Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [359]
They cleared the room of liquor, and Spence said that he was going to take a nap. He said, “You want the car?” I said, “Well, I went to the University of Chicago, and if I had the car I would go out there to my fraternity house and say hello to some of the guys. I would enjoy doing that.” He said, “Go ahead, take the car. We’ll leave here at such-and-such a time.” I said, “Great.” So I took the car, and I went out there and I bummed around. I was back well ahead of when I was supposed to be back, and I opened the door, and there was Spence sitting in a chair facing the door saying, “Where in the hell have you been??”
I said, “You know where I’ve been. I went out to the University of Chicago.” He said, “Bill, I couldn’t sleep. I can’t go out for a walk. You know that. I’m stuck in this room. You’ve got the car.” And he bawls hell out of me. Much to my surprise, I took him off. I said, “Mr. Tracy, you are too tough for me. When we get back, I never want to see you again. I don’t want anything to do with you.” I was amazed with myself for saying that because I thought, “I’m ruining my career. I’ll never work at M-G-M again.” He was shocked. He was shocked, and I was trembling, I was so angry. I don’t mind being accused of something if I’m wrong, but I was so right. And on top of the other thing, which I was trying to do the best I could. This was totally uncalled for, and so we just gathered our belongings and went to the station and got on the train.
And then he came around and literally apologized to me. He said, “Bill, this whole cancer thing scared me and I’ve been very tight and I’m sorry.” I said, “Well, that’s fine. I just hope I haven’t done anything wrong,” and he said, “No, you haven’t done anything wrong.” In fact, when we got back to Los Angeles, the first thing he did was to take me to Palm Springs with his family, down to the Racket Club to play some tennis and make amends, I guess. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been to the Racket Club. So everything seemed to be smoothed over. I never totally trusted him again, though. I just realized that I was dealing with a guy who could be pretty tricky.
Tracy observed his fiftieth birthday on April 5, 1950. Already assembled and previewed, Father of the Bride garnered 149 cards rating it outstanding or excellent and another 47 judging it to be “very good.” The audience at the Bay Theatre in Pacific Palisades was split evenly between males and females in the eighteen-to-forty-five age group, and both Berman and Schary were instantly convinced they had a big hit on their hands. Schary, in fact, already had the Hacketts sketching out notes for a sequel.
“I know you will realize with what horror we went into such a venture,” Frances Goodrich apologetically said in a letter to Ed Streeter. “But the studio felt so encouraged, after the very first days of shooting, that they wanted to be prepared … We feel like orphans on this one, sailing on uncharted seas … it is really terrifying. But we go on with our fingers crossed. We are doing, as you probably know, Kay’s first baby. Are you puking already? Don’t sue us.”
As You Like It closed on June 3, the colorful production having received better overall notices than Hepburn herself, even as her infrequently seen legs were widely—and favorably—remarked upon. (“She has the greatest set of legs I ever saw on a woman,” Tim Durant once said.) “They thought I was O.K.,” Hepburn said in her autobiography. “Sort of half carps and half praise. Looking back on my notices which I did not read at the time, I have the impression that I was irritating to the critics. They liked me in The Philadelphia Story, but in Shakespeare