Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [442]
As his father was making the final shots for The Old Man and the Sea, John Tracy was on the witness stand in Los Angeles Superior Court, giving testimony in the divorce action he had brought against his estranged wife, charging her with mental cruelty and seeking custody of their child. Nadine Tracy testified that John had treated her as a servant and that he had repulsed her after the birth of their son. “If I put my arm around him he would say, ‘Let me alone.’ ” She told the court that on the day they separated, she took the baby with her on a shopping trip and returned to find that John had cleared out. A custody agreement had already been arrived at, leaving only the financial issues to be resolved when they met in court on August 28.
On the stand, Johnny’s excellent lipreading skills failed him and he struggled to make himself understood. Louise volunteered her services, relaying questions in a way he could easily read and “interpreting” the answers he gave. He told the court that he had never been employed but that he hoped to become an artist. He said that his income came primarily from a trust left by his maternal grandfather, and that during the marriage his father had made him an allowance of seventy-five dollars and then later one hundred dollars a month. He indicated that he would not oppose Nadine’s being granted the divorce on her cross complaint, and the judge directed him to pay seventy-five-dollars’ monthly alimony and one hundred dollars in child support, less than half the $472 Nadine had sought. Spence took the family to dinner at Romanoff’s that evening, noting ruefully in his book that John had dropped ten pounds over the course of the ordeal.
Kate, meanwhile, was in Stratford, fulfilling the commitment to the American Shakespeare Festival she had originally made for the 1956 season. Under Jack Landau’s direction, her fiery Portia, first seen on the Old Vic’s Australian tour, was a sensation—eloquent and graceful and enthusiastically received by most of the morning papers. When Spence promised to come back for Much Ado About Nothing, she was giddy with excitement.
“She spoke of him openly,” the festival’s artistic director, John Houseman, remembered, “and always with a mingling of loyalty, tenderness, and admiration. We all shared this admiration and hoped that he would presently appear among us. Several times that summer, Kate joyfully announced his imminent arrival, then reported that he had been detained or prevented. Finally, during Much Ado, the great day came when Kate, with a young girl’s enthusiasm, proclaimed that this time Spencer was really coming. His plane ticket was bought and all the arrangements were made. On the evening of his arrival—carefully chosen as an Othello day—she drove off alone, in a state of high excitement that she made no attempt to conceal, to [Idlewild] Airport to meet him.”
Tracy’s datebook shows that he made an attempt to talk to John on September 13. (“Out of it,” he recorded, “no luck …”) He boarded an American Airlines flight for New York the next morning, arriving on the East Coast at five o’clock. His entry for the day includes a word that suggests the scene Kate must have encountered upon her arrival: “Load.” He was bundled off to the Sherry-Netherland, where the room, he noted, was air-cooled. His entry for the next day, September 15, contains just three words: “missed Stratford” and then again the word “load.” Humiliated, Hepburn told the company that Tracy had missed his flight.
“He never did appear,” said Houseman.
Officially, Tracy was in New York on the first leg of a publicity tour that was to take him to Europe in advance of The Old Man and the Sea. The Kanins, who were to accompany him to Montecatini, found it impossible to book space on the S.S. Independence but promised to follow in a few days aboard the Île-de-France. Tracy himself noted three continuous days of drinking at the Sherry-Netherland, having placed himself in Dr. Stock’s expert care. He slept most of September