Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [339]
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1 Released as Song of Love (1947).
CHAPTER 23
Adam’s Rib
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When they finished State of the Union on December 6, 1947, both Tracy and Hepburn were eager to return east, Kate to see her family and caucus with Helburn and Langner, Spence to pursue a production of Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet, also for the Theatre Guild. Working with O’Neill had been a long-held ambition, Tracy having initially been paired with the ailing playwright in 1943 when only revivals were on the table. Subsequently, O’Neill gave the Guild permission to stage The Iceman Cometh, the first new play of his to hit Broadway in twelve years, with A Moon for the Misbegotten and A Touch of the Poet to follow. Tracy had served notice on M-G-M in May, while deep in the midst of Cass Timberlane, that he intended to take a twelve-week leave of absence at the end of the year to do the play. Coupled with the six-week vacation due him upon the completion of every picture he made for the studio, he would have a total of eighteen weeks to rehearse and perform the show, with perhaps more time to be negotiated if all went exceptionally well.
Iceman was not the critical nor commercial success everyone had hoped it would be, and when Moon for the Misbegotten encountered casting and censorship problems on the road, O’Neill asked that it be withdrawn until his health improved and that Touch of the Poet be similarly postponed. Capra held his cast in Los Angeles over Christmas as he supervised the editing of State of the Union and determined if any retakes would be necessary, an unusually lengthy process due to the timeliness of the material. (He had a newspaperman on retainer—Bill Henry of the L.A. Times—whose sole job it was to inject contemporary political references into the dialogue and make sure nothing in the script was suddenly rendered obsolete by national or world events.) Growing more impatient by the day, Tracy was granted the start of his vacation on December 29, with the possibility that he could still be recalled at the end of six weeks, pursuant to the terms of his contract.
Still holding out hope the O’Neill play would somehow free up, he went off to Arizona to paint and ponder his future as an actor, as he would be turning fifty just as his current contract would be coming up for renewal. Langner offered another play, a consolation that lacked a woman’s part large enough for Kate, but Tracy already had mastered the self-loathing Melody, contradictory and full of bluster, and was as fixated on Poet as he had been on nothing else since Rugged Path. “He read that play to me several times,” Hepburn remembered. “O’Neill didn’t like stars. And he never did ask him to do it. Which, I think, is a great pity, because I think Spencer understood that character.” Langner remained convinced that if he could just arrange a meeting between Tracy and O’Neill, all doubts about the rightness of the package would be swept away.
In Culver City, Capra was hoping to preview State of the Union the first week in February, which would enable him to serve notice for retakes just short of the February 8 cutoff date. Dubbing stretched on, however, and the initial preview got pushed back a week, prompting Sam Briskin to ask Tracy, through Leo Morrison, for a week’s extension on the deadline—something Tracy proved unwilling to grant. Lighting a fire under Capra, he said Liberty would have to pay him a daily retainer to go beyond the contractual notification period, knowing the company had come in some $450,000 under budget. Capra, as it turned out, didn’t need him after all, and on February 9, 1948, Eddie Knopf spoke to Tracy in Palm Springs and asked him to travel to London to see Robert Morley in Morley’s and Noel Langley’s hit play Edward, My Son, and, while there, to make some background shots for the picture