Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [501]
Mad, Mad World completed Kramer’s commitment to United Artists, and in August 1962 he signed a three-picture deal with Columbia that was to commence with Ship of Fools. Kramer’s second film was to have been Andersonville, an ambitious blending of MacKinlay Kantor’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and the 1959 Broadway play The Andersonville Trial. He worked nearly two years on a screenplay, first with Millard Kaufman, later with Abby Mann, but the commercial failure of Ship of Fools soured his relationship with the studio. “When they budgeted it—and we started to build sets down in Georgia—it was too much money for them. But they had a commitment to me and they said, ‘We’ll go for any picture up to $3 million to get rid of your commitment, to pay you off.’ ”
At the time, Bill Rose was in California, completing work on The Flim Flam Man, a one-off for producer Lawrence Turman and 20th Century-Fox. When told that Andersonville was about to be abandoned, Rose pressed Kramer to do one of his original stories.
I pointed out that I had profited enormously by my standards from our previous association, and that a film I had written the previous year called The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming was also prospering, and that I was in a position to be of service to him and would like to be. Stanley, I recall, said that the difficulty was in finding a story. I assured him I had a hundred stories and urged him to stop thinking in terms of a story and to start thinking in terms of what I call “marquee value.” I recall saying specifically, “Who are the actors with whom you most like to work?” Stanley reflected and mentioned first Spencer Tracy as being the man for whom he had the most respect and affection in the business, but he pointed out that Mr. Tracy had been unwell and had not worked professionally since our first venture, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He said it would be marvelous to have a story which would suit the talents of both Spencer Tracy and Miss Katharine Hepburn. I assured him that such a story would not be difficult to write, and asked what other actors he most enjoyed working with. He then said that his association with Sidney Poitier had been a particularly happy one and that he had great admiration for him. At that point, I said with some enthusiasm that if he got a pretty girl to play the part of Mr. Tracy’s and Miss Hepburn’s daughter he had the entire cast for the racial prejudice comedy which I had been trying to sell him for several years. Stanley was almost totally unimpressed.
Kramer, however, mentioned the idea of combining Tracy, Hepburn, and Poitier in a picture to Mike Frankovich, who was in charge of production at Columbia. “He took the ball,” Kramer said, “and discussed it at New York and we had a carte blanche on the material.” He then spoke to Tracy: “I decided to go ahead with that idea of Rose’s that I talked to you a long time about. He’s very enthusiastic about it and I don’t feel I can make the picture without you.”
Tracy said, “I’m in.”
“I want Kate to do that other part,” Kramer added. He spoke to Hepburn later that same day.
I said that I thought it was possible that the woman’s role was as good or better than the role I was asking Tracy to play. Her response to that was, “Well, it doesn’t have to be if he’s going to do it and if the role is at all reasonable, you know, I’d be interested in certainly doing it.” I mentioned to them at the time that I hoped to speak to Sidney Poitier sometime directly after that, and that I was hopeful I could get him to play the part because I don’t know who else I would want for it, and his part might not be as large as theirs in the film, so it bothered me as to whether or not he would take it. But I said I would certainly, on my own background with him,