Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [268]
Steinbeck’s conniving Pilon was not unlike Manuel in that the role required both makeup and an accent (not to mention singing), but Tracy never resisted the assignment as he had Captains Courageous and had, in fact, been linked to the project for more than a year. The accent seemed to flow naturally from the script’s Runyonesque dialogue, suggesting the mixed blood of the paisanos and the notion they spoke both English and Spanish in an equally unique manner. His skin was darkened as it had been for Manuel, but his hair was left uncurled, hidden as it was under a battered hat with a white poppy poked carelessly into its band.
Victor Fleming exuded an unquestionable authority—Tracy always addressed him as “Mr. Fleming” in front of the cast and crew—and the decorum on the set was exemplary. The shoot was confined almost entirely to indoor sets, the largest, on M-G-M’s Stage 3, being a fanciful exterior designed by Paul Groesse, weedy yards and rickety fences and a dirt road leading off to a panoramic view of Monterey and the ocean beyond.
In a rare stab at ethnic fidelity, Zimbalist tried borrowing Rita Hayworth to play Dolores Engracia “Sweets” Ramirez and then, failing that, dropped Hedy Lamarr into the part about the same time John Garfield was secured on loan from Warner Bros. for the role of Danny. Once Lamarr was set for the picture, Tracy conspired to stash his ever-present box of chocolates—which usually occupied the third drawer of his dressing room desk—in her dressing room instead, figuring that casual visits to a frequent costar would not be nearly as scrutinized as trips to his own on-set trailer, where his weight was carefully monitored and he endured a constant razzing from the crew over his addiction to sweets.
“I can see,” said John Erskine, “that the kind of truth which only the actor can convey is something the audience will recognize out of their experience. But, to secure this effect of convincing reality, should pictures give us any particular kind of story or character which we don’t get now?”
Tracy thought a moment. “I doubt it,” he said finally. “We get all kinds of characters, don’t we? The only restriction is in what we are permitted to say about them.”
“But that’s the same thing as not being allowed to portray them.”
“Not quite the same thing. If all types of characters are already permissible on the screen, we shall gradually win the privilege of understanding them.”
“You’re not interested, then, in people of any particular economic group?”
He looked surprised. “Why should I be? I am interested in people. They may be in one group today and in another tomorrow.”
Still, Erskine thought Tracy was interested, more than he realized, in characters rising “from a lower to a higher condition” and that, from talking to him, he would always prefer people who could survive their successes and “bear their weight of human sorrows.” He was also sure that although Tracy was more interested in interpreting people than in putting over any social or economic theories, his interpretations suggested a politically liberal point of view, something that was implicit in the generosity of his own spirit.
“But,” said Erskine, “the films which we seem to demand cannot possibly cover the whole range of a mature person’s experience. Our pictures must be growing toward a real presentation of life, but only a small part of our life is presented.”
Tracy agreed. “I like to believe the audience will gradually accept more and demand more; then the screen will give it to them. That’s the tendency now, don’t you think?”
“You speak of the audience,” said Erskine, “and I admit that theirs is the controlling influence, but why shouldn’t screen actors of the first rank demand something too? In other arts—architecture, sculpture, painting—the great artists set the pace for the public.”
“In those