Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [494]
“Yeah, I’ve dropped 35 pounds,” he told the AP’s Bob Thomas, downplaying his various bouts of illness. “Now I can’t understand how I was able to pack all that weight around. How did I get rid of it? Just by cutting down on the chow. And I get some exercise every day. I’ve got a dog, and we go for long walks in the country.” He played along with the notion that he was studying Kramer’s technique as a director, but nobody took him very seriously. “Stanley’s as good or better than any director I’ve worked with. And I’ve worked with some of the great ones. I learned a lot watching Stanley work these last few weeks. The main thing it takes to be a director is patience. And I just don’t have the patience. I may never direct a picture.” He cast an appreciative glance toward twenty-four-year-old Elizabeth Ashley. “I really come down here to look at the girls.”
One day he was sitting with Marshall Schlom when an unfamiliar man approached with a dog-eared roll of paper. “Mr. Tracy,” the man began, offering him the roll, “I’m from M-G-M …” Tracy accepted the sheet and began uncurling an oversized print of a photograph so wide that Marshall had to take one edge in his right hand as Tracy held the other in his left. Before them was a group picture of the Metro star roster, sixty-five world-famous faces gathered for Louis B. Mayer’s birthday in 1943. There, seated front and center, was the old man, flanked by Kate on one side, Greer Garson on the other. Tracy himself was in the second row, directly behind the studio boss, clad still in the leather flight jacket he wore in A Guy Named Joe, Wallace Beery was to his right, Walter Pidgeon his left, the entire M-G-M galaxy (sans Gable) surrounding them.
“The studio is coming up on its fortieth anniversary…,” the man began, but Tracy seemed transfixed, taking in the images of Red Skelton, Hedy Lamarr, Van Johnson, Irene Dunne, Lewis Stone, Lucille Ball, June Allyson, Lionel Barrymore, Jimmy Stewart, Marilyn Maxwell, Mickey Rooney, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Benchley, Donna Reed, Esther Williams, Bill Powell, dozens of others. “We’d like to restage this photograph, with everyone sitting exactly where they were twenty years ago, and leaving the chairs empty for those who have passed away.”
By this time, Tracy was ignoring the man completely, lost in thought and a cascade of memories. Finally, leaning in toward Marshall, an impish grin crept over his face. After a moment he began to point with his free hand. “Her,” he said warmly, indicating one of the actresses in the front row. “Her,” he added, pointing to another. “Her…,” he continued. “And her …”
By August, Martin Ransohoff had a director in Sam Peckinpah. “I thought that The Cincinnati Kid had the feel of a western,” Ransohoff said, “and felt that Sam would give that kind of feel to it. I was interested in doing a gunfight with a deck of cards; The Cincinnati Kid was almost a romantic western.” Paddy Chayefsky couldn’t see it that way, having written it more as a character study. On August 3, Ransohoff and Peckinpah came to see Tracy, admitting they had no script. Alternatives to Chayefsky were discussed—Ring Lardner, Dalton Trumbo. As Hepburn noted, Tracy was “not too impressed” with Ransohoff, and two days later, while taking a phone call from the producer’s secretary, he said the hell with it. Ransohoff managed to reengage him over the search for a girl to play Christian, and Tracy was persuaded to drive to the studio one day to watch a test made of Sharon Tate, a young actress Ransohoff had under personal contract. He had, however, lost so much weight that Joe Cohn, one of