Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [303]
In Freeport the boys visited their uncle Andrew and aunt Emma, and relatives drove in from nearby. Ann Willits, the nine-year-old granddaughter of the late Frank J. Tracy, could recall Spence telling her about Susie, who was close in age, and asking if she knew how to play hopscotch. “I did, but I said, ‘No.’ And much to the frustration of Aunt Mame [Andrew’s wife], who had lunch ready, he showed me how to play. I remember asking my mom and dad on the way home how he just happened to have chalk in his pocket.”
Emma Brown, a classic maiden lady who favored black clothing and wore dresses until they were threadbare, was in her seventies but still owned the family feed business on Galena Avenue. “Aunt Mum” would typically meet her nephews at the Hotel Freeport, where Spence, in particular, would hole up and rarely leave. “They were the closest three people you ever saw,” said Bertha Calhoun, “Aunt Mum and Carroll and Spencer.”
Whether Tracy made it to New York or not is unclear, for his drinking was growing steadily worse. M-G-M studio records show he was “ill” a total of sixteen days on The Seventh Cross, and Fay Kanin, Michael Kanin’s wife and later writing partner, got a glimpse of such illness firsthand: “I remember having to meet Spencer for lunch at one of the fancy Beverly Hills restaurants—I don’t remember which one—and he had been drinking. Boy, had he been drinking … we had a perfectly good time, though.”
Herzog recalled that Tracy was imbibing freely in Milwaukee, Carroll hovering protectively, and his drinking likely continued in Chicago after Carroll returned to California. Actress Edith Luckett, who toured with Tracy in The Baby Cyclone, had settled in Chicago after marrying Dr. Loyal Davis, a prominent neurosurgeon, in 1929. Tracy generally saw the Davises when he was in town for any length of time, and according to Luckett’s daughter Nancy, he stayed at the family’s East Lake Shore Drive apartment so often that he “practically became a member of the family.”
Katie Treat, widow of Earl Treat, the founder of the Chicago chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, remembered a call placed to her husband by Edith Davis sometime in the mid-1940s. “Lucky” (as she was known to her friends) told Earl
that she had a friend that she had been on the stage [with]…He was in great trouble at the Blackstone [Hotel], but she was going to move him up to their house … Would Earl come to their house and talk to this man? So Earl galloped down there and Nancy opened the door … and it was Spencer Tracy who was in trouble. And he really was. He would go to the Blackstone and hole in there and just drink himself to death. And they’d go and get him and take him home. So Earl kept track of him and every time Spencer came to town he’d call Earl and they’d have lunch or dinner together and Earl would [talk to him]. Spencer didn’t stop drinking—he kept right on—so finally he said to Earl, “How would you like to go to Hollywood?” Earl said he had never really thought of going to Hollywood. Spencer said, “I’ll move your family out there, I’ll give you a house and a car and all the servants you need if you’ll dance attendance on me and keep me sober.” And Earl said, “I’ll tell you something: If I accepted that, I’d be drunk in a week!”
The concept of alcoholism as a disease didn’t originate with Alcoholics Anonymous, but A.A. certainly