Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [435]
“For one thing,” Scheuer wrote, “Tracy’s portrayal (and movie) undoubtedly had its merits, though I was hard put to discover many of them when the film was first released in 1941 and I would hardly call it a masterpiece today. It was, I felt, inferior to the Jekyll-Hyde of Fredric March in 1932 and even to that of John Barrymore as far back as 1920, and I would have confided as much to everybody within earshot, if anybody had been there to listen.”
To Henry Ephron, the reaction was obvious and easy to imagine. “I could see the whole scene: Spencer reads the L.A. Times, gets violently angry, and then reads the script in no mood to read a script. Soooo, it was no surprise to me when Kate showed up Monday morning and said, ‘Spencer wants out. How about Fred Astaire?’ ” Ephron called Buddy Adler, who not only wasn’t interested in Fred Astaire, but didn’t even want Hepburn if Tracy wasn’t part of the package. He went back to Kate and asked for a group meeting as soon as possible: “I’m sure that if all three of us talk to him, we’ll get him back in the picture.”
The meeting the next morning was little more than a rally, a rousing pep talk orchestrated along the lines of what the Hacketts—Albert and Frances—had recommended when Ephron called them for advice. “Phoebe, Walter, and I said, in as many ways as we could, ‘You’re a great actor. No one else can play the part. Without you the picture is nothing.’ Within an hour he said, ‘Okay, kids. I’m not trying to get votes. Just pay me my money when the picture is over.’ Strangely, Hepburn seemed a little sad. She wanted him in the picture, but she also wanted him to be strong and not so susceptible to flattery.”
Shooting was set to begin Christmas week in Manhattan, the location work timed to the seasonal look of the city. Told by his friend Denny to take off twenty-five pounds, Tracy committed to dropping thirteen pounds in twenty-four days, putting him at 198 for the formal start of production on January 14. With Bogart’s condition worsening, Tracy feared he would be caught out of town when the end came.
“Call from Betty Bogart to call [their business manager] Morgan Maree!” he wrote in his book on December 14. “Talk of Memorial Service for Bogie! Deliver eulogy?!? WOW! Could be any day—could be 3 mos? To see Bogie (seemed same??) Betty discuss[es] his death.”
Reluctantly, Tracy left by rail for New York on the twenty-first, choosing the Hotel Westbury in lieu of the Pierre, the scene of his last bender. On Christmas Eve he dined alone at the Westbury but met Garson Kanin afterward for coffee. On Christmas Day he attended eight o’clock Mass at St. Vincent’s Cathedral—Kate was in Connecticut—and ate dinner in front of the TV set at the hotel.
A publicity gimmick had Hepburn screening the young New York actresses tentatively selected for Desk Set, some of whom would go on to California for testing. Blond Dina Merrill had trained at the American Academy; Kate and Fox casting director Billy Gordon had seen her on television with Phil Silvers. Sue Randall, likewise trained at the academy, had her own fifteen-minute soap opera, Valiant Lady, on CBS. Ash blond Merry Anders had once been under contract at Fox, while Diane Jergens was something of a TV and movie veteran, a recurring role on The Bob Cummings Show having been her most prominent credit.
Tracy was taking part in the interviews at Fox’s Fifty-sixth Street offices when a call from the coast advised them both that there wasn’t going to be any location work after all. “It would make the picture too expensive,” Ephron later explained, “and by some crazy rule of thumb they had, no Tracy-Hepburn picture should cost over $2 million.”2 As Tracy noted in his book, the savings to the company could amount to as much as $200,000. “Forget New York,” he told Ephron. “We don’t have to walk down Sixth Avenue to do a scene. We’re getting four hundred thousand for this picture, Kate and I, and if we can’t play a scene in front of a black backdrop and get all the laughs there are, we’re stealing your money.”
They left