Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [392]
Tracy began a sixteen-week vacation on June 16, traveling to New York to meet up with the Hemingways, who were preparing to sail for Europe, and to undergo what had become his annual checkup routine at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He considered doing The High and the Mighty, an original story for the screen about a seemingly doomed airliner for Duke Wayne’s production company, Wayne-Fellows, but was put off by the knowledge that Bill Wellman would be directing the picture. “It’s a real, honest story, just full of enthusiasm,” Wellman said. “And Tracy read it and thought it was lousy, wouldn’t do it.” Reluctantly, Wayne ended up playing the role of the pilot himself and the picture became one of the outstanding commercial hits of 1954. It also garnered six Academy Award nominations, including one for Wellman as Best Director.
Tracy, it seemed, wasn’t much interested in doing anything other than The Old Man and the Sea, and due to Hemingway’s travel schedule—which pretty much obliterated the rest of the year—that wasn’t going to be possible anytime in the immediate future. Kanin, who with Ruth was spending the summer on the French Riviera, implored him to come join them at Cap Ferrat: “I am absolutely convinced that you would love it here, and that the climate and atmosphere would be highly beneficial. Good food and pasteurized milk abounds, and what you would love most of all would be the peace of it.”
On August 1, Tracy compliantly notified Metro that he was going to Europe, first to Cannes to see the Kanins, then on to Paris and London. Ten days later, with Tracy already in France, Louella Parsons phoned Eddie Mannix to check the persistent rumor that M-G-M was buying out Tracy’s contract. “Far from it,” Mannix told her, confirming instead that Metro would be releasing Old Man as Tracy’s picture to follow The Actress (as Fame and Fortune had come to be titled). Parsons, however, was aware of Tracy’s growing disgruntlement with the studio and went on to report that he and M-G-M would be ending their “long and happy association of over 18 years” after he completed the two remaining pictures on his contract. Hedda Hopper, apparently noting the Parsons item, mentioned Bad Day at Honda as a story purchase for Tracy, naming Sam Zimbalist as producer and George Sidney as director. “Looks like Spence’s co-starring days with Katharine Hepburn are over,” she wrote with obvious satisfaction.
The Kanins were waiting when Tracy stepped off the boat at Cannes, and they all drove back together to Cap Ferrat. Tracy fell in love with the place immediately, and they were all splashing around in the Mediterranean before noon. “It’s no more than what we deserve,” he said contentedly, settling in for a stay of indeterminate length. Home was Les Rochers, the villa that Paris Singer, an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, had built for dancer Isadora Duncan. The food gave him trouble at first—his ulcer was acting up—but the next morning he was up early and off to Mass. “He didn’t speak one word of French,” Kanin commented, “but, still, he went to church that morning and came back quite happy.”
Tracy mailed an oversized picture postcard of the historic village to Louise in California. “This is it,” he wrote. “Old Florentine, brought piece by piece. Fabulous swim Mediterranean outside door. Good trip. Present fighting pylorics, etc., but have hopes for this. Swim, long walk yesterday.”
He seemed to be having such a marvelous time that Gar gingerly raised the possibility of his ending the “shocking routine” of too much coffee, Dexedrine, and sleeping pills at night. He wasn’t defensive, as Kanin might have feared, and promised to make