Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [209]
A few days later, on February 10, 1938, Benny Thau notified the studio accounting office that Spencer Tracy was to be classified henceforth as a star.
A shrewd hand at the art of publicity, Father Flanagan knew the value of the Boys Town story—to Hollywood and to Boys Town itself. He accepted a paltry $5,000 fee for the film rights with the understanding that a successful motion picture could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the institution, perhaps even millions. On February 18, he arrived at Culver City in the company of Morris E. Jacobs, founding partner of Bozell & Jacobs. (It was Jacobs who came up with the famous image of one boy carrying another and the caption, “He ain’t heavy, Father, he’s m’ brother.”) The two men laid out an ambitious promotional plan that involved joining the reach and resources of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with publicity and media contacts forged by Flanagan and his organization over a span of twenty years. What they proposed was a major branding campaign for both Flanagan and Boys Town that would “win space in abundance in such magazines as Life, Time, Newsweek, and newspapers throughout the United States.”
Over lunch on that rainy Friday afternoon, Tracy met Father Flanagan for the first time. Clad in his leather flying jacket for Test Pilot, his face streaked with makeup, Tracy struggled to make conversation with the first living person he had ever been asked to play. “All actors,” he told the priest, “do everything possible to live their part—to be the very image of the person they are portraying. But few actors, Father, have the opportunity of being confronted by that person. That makes the going even rougher, for as I play this part I will be thinking not only of you but of what you will think of me … I’m so anxious to do a good job as Father Flanagan that it worries me, keeps me awake nights.”
What Father Flanagan saw in Tracy was a consummate actor already at work: “As he talked, I could feel his eyes upon me, studying my every little mannerism: the way I sat in the chair, the way I talked, the way I pushed the hair back from my forehead. I knew he was studying me—the man he was going to become—as searchingly as I studied him. I almost knew what was running through his mind.” Photos were made of Flanagan with Tracy, with Mickey Rooney (who asked for his autograph), with actor Lewis Stone, a personal favorite. Jack Ruben suggested that Andrew Cain, one of the boys at Flanagan’s home, be considered for the role of Pee Wee, the mascot character in Dore Schary’s treatment, and Morris Jacobs thought it would make for good publicity to send the boy out to California for a test.
While still in the hospital, Tracy received a letter from Joe Kennedy. The newly installed ambassador congratulated him on his win as Best Actor and advised him that every time Kennedy himself won a prize he made someone give him a trip. He went on to suggest that Tracy should, therefore, make Metro give him a trip abroad. And though Spence wasn’t enthused about the idea, Louise thought it would “do him good” and worked to make it happen. Dr. Toland approved a leisurely cruise aboard the Panama Pacific liner Virginia with Dr. Dennis along to keep an eye on the patient. Louise, juggling her own set of responsibilities, would meet the ship in New York on April 11 and, after a five-day layover, sail with Spence for Genoa, the first planned stop on a three-week European holiday.
Never having learned to relax, Tracy dreaded a six-week absence from