Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [508]
Tracy appeared the next morning for a makeup test, as the Caucasians in the cast had to wear a dark base to narrow the contrast, for photographic purposes, between their skin tones and those of the African American actors. He then joined Kate on the set to rehearse his first scenes in the picture, the ones in which Matt hears for the first time of Joey and John’s plans to be wed. It would, in some ways, be the most intense three days of rehearsal Tracy had ever endured for a picture, taking his character up to the point where he comes out against the marriage. “In the rehearsals,” Kramer said, “I drained Kate and Spencer. I made them simply give out every single idea, every concept they could. Once I came to shooting, I’d exhausted all the avenues and that was going to be the best I could do.”
“We had some tensions on the picture,” Kramer acknowledged.
I was irritated by [Kate’s] fear over her so-called “ugly neck”—she wore scarves and high collars, and “played low.” Many times she would come in a room and kneel, or sit down at once, so people wouldn’t be aware of her neck. During rehearsal, Tracy would be sitting there; suddenly she’d come in and she’d kneel. He’d say, “What the hell are you doin’ kneeling?” And she’d say, very grandly, “Spencer, I just thought it would be appropriate,” and he’d mock her highfalutin’ accent, saying, “Spensah! Christ, you talk like you’ve got a feather up your ass all the time! Get out of there, will yah?” And she’d start to say, “I just thought that—” and he’d snap out, “Just do what the director guy tells you, will ya?” and she’d reply, humbly, “All right.” She’d take anything from him. She’d take nothing from anybody else, from him everything.
Filming began on March 20 with Joey and John’s arrival at the house and continued chronologically for the balance of the week. Tracy remained sequestered in his home on St. Ives, studying the script and conserving his energy. At night he would enjoy the single Danish beer he permitted himself—“I’m having my one beer,” he would say—and eat supper with Kate and Katharine (whom he called Kath or sometimes “the kid”).
“My aunt had no desire to be a wife,” Houghton remarked. “That was something almost repellent to her. But I think the role of helpmate and companion and ‘significant other’ (or whatever you want to call it) was something she took great pride in. She was very proud of Spencer. She adored him. And she also thought that he was a consummate artist. If she hadn’t felt he was a consummate artist she wouldn’t have been interested in him. It far outweighed any of his other peccadilloes … She always felt that he was a better actor than she was, and she liked that. It comforted her to feel that she was in the presence of somebody who was superior to her.”
Tracy’s work on the picture began with a ten o’clock call on Monday, March 27. Matt enters the house through a side door and encounters Tillie, who, arms waving, tells him, “All hell’s done broke loose now!” In Rose’s script, Drayton bolts through the living room, banging his knee on a table and noisily knocking over some bric-a-brac on his way to the terrace. Tracy eschewed the cheap slapstick for subtler business, playing the scene as a concerned father, slightly befuddled when told an unfamiliar doctor is on the premises. (“The key to Spencer is that he plays with humor always,” said Hepburn. “He sees the ludicrous side to everything.”) He finished at 11:30 and left for the day, leaving the reaction shots and close-ups of the other actors to be played with Marshall Schlom.
The next day was a different story. Invigorated by the work, Tracy stayed until three, completing the first part of the lengthy scene in which Matt meets