Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [497]
In discussing the script, Hepburn thought her part underwritten, and there was “challenging Yankee flint” behind every remark she made.
Tracy seemed amused by all this—and then interrupted her. It was done softly, with a smile. He called her “Kathy.” He told her he was sure that we got the point, because she had been “emphatic” as usual. She smiled, turned to us, and said that as a peace offering she’d make some tea. Tracy then gave his notes. It was a completely different experience. His questions and remarks were all carefully thought out and non-combative. They were specific, focused on character—on how Leander served the story in certain scenes and on how he related to other characters. He was interested in emotional detail. His copy was marked with tabs, and he suggested moments from the novel. Would we consider including them in the next draft? We agreed to do that. It was a wonderful demonstration of a real actor at the work of breaking down a script.
The Wapshot project never came to fruition, nor did a proposed series of six one-hour specials titled The Red, White & Blue that would have marked Tracy’s network television debut. With no other prospects for work, he and Hepburn settled into a period of quiet domesticity. Kate painted and wrote, while Tracy read a great deal—everything from Pope John’s Journal of a Soul to the murder mysteries he would then send on to Louise. (“He would go through half a dozen in a week,” Louise said. “He had a standing order with the bookstore.”) Lunches were sometimes with friends, dinners were often quiet affairs served on trays in front of the TV set. “We led a tiny little life,” Kate wrote in her autobiography. “But it was very satisfactory. I felt very necessary to [him] and I really did enjoy that immensely. At a time when most ladies of my age were falling apart because they were no longer desirable—either personally or career-wise—I was wanted every hour of the day and night.”
She had to get away sometimes—to the beach, for tennis, shopping. On May 7, Tracy called Dr. Covel after stuffing himself with five hot dogs. “His diet was terrible most of the time until Kate took over. Five hot dogs! I don’t know whether he was compulsive or impulsive…[He had] indigestion. He thought he was having heart problems, or a heart attack. It was just—dog-itis! Hotdogitis.” The patient’s blood sugar was also intolerably high. “He had a blood sugar of 200 when normally it shouldn’t be above 110. Part of the reason was that he was drinking Cokes all the time, and they’re full of sugar. My advice to him then, among other things, was to switch to Diet-Rite Cola and Dad’s Low-Cal Root Beer.”
On June 23, he found Tracy upset by the death of David Selznick, who had suffered a heart attack at the age of sixty-three. “I just had to go over to him and talk to him,” said Dr. Covel, “and calm him down.” Abdominal cramps were frequent, as were urinary tract infections. In late August 1965 Tracy was admitted to Good Samaritan for tests and observation and the possibility of routine prostate surgery.
He underwent a prostatectomy on September 4, a Saturday, and for the next ten days his condition was generally regarded as good. Louise visited regularly, as did Kate, their comings and goings carefully monitored by Carroll, who staked out a place in the lobby to ensure no awkward encounters took place.
On the morning of September 14 Tracy was groggy, then semiconscious; by three in the afternoon his skin was mottled,