Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [483]
“I had a friend—I went to Marquette with him—named Jerry Zimmermann,” Frank Tracy said.
[H]e was an associate editor at Look. Well, he did a lot of traveling. And, [since] he and his wife were from Milwaukee, they used to get back and forth. Whenever he came through town he’d call me; we’d have lunch or dinner, a drink, or something. He came through one day about 1960 or so, and he said, “Do you know Bill Davidson?” I said, “No, I never heard of him. Who is he?” He said, “He works for Look. He’s a full-time, part-time kind of guy, but he’s on the payroll. I see him from time to time. We share information on stories we’re doing and so on. He told me he’s doing a piece for Look on Spencer Tracy.” I said, “Oh yeah?” Nodded. “It’s going to be a Spencer Tracy–Katharine Hepburn story.” I said, “Ohhh.” He said, “I’ve not seen it, but he’s talked to me about it. The Tracy family ain’t gonna like this.” I said, “Would it do any good—should I talk to him?” He said, “Oh Christ, no, don’t talk to him. He’s a bastard. He’d be all over you, he’ll never let go of you. He’d follow you to your grave. He has a technique of making something serious or horrible … he develops things that way. Everything he’s ever written is written in that vein. He’s a real son of a bitch. You want to stay away from him. But I just thought I’d let you know that this is coming. It ain’t gonna be good. I think it’s a series. Brace yourself. This is going to be a firecracker.” So I called Carroll. They knew about it, they knew something was in the works. I got the impression that Carroll didn’t understand that it was going to involve Hepburn, because he kind of said, “Ohhh.” Something like that.
“In 1960,” recalled Eddie Lawrence, “I was back [in New York] and I went up to see Katharine, you know, just as a courtesy to see her, and she was really quite disturbed. Tracy was going to do a cover story for Look, and Katharine said, ‘I just feel worried that they’re going to use the story about Spencer and me.’ I said, ‘Look, if [editorial director] Dan Mich, as you tell me, has agreed that Spence has rights to look at the story, you don’t have a thing to worry about. He’s not going to break it. It’s unusual in the first place that Look would ever let you see the story.’ ”
Bill Davidson and Look had parted company over the writer’s outside assignments and his practice of inflating expense reports. By the fall of 1960, his name was gone from the masthead as a contributing editor and he was working at McCall’s. Warned by Pete Martin that Davidson was “a sneering son of a bitch,” Tracy sailed for England with Hepburn just after Christmas 1961, the ship carrying Noël Coward, Victor Mature, and Sir Ralph Richardson and his wife among its 122 first-class passengers. When Look hit the stands a month later, readers were surprised by the relentlessly negative tone of the piece.
“At 61,” the profile began, “Spencer Tracy is ornery, cantankerous, sometimes overbearing, sometimes thoughtless. He is a rebel, a loner, a man of mystery who occasionally disappears for weeks at a time. Little of his behavior has been reported in newspapers. Yet he has been the object of nationwide hunts by his studios. During his appearance in more than a hundred plays and films, he has led an unorthodox private life, has staged violent revolts against his producers and directors, and wrecked studio sets.”
Davidson went on to sketch Tracy’s early life, largely drawing the details from clipping files and studio-compiled bios. Tracy’s discovery of John’s deafness was misportrayed, and most of the revelatory statements in the piece were attributed to conveniently anonymous sources. One “friend” explained how Tracy’s drive to help his son “overcome his handicap” increased his natural tendency to escape his problems and contributed to his “roistering” in Hollywood. “John’s deafness also helped bring Spence and Louise together,” the friend continued, “but, paradoxically enough, it set up a situation that drove them apart and led him to seek the companionship of Katharine