Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [49]
“I knew, of course, our child was deaf.”
She was, she said, terror-stricken at first, then a curious wave of relief swept over her. “It was rather like awakening from a nightmare,” she wrote.
Such a thing could not be. There was no reason. One reads about such things, but they did not happen to people one knew. I knew of no deafness ever having existed in either my husband’s family or my own. More substantial arguments rushed to mind. John had a perfectly natural laugh and cry. I remembered he had had all the tiny baby’s first cooing, chirping sounds—those heavenly little early morning sounds. He would lie there, gurgle, wiggle his whole body ecstatically after each effort, then suddenly burst forth again, adding an extra note or quaver in an effort to top the last one. And, as I looked down now into those clear, bright blue eyes and that smiling little face, it did not seem possible that he could not hear. But I could not still the cold, dispassionate voice within me which replied, “All these are but hopes, the straws at which drowning people clutch. He is deaf.”
Over the next few days she tested him incessantly, and each day strengthened her conviction that he heard nothing. She didn’t tell Spence, wanting to spare him the news as long as possible. Besides, she could think of no gentle way of telling him. “Perhaps, when it became necessary to do so, I would know of something that could be done—some treatment, an operation. At least I hoped to have more control over my emotions and some philosophy worked out which might help to soften for him that first shock.”
The Broadway Players began their third season at the Powers on the night of April 12, 1925, the house “packed as it has been packed but few times the past season.” Tracy was greeted warmly as he took the stage in the title role of The Nervous Wreck, as were William Laveau, Halliam Bosworth, and Herbert Treitel, all favorites from the 1924 season. (Director John Ellis, familiar from numerous character parts, slipped so seamlessly into his role that he went completely unnoticed.) Reporting that Tracy had the audience in “constant roars” from his first entrance, Clarence Dean went on to suggest that twenty-two weeks in Brooklyn had knocked the rough edges off a particularly promising newcomer: “Mr. Tracy has gained in poise, in ease, and natural utterance since last seen here, and is therefore more convincing. It is plain to be seen that Mr. Tracy is going to be a big favorite.” The same issue of the Grand Rapids Herald carried an item that said the Washington Players were initiating a policy at the Isis Theatre of giving away “groceries and things.”
Spence unwound after the show, usually at the Greek’s, a little coffee place that served exquisite popcorn, or occasionally at the local speakeasy, a blind pig near Campau Square that kept him out long past midnight. “No amount of arguing could get him into the Pantland Hotel, then the town’s top-ranking after-theatre spot,” said his friend Al Rathbone, who went by “A.D.” and who, along with actor George Fleming, formed the nucleus of a group. “He hated the idea of walking into a public place and having people point him out as their leading man.” Going out was a way of connecting with other men; it was fun, routine, a release after the pressure of a demanding performance. A drink made him more comfortable around other people—women especially—but