Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [506]
Actress Karen Sharpe, who had recently become Stanley Kramer’s third wife, recalled that the choice came down to Mariette Hartley, who, at twenty-six, was in the proper age range, and Katharine Houghton. “I said, ‘What does she look like? And can she act?’ He said, ‘Well, she looks a little bit like Kate.’ I said, ‘Take her. Use her.’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because she’s her niece. It’s great for the film; it’s great publicity. Why not do it? She’s got Kate and Spence, and she’s got you. You’re the director—do it.’ ”
Houghton was set for the film in late January 1967. According to Abe Lastfogel, her aunt reviewed and approved her deal, which included options on four additional pictures. “She’s a bloody lucky girl,” Hepburn said, “to be starting with Spence.”
The screenplay had been finalized and Kramer’s production manager, Ivan Volkman, was working out the shooting schedule when Tracy suffered another attack of pulmonary edema on the morning of February 19. “He’d been pretty well controlled with his heart medications and his diet,” Dr. Covel said, “[but] he’d been off his diet, had been taking an extra amount of salt, which helps to precipitate heart failure. You take an overload of salt. Part of the treatment of heart failure is to restrict the salt and get rid of the extra salt in the body with diuretics. He’d go off his diet and eat something he liked … He awakened with shortness of breath … took some coffee and went back to bed and was again short of breath. He called his housekeeper for oxygen. She was unable to start it and he panicked and became severely short of breath. The rescue squad was called, and I was called … He was treated with morphine intravenously, and by twelve noon he was back to normal.”
The episode made the papers on the twenty-first, prompting Tracy to call the doctor, worried he was putting Kramer and the studio at too great a risk. “I went over to the house to see him. He was fine … I thought he could work if it could be properly controlled.” At first Kramer assumed Tracy to be uninsurable. Then two insurance doctors consulted with Dr. Covel and it looked as if he could be insured, but at the astronomical premium of $71,000. (By comparison, the cast insurance premium for Mad World, covering thirteen artists, including Tracy, was $193,820.) With insurance and neither Tracy nor Hepburn accepting compensation until their scenes had been completed, Frankovich and Stulberg were willing to take the risk.
Then came the matter of billing. Tracy would, of course, be billed first above the title, but for the first time in their nine pictures together, Hepburn’s name would not be next to his—Sidney Poitier’s would. Graciously, the younger man had ceded first position to Tracy but held firm to second billing, despite Kramer’s having spoken with him, at Kate’s insistence, about letting her split the two men “just for balance.” Aside from being Hollywood’s only black leading man, Poitier was also Hollywood’s only black movie star. Arguably, he was a bigger draw at the box office than either Tracy or Hepburn. Kate, however, thought it only appropriate, given their history, that she and Spence be billed side by side and was likely nursing a grudge the day the forty-year-old actor was brought to the birdcage for an initial meeting.
“When I arrived at her door and that door opened, she looked at me and didn’t say a word and didn’t crack a smile,” Poitier recalled. “But that was her M.O. After the longest while she said, ‘Hello, Mr. Poitier,’ and I said, ‘Hello, Miss Hepburn,’ and the conversation began. I could tell I was being sized up every time I spoke, every response I made. I could imagine a plus and a minus column, notations in her mind. That’s how big a step this was for her, at least to my mind.3