Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [33]
Soon he was keeping steady company with Lola Schultz, an Education major who found him spellbinding. “He was the most popular man I ever met,” she said shortly before her death in 1992. “He could make the birds sing in the trees. He could tell you black was white, and even if you thought he was wrong, pretty soon he’d have you believing him … Of course, he was as homely as a mud fence.”
Spence had never been particularly conscious of his looks until he hit puberty—a late event, he once implied—and took a sudden and fervent interest in girls. Then his freckled face, lined and ruddy, became a torment when he discovered it was tough to get dates. He wasn’t movie-star handsome nor even Midwestern good-looking. Girls generally found him earnest and amusing, but callow and not the least bit romantic. Worse still, he didn’t dance. “We went on dates,” Lola Schultz allowed, “but it was not a serious romance.”
Tracy was more popular among the men, who responded to the Irish charm his father had in such abundance. Socially, he always seemed to be around, though invariably on his own terms. Ken Edgers had a dance band called the Crimson Orchestra, and Spence took an administrative title to justify his traveling with the group to parties, dances, and proms. “[He] enjoyed the trips and bull sessions between dances and during intermissions,” Edgers said. “On our Crimson Orchestra business card it said I was ‘Business Manager’ and Spence was ‘Financial Manager.’ That probably is a fair amount of ‘management’ for a group of five musicians.”
The money from the Crimson gigs came in handy as the month wore on. Both Spence and Kenny were on allowances from their parents, which made them flush the first couple of weeks. They’d dine at the City Lunch Room—invariably referred to as the “downtown beanery” or “the greasy spoon”—and proprietor Emil Reinsch was delighted to see them when they had real money in their pockets. Kenny always suggested big steaks and, knowing Spence’s Catholicism, was sometimes able to trick him into ordering one on a Friday. When he could see the plates making their way to the table, he’d casually mention something about “the game tomorrow” and then watch with undisguised glee as Tracy would dissolve into a slow burn. “You dirty dog,” he’d growl. “You knew it was Friday and you just wanted my steak!” After a flash of inner struggle, Tracy would order fish and then sit morosely and watch as Kenny devoured his steak before moving on to his own.
Generally, they’d continue to splurge until the money ran low, sometime around the third week of the month. Then they’d start going through their laundry bags, separating out the most presentable specimens and scrubbing the cuffs and the collars clean in order to make them suitable for another day’s wear. “We wore each other’s clothes,” Kenny said, “and in our case the old wheeze of ‘the first one up is the best dressed’ was true.”
It was John Davies, one of the West Hall gang, who picked up on Spence’s interest in theatre. Davies was part of the Mask and Wig, the honors society responsible for the school’s annual commencement play. He had appeared in The Witching Hour the previous winter and was planning to audition for The Truth when Tracy got wind of it. Cornering