Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [465]
Sinatra got itchy as filming progressed; occasionally he would refuse to do a close-up or make an additional take, and on one such occasion, apologized to the cast and crew by cooking a spaghetti dinner.
“The problem,” said Jean-Pierre Aumont, “was that Sinatra would only work in the afternoon. In the morning he hired a private plane and hopped from island to island trying to convince the startled inhabitants to vote for Kennedy in the next presidential election. Around two o’clock he returned, exhausted, at the precise moment when Tracy was retiring for the day to his rooms. How, in these conditions, the scenes between Tracy and Sinatra were shot is a mystery to me.”
Sinatra’s shifting moods were well known within the industry. According to his longtime valet-aide George Jacobs, the singer developed a serious fixation on Kate when he saw her in the see-through tank suit she wore during her sunrise swims in the ocean. One night toward the end of the shoot, Jacobs was called upon to cook dinner for Tracy and Hepburn as Sinatra’s guests for the evening. “It could be that Mr. S was feeling particularly horny and frustrated, because he was extra edgy that night. When I served the spaghetti marinara, which I had made a million times for him, he tasted it, started raving that it wasn’t al dente, and picked up the bowl and threw the pasta all over me and my white jacket. This was the only time he had ever abused me, but once was enough. Tracy and Hepburn were so appalled that they left immediately, while Sinatra cleared the table by smashing all the dishes.”
When the company returned to Los Angeles, another eight weeks of shooting remained—far more than anyone, particularly Sinatra, had anticipated. Tracy’s promotional plans for Inherit the Wind got scuttled, and the film had to make its New York and L.A. debuts with just Kramer and the UA promotions team in support.
In Manhattan, it opened to solid business at the Astor and the Trans-Lux on Eighty-fifth Street, but neither venue was at capacity, despite another round of exceptional notices. (Bosley Crowther called it “one of the most brilliant and engrossing displays of acting ever witnessed on the screen.”) Said Kramer, “[I]n many of the first run houses, in order to get the terms we wanted, which I think was, let’s say, above average, I had to run sneak previews in order to show theater managers how an audience would react to these fellows going at it, and the audience reaction was so marvelous, in a matter of seconds so much better than any other picture I’ve ever been associated with. I mean by an audience reaction that upon eight or ten occasions breaking into a wild applause during the film.”
Yet the film failed everywhere—a bitter disappointment. “It was a double disappointment because United Artists had said, ‘Look, we don’t want you to make this film. You’re making it with two old men—Tracy and March—nobody wants to see them. You’ll never get a woman in the theater. You’ll never get any feminine audience whatever.’ ” By the time the picture had its Hollywood opening at Grauman’s Chinese, the industry had written it off as a flop.
The cornerstone of Tracy’s anticipated campaign on Kramer’s behalf was an interview with a feature writer for Look named Bill Davidson. Tracy didn’t know Davidson, hadn’t seen his work, and only agreed to sit for him at Kramer’s request. According to Joe Hyams, Davidson was “a good reporter,” but when Inherit the Wind failed to generate any heat at the box office, it looked as if the magazine would kill the story, holding Davidson’s