chinaware. The refectory table and chairs—there was no dining room—were hand-made and could seat ten in a pinch. The sofas were covered