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to Los Angeles in the care of a doctor. In California, he continued to drink, and there were discussions at the studio over the proper course of action. Thau, Eddie Mannix, and Joe Cohn conceded that Tracy was “in no condition to do retakes,” but a staff lawyer advised that formal notice be served “to protect our position.” Tracy’s failure to report for work meant that all payments by the studio could cease and that his time absent could be counted against the eighteen weeks’ vacation to which he was entitled under the terms of his contract. Thau advised Leo Morrison of the need to serve formal notice but expressed concern over “Tracy’s reaction to this notice, particularly in his present state.” Morrison phoned Carroll, and the two men agreed that Morrison would collect the notice at the studio mail room, thereby effecting delivery, but would not show it to his client.

Tracy later told Stewart Granger that Vic Fleming, waiting to make retakes on Tortilla Flat, was the only one left who seemed to care at all about him.

I’d been picked up by the police and thrown into the drunk tank; I was filthy, unshaven, and ill. Vic found out where I was, squared the press, the police, and the studio, and took me home. He had a Filipino servant and, giving him instructions to bathe, shave, and put me to bed, went to get his doctor. After being given a thorough examination, I was lying there like death when Vic came in with a case of Scotch. He put it down beside my bed and went to the door. Turning back he said, “Spence, I’ve just talked to the doctor. He tells me one more bash like that and you’ll be dead. I want you to do me a favor. Drink that whole case of Scotch. It’s the last time you’ll see me, Spence. I’m through.” And he went out and left me alone.

Tracy declared himself back on the wagon after nineteen days adrift. Eight days later, on March 23, he reported back to the set of Tortilla Flat, where he dutifully appeared for Fleming in five days of retakes. Finally free of a film he had grown to loathe, he left town again, bound for New York with every intention of spending his forty-second birthday in the company of Katharine Hepburn. Fueled by coffee and little else, he arrived in Manhattan on March 30, the same day it was announced that Without Love would continue to tour. With the show stuck in Philadelphia, Tracy, as he recorded in his book, suffered a monumental attack of the “jitters.” Fearful that he would again take to the bottle, he left the same day for home, and instead spent his birthday—Easter Sunday—with Louise, Johnny, and Susie in Palm Springs.

Kate, meanwhile, was fighting a losing battle to keep Without Love afloat. The play had been altered considerably since Princeton, bringing the platonic relationship between Hepburn and Nugent into sharper focus while scuttling large chunks of the war plot. “Kate,” said actress Audrey Christie, who was playing a supporting role in the production, “was miserable throughout the tour. Elliott Nugent was drinking because he was aware of his inadequacy, and she hated that. But she concealed her feelings beautifully and was always considerate to Elliott. She used to drive her car out into the country in various places and scream to get her frustrations out, decades before anyone thought of primal-scream therapy.”

Tracy left for New York again on April 16, this time in the company of Tim Durant. Keeper of the Flame had been announced as the next Tracy-Hepburn picture, and Kate was now publicly advancing the idea of Spence replacing Elliott Nugent when Without Love ultimately reached Broadway. Tracy went to Boston to confer with Jimmy Cagney—they were working up bits for a Hollywood Victory Caravan—as Kate took the play to her hometown of Hartford for two completely sold-out performances. She was welcomed extravagantly—seven curtain calls—but her mania for privacy was on full display, and despite a heartfelt curtain speech in which she spoke warmly of family and old friends, station porters, and even taxi drivers, she would see absolutely no one.

Observing his forty-second