Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [328]
Kazan was fond of multiple takes but made a calculated decision not to try and direct Tracy very much, knowing he would likely alienate his two stars without substantially improving the picture. “Tracy was great in take one,” he said, “okay in take two. About take four he began to go down, and by take six he was not very good. After take seven he just wouldn’t do any more. He’d say, ‘What do you want?’ ”
Kazan, observed actor Melvyn Douglas, seemed to want “bursts of energy and an undertone of malevolence” he simply couldn’t get from Tracy. “Spence projected a heavy, relaxed authority. He was wonderfully skillful but, finally, did not do what the director requested.” Giving up on him, Kazan found Hepburn more accepting, and his one great achievement on The Sea of Grass was the unusually restrained performance he managed to coax from her. “Spence and Hepburn were lovers, and she was very protective of him,” said Kazan. “She’d watch him shoot and say, ‘Isn’t Spence wonderful?’ And I’d think, ‘He’s only giving a tenth of what he’s got.’ In one scene, he was supposed to come in from the open plains where it was snowing and he’d take a little water, throw it on his face, and make an entrance. His shoes looked like they had just been shined. I never could get him to stretch himself.”
With director Elia Kazan, who, for myriad reasons, found The Sea of Grass a frustrating experience. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)
When Tracy told Earl Wilson he wanted to get out of movies altogether and go back to the stage, he wasn’t just saying it for effect. Kate had committed to As You Like It for the Theatre Guild on the understanding that Tracy would also do something in the fall. In May, just as The Sea of Grass was getting under way, the Guild’s Lawrence Langner came west, where the decision was made to go ahead with the sets and the costumes. “Now Kate,” Langner urged, “don’t sell yourself into slavery for another five years when you can be supporting me and Spencer by working for us in Shakespeare. As soon as Spencer quits, I am going to set the two of you up in a wonderful company which will go to London and will be known as the ‘Old Trics’—the ‘Old Trics’ would be much better than the ‘Old Vics.’ ”
Laurence Olivier had brought the Old Vic to New York with a company that included Margaret Leighton, Ralph Richardson, and Miles Malleson, and Langner proposed a similar setup for Tracy and Hepburn. “Everyone here is talking about Laurence Olivier,” Langner said in a letter to Tracy on June 6, “and the reason isn’t because he gives any one special performance (except in the case of Oedipus), but because they are seeing him in four different parts, playing old men, middle-aged men, etc. No trick to any good actor, but the public has gone wild with enthusiasm. Please consider very seriously a proposition that—when your contract is up—you and Kate, with the Guild, form a repertory company in which you would play in four or five masterpieces and set the country on fire by bringing back some of the real old-time theatre.” Among the titles Langner proposed were Dodsworth, The Devil’s Disciple, and O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. “Hope you will discuss this with Kate before she commits herself to another five with M-G-M. The Theatre Guild is willing, as part of this proposition, to form an independent pictures corporation to make one outstanding picture each year in which you and Kate appear and in which, in addition to receiving your salary, you would also both have a share on a capital gains basis, so that you would only be paying 25% tax to the government.”
Tracy mulled the proposition over, talked with Leo