Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [372]
No one at the studio mentioned it, and if Louise saw it, she didn’t say anything over dinner at Chasen’s or during tennis with Bill Self and the kids. Spence drove up the coast to “paint the sea,” contemplative as the start date for the picture grew near. Kate had committed to playing The Millionairess in England, her mother having “worshipped” every word the late George Bernard Shaw ever wrote. The engagement would require her to leave as soon as the picture for Metro had wrapped, and she would be overseas for much of the new year while Spence remained stuck in California with Schary and Plymouth Adventure. It didn’t make for a happy time, and when the tests for Pat and Mike came back, the studio decided that Kate looked too thin and postponed the film three weeks while she fattened herself up. Spence, conversely, was too heavy and began popping a Dexedrine each morning to control his appetite. The goal was to lose twelve pounds by the start of production, bringing him to a trimmer 190.
Tracy and Hepburn with Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, screenwriters of Pat and Mike. (JUDY SAMELSON COLLECTION)
With the picture temporarily on hold, Tracy turned his attentions to his new home on the Cukor property, which had been completed and would soon be ready for occupancy. Cukor seemed truly excited at the prospect of having such an illustrious tenant and involved Tracy and Hepburn in all the stages of design and construction. The plan had been to carve two homesites from a service yard at the very bottom of the director’s somewhat kidney-shaped parcel, which was bordered on the west by Doheny Drive and on its southern end by St. Ives, a narrow and winding roadway that became almost impassable at times of heavy rain. He commissioned architect John Wolfe to design the two simple structures—the floor plan of the Tracy cottage forming an extended H, the master bed- and dressing room separated from the rest of the house by a recessed entryway and an outdoor patio—and had the plans sent for Spencer’s perusal to the Arizona Inn, promising, in an accompanying letter, to drain the malarial swamps “to satisfy a certain touring actress” and assuring him that the sun regularly hit the property “once a week.”
The living room was done in planks of wormy chestnut, an accent of used brick, painted a creamy white, framing a small fireplace. There was a pegged hardwood floor, cut on the bias, with French doors leading out onto the patio. Kate took charge of decorating the place, having purchased an old horsehair rocker—a naked frame, really—on Olvera Street and gotten it upholstered as a first step. An oak gateleg table, a basket base lamp, a desk fashioned from the valances of the apartment on Beverly. The colors were all subdued, the look warm and comfortable; it was a terrific contrast to the chichi of the main house. She saw to air conditioning, the fitting of the kitchen, shutters, towels, carpeting, draperies, a new vacuum cleaner, and had a corner cupboard and two pickled pear tables shipped out from the East.
Spence had been a renter for so long he had virtually nothing apart from his books and his things out at the ranch—and most of those would have to remain where they were. Kate finished with the furnishing of the cottage at 9191 St. Ives on December 12 and promptly left for New York and Connecticut to spend Christmas with her family. Tracy took occupancy six days later—on December 18, 1951.
They began shooting Pat and Mike on January 2, 1952, Ruth and Gar having, by then, returned east, where they could confer with Cukor via mail and by wire.