Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [389]
By February 1953 Hayward was talking widescreen and Cinerama and whether shooting the picture in Ansco Color would be preferable to Eastman. Eddie Mannix told them they were crazy not to make it in 3-D, and Fred Zinnemann, now a hot commodity with High Noon and Member of the Wedding to his credit, expressed a keen interest in directing it. The deal, as outlined by Hayward, called for a ten-year license on the rights for a price of $150,000, plus an additional $100,000 to be paid Hemingway for his services as screenwriter. Tracy would receive $150,000 as star of the picture, and Hayward $50,000 as producer. All three would split the net profits on an equal basis, with the film reverting to Hemingway at the end of the license period. The partners were looking at filming it in September and October, when, according to Hemingway, the weather would be at its “loveliest” (provided there were no hurricanes) and when both Tracy and Zinnemann would be available.
Hemingway urged Tracy to come to Cuba so they could “talk things over” and so that Tracy could see some of the old fishermen “before they die so that he will know things that cannot but be helpful to him when he takes it on the road.” With Flight to the Islands set to start on June 4, Tracy traveled to Havana on April 3, a turbulent and unnerving flight that abruptly terminated when a typewriter fell from overhead storage, injuring a passenger and smashing into Tracy’s leg. The plane made an emergency landing at Miami for x-rays, which showed that while the leg was swollen there were no breaks. The flight resumed at 4:00 p.m. “Rough to Havana,” Tracy wrote in his datebook. “Ernest Hem[ingway] worth it.”
Havana was sunny and hot. They visited Cojímar (the “Old Man’s town”), did some fishing and swimming, and talked business with Hayward on the last day. Tracy reiterated what he had said before—that he was committed to filming the book and nothing more. “Hemingway,” he said, “was afraid of having the book cluttered up with a commercial love story.” On Easter, Hemingway inscribed for Tracy a copy of The Old Man and the Sea, “To Spencer Tracy from his friend Ernest Hemingway.” He added: “Looking forward to the long fight we’ll win together.” He wrote to Alfred Rice, “We are in a big fight from now on in and can make a terrific killing if we make a great picture. But there won’t be any great picture nor nothing unless Tracy and I carry the ball most of the time. He knows it and I know it. Everybody is going to have to work like hell and we are going to have to do the miracle stuff.” In his summary to Leland Hayward, Hemingway said: “Had a very good and practical time with Spencer. We understand each other and get along fine. I feel like I’d known him about 150 years.”
Tracy was back in New York only a few days when Louise reached him—very late at night—with word that their son John had eloped with a neighbor girl named Nadine Carr. The news didn’t come as a complete surprise, as John had already come out with plans to be married, having raised the subject over dinner with his father as early as December 1951. “Din. John—Valley—John’s Wedding!” Tracy wrote incredulously in his datebook. A few days later: “Din. Valley—John’s Marriage Plans!” Neither he nor Louise was happy; the bride-elect was seventeen, a junior at Van Nuys High School, and scarcely mature enough for marriage. Neither, for that matter, was Johnny, who, at age twenty-eight, reflected the sheltered nature of his upbringing. “He believes that he lives in a world of peace and dignity and quiet, of gentleness and kindliness and smiling faces,” his father once said of him. “Well, he is going to continue to believe that, so far as it is in my power.” And Johnny did, naive as to the ways of the world, sunny and worry-free and as willful, at times, as a petulant six-year-old. “I think people thought, ‘Well, for goodness’ sake, let him do things himself!’ ” Louise mused in 1972. “I think I probably at times did much more for him than I should have. I went out of my