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swings, a symptom she would eventually come to recognize as manic depression. She was seeing actor Kirk Douglas, and in his autobiography, Douglas described an endearingly quirky young woman who had a lovely overbite and insisted on his entering through a window when he came to see her at night. (“Maybe it was an aphrodisiac. I didn’t question it.”) Douglas made the mistake of telling her that he didn’t want to get married—a sentiment he innocently thought they shared—and it seems it was around this time that Tierney chose to involve herself with Tracy. Apart from being one of the world’s most beautiful women, she was a bright gal and a lively companion. “When my mood was high, I seemed normal, even buoyant,” she said. “I felt smarter. I had secrets. I saw things no one else could see. I could see evil in a toothbrush. I could see God in a light bulb.”

The intensity of the relationship—at least from Tracy’s perspective—was evident when Tierney informed Kirk Douglas that she would be marrying her costar while production of Plymouth Adventure was still under way. “This all happened so quickly, I didn’t believe it,” Douglas wrote. “She showed me a saccharine letter that he had written, telling her that he wanted to arrange things so that they could go off together. ‘Gene, I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘First, Spencer’s married. He’ll never get divorced. Second, he has a very intense relationship with Katharine Hepburn, and he’ll never give it up.’ ” Douglas, of course, couldn’t have known Tracy’s state of mind, nor Tierney’s exact motivation in telling him they would be wed. “I made the mistake of being blunt about not wanting to get married, and here was another man writing a flattering letter telling her what she wanted to hear.”

All the while, Tracy was in touch with Hepburn by cable, advising her of plans to sail for England in June, possibly with the Kanins, possibly alone. The Clarence Browns and L. B. Mayer had taken him to dinner, and Old Man Mayer, he reported, was “absolutely insane” about the new house on St. Ives. When Kate sent reviews of her tour of the provinces, Spence wired back that they were wonderful, as were the initial notices for Pat and Mike. Tierney was committed to a second film for Metro, a Clark Gable picture to be shot in England, and since he was set to meet Kate in London as soon as he was cleared for travel, Tracy told Hedda Hopper he intended to heckle Gable from the sidelines as he played his romantic scenes with Tierney. Hopper commented: “Spence, who’s been making love to Gene in his picture, thinks the King needs some lessons,” pointedly adding that he would also be on hand for Hepburn’s London opening in The Millionairess.

Tracy patched over his differences with Dore Schary and finished the movie, Brown boasting that they were able to make the entire movie on M-G-M’s Culver City lot, save just one scene of the landing of the first settlers, which was done on a beach near Oxnard. “I never heard him tell anyone in the cast what to do … I never saw him tell anybody anything,” Reggie Callow said of the director. “I don’t know how the hell he ever made the picture.”

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1 Mankiewicz won three Academy Awards (if you count Best Picture) for All About Eve (1950).

CHAPTER 26

At Loose Ends

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There is a fragment of black-and-white footage which constitutes the only filmed statement Spencer Tracy ever made on the subject of the clinic that bears his son’s name. He stands at a microphone, eyes downcast, a hand tugging nervously at his bow tie. Behind him are seated Dr. Rufus von Kleinschmid, Los Angeles mayor Fletcher Bowron, and Goodwin Knight, lieutenant governor of the state of California. “This is certainly one occasion,” he begins hesitantly, “where I may truthfully say that as hard as I try, I can find no reason, no excuse to bring motion picture acting into this particular occasion. Because there is no motion picture actor, living or dead, absent or present, who had anything to do with the building of this clinic. It was built through the inspiration of John,