Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [329]
He stated that he does not want to feel under obligation to the studio, which he would be if he continued to accept compensation when he is not working. He also feels that he does not want to be placed in the position that he had been two or three times in the past when a question has arisen as to whether or not he will do a picture and Mr. Mannix has called his attention to the fact that he has been on salary. He stated that the studio will not be able to get five pictures every two years and, as a matter of fact, will get only three or four at the most. He is perfectly willing to be paid on the basis of the pictures he does, even though it will mean less compensation to him than under the present agreement.
M-G-M always resisted per-picture agreements, nurturing instead a dependency on the narcotic of a weekly paycheck. Benny Thau countered with an offer to cancel paragraph 26 of Tracy’s contract, which would mean that, were the agreement to be terminated, Tracy would not be obligated to repay any monies that he had received in excess of $110,000 per picture. The matter was allowed to lie dormant, and Tracy did not respond to Langner until July, when he apologized for not answering sooner and said that he was expecting to come east so they could “have a chat” around September 1. “The picture has been going very well,” he added. “Kazan lives up to your recommendation.” A week later, Guild records show he turned down Damien by Samoan playwright John Kneubuhl on the grounds that he “did not want to play another priest.”
What happened next is unclear, but in proposing to go east and work in partnership with Hepburn on the New York stage, Tracy was changing the dynamic of his twenty-three-year marriage to an unprecedented degree. Tina Gopadze Smith, Dorothy Griffith’s daughter, remembered her mother’s account of a conference in Louis B. Mayer’s office, sometime in the latter forties, in which Louise and, most probably, Spence participated (since it was Miss G.’s job to take down everything that got said). Was Mayer urging a reconciliation, as he so often did when the domestic lives of his players threatened the tranquillity and well-being of the studio? Or was he engineering a quiet separation, perhaps even a divorce, since one of the parties involved was Katharine Hepburn, one of his favorite people, proof positive, he once told his daughter Irene, that one could have “talent without temperament”?
The Tracy-Hepburn combination was a powerful draw at the box office, and it was generally known and acknowledged that Kate had played an important role in keeping Spence on an even keel. Louise, as the innocent party, would have to consent to a divorce under California law and agree to either adultery or extreme cruelty as specific grounds, thus risking adverse publicity that could affect Tracy’s standing with the public. Did Mayer offer the use of his personal attorney? Help with a monetary settlement? Money, perhaps, for the ongoing maintenance and expansion of the clinic? No record now exists of that meeting, and Tina Smith could only remember, by her mother’s account, what Louise said in shutting down the discussion: “I will be Mrs. Spencer Tracy until the day I die.”
Was the clinic a factor in Louise’s gravitational pull? Was it possible that, through the funding he provided, Spence had at last been given a way to respond to the deafness of their son that wasn’t born of guilt and self-recrimination, something that was so thoroughly redemptive that it was to be preserved and fostered at any cost? Never a strong proponent of marriage, Kate was philosophical, if not completely aware of what was happening. “I can’t live with Spence,” she told their friend Bill Self, “and he won’t live with Louise.”
When The Sea of Grass wrapped on August 6, 1946, Tracy made a surprise announcement to Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times. “I think we should