Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [417]
Hepburn was also working her way through the loss of Constance Collier, her almost daily phone calls, her wires and letters. “We miss Constance so much,” Theresa Helburn wrote her, “I realize what her loss must mean to you. You have really lost two mothers in a comparatively short time. But at least you had two wonderful ones.”
There was more to discuss than strictly personal matters. Through Bert Allenberg, Kate was negotiating with Hal Wallis to play Lizzie Curry in Paramount’s adaptation of The Rainmaker. Wallis wanted to pay $135,000, but Hepburn was holding out for $150,000 and director approval. (Wallis would not agree to a deferred deal, similar to the one Hepburn made for The African Queen, in which she would accept half her normal fee up front in exchange for a cut of the profits.) She would talk with Tracy by phone, then Tracy would relay her messages to Allenberg.
“Spence told me today about his talk with you and your approval of the financial terms and your strong feeling about the director,” Allenberg wrote her on July 15, “hence, I will attempt to make the deal on the basis of you having full director approval.”
In London the year before, Jane Feely had said: “Someday I may need you.” And now she did. In a call from Seattle, she relayed the news that her eighty-one-year-old mother, Spence’s beloved aunt Jenny, was in the hospital, gravely ill with cancer of the esophagus. She asked that he come to Renton, and instantly word came back that he would.
“Practically the next day, the arrangements were made,” Jane said.
He was going to come by himself, which was unusual. I had not thought to say, “You come, too, Carroll.” And I think that hurt Carroll’s feelings. Carroll, of course, was the one that you always talked to in order to get in touch with Spence … A broken hip was what put [my mother] in the hospital, and then they did the exploratory things, checked and found out that she had the cancer … One of the nurses said, “We have a patient down there in room twenty-three, and she thinks that she’s related to Spencer Tracy.” They were kind of watching her, you know? And so the next day he arrived, and that nurse was flabbergasted.
They had a couple of good visits in the hospital. My mother had a tremendous sense of humor. When she first saw him, she said to him, deadpan, “Have you got work?” I think he liked talking with her, maybe more than he did with his own mother, because his mother was a very sad person; she mourned the loss of her husband until she died. I think also that he was a little afraid of her, and he certainly didn’t want to offend her in any way.
When the subject turned to Carroll, he echoed the words he had once spoken to Frank Tracy: “Carroll … I don’t know what to do about Carroll. Carroll should have gone back to Wakashan, had his own life, his own success …”
“He was a great success as a husband!” Jenny Tracy interjected. Spence’s face, Jane recalled, was stricken at the remark.
They went on to talk about family and about the old days, and she did not ever, either in my hearing or when they had a private talk, talk about [the fact that] she knew she was dying. I’m certain she did [know], but, in our family, nobody told anybody that anyone was sick or dying. I think it took an awful lot more out of him than I had any idea that it did. I didn’t realize how stressful it was for him to get on a plane by himself, come over here into a strange area.
I had dinner with him at the Olympic Hotel—we didn’t go into the dining room, we had dinner in a suite—and we had a good visit about Ireland, and how fun it had been. We talked, because I was thinking, “What am I going to do?” He said, “You don’t worry. You need a cushion, and here is the beginning of it.” And he left a check for two or three thousand dollars. “Don’t have any worries about taking care of her. Do whatever you have to do.”
I went to the airport with him when he left. We stopped to have a cup of coffee at the counter. It was amazing—nobody approached