Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [198]
There was talk of reteaming Tracy and Freddie Bartholomew in Kipling’s Kim, which had been in development a couple of years, but more immediate plans had him going into the next Joan Crawford picture, a shopgirl trifle called Three Rooms in Heaven. Tracy wasn’t happy about the assignment—he disliked Crawford’s work as an actress and knew the picture would do him no credit. Mook thought it simply the part’s size that galled him, but for Tracy it was more basic than that: “If I’m any kind of actor, I can make a run-of-the-mill part come to life. I don’t mind her part being fatter or larger than mine. I’d a lot rather people would leave a theater wishing they had seen more of me in the picture than have them go out feeling they had seen too much. The thing that upsets me about this picture is that that girl is such a phony. And it comes through in her portrayals.”
He was being pressured to play another priest, something he vowed he would never again do. He put in for vacation time, anxious to return to Honolulu with Louise, but was told not to go because the Crawford picture would be starting within days. When he suddenly got permission to take two weeks, it came as a surprise and he forgot about Hawaii altogether, impulsively making arrangements to go on a fishing trip to British Columbia instead. He left for Seattle, settling in for the journey with a newspaper and a stack of magazines.
Aboard the Carrie B, circa 1937. (SUSIE TRACY)
At Puget Sound, Han Jamison, a local journalist and a genuine admirer who had just seen Captains Courageous, asked him why the shot of Manuel holding his nose as he was pulled underwater wasn’t cut from the picture. “Why Manuel wasn’t holding his nose,” Tracy replied, pronouncing it Man-oo-el. “He was crossing himself and the camera just happened to catch his hand as it passed his nose.” The answer seemed to satisfy his inquisitor, but it was yet another flaw in a performance that was, for Tracy, all too full of them, and for every sharp little point of imperfection, a stab of guilt, imperceptible at times but ever-present. He caught the boat on schedule, running on little, if any, sleep, and spent the morning of August 20 fishing off the coast of Canada. Then, later that same day, after exactly one year and eight months on the wagon, he took a drink—something, perhaps, as seemingly innocent as a single bottle of beer—and, as he later recorded in his datebook, “spoiled it all.”
Flying from Seattle to San Francisco, where he lingered over a long weekend, Tracy returned to the Beverly Wilshire to indulge in his longest and most serious bender in three years. From Monday, August 23, the pages of his datebook told the story: “Binge!” he wrote for most days, noting finally on Friday, September 3, “Came home—ended siege.” The next day he added: “At home sick—these are sad pages.”
And then: “Back on wagon! This time for [a] real stretch—”
Since the release of Fury, Joe Mankiewicz had been producing the Joan Crawford pictures for M-G-M. (“You’re the only one on the lot that knows what to do with her,” Mayer had said to him.) The collaboration had so far yielded mixed results, including Crawford’s only costume drama, The Gorgeous Hussy. The new story Mankiewicz had for her was an original by Katharine Brush, whose racy 1931 novel Red Headed Woman had been the basis of Jean Harlow’s breakout film. Submitted by agent Harold Ober, “Marry for Money” was considered excellent material but doubtful for pictures “unless the heroine is whitewashed a little.” Mankiewicz, who prided himself on “extracting the suds from soap opera” (as Crawford so eloquently put it), embraced it as a challenge of sorts and set to work on a script with playwright Lawrence Hazard.
Tracy was not an obvious choice for the millionaire shipping magnate who pursues Crawford’s noble character, but the pairing was consistent with the strategy of putting him opposite Metro’s biggest female attractions. Directing would again be Borzage, though the whole enterprise this time would be weighted toward