Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [517]
That morning Hepburn had handed Marshall Schlom an envelope. He pocketed it, didn’t open it until they had finished work for the day. Inside were a check for one hundred dollars and a handwritten note:
Dear Marshall
With thanks and thanks and more thanks—for doing my duties—please get something you want— you deserve it—
With affectionate gratitude from us both— ST and KH
That evening a party for the cast and crew was held on Stage 8. “The party, accordingly, had a valedictory tone,” Charles Champlin wrote, “and there were lumps in the throat and tears which the good food and drink couldn’t set aside.” Hepburn explained Tracy’s absence by saying, “He gets too sentimental at things like this.” Kramer was uncharacteristically emotional, at one point on the verge of tears: “Have you ever seen an era end? Tracy was originally a legit actor, but he has become the greatest ‘movie actor.’ When I go out, I’d like to go out like he did.”
Kate addressed the crowd, paying tribute to Kramer and to the people behind the scenes. “You are the people who make an actor able to act,” she told them. “I don’t know how many of you realize that. But I shall be everlastingly grateful to you. I know that your help made a helluva lot of difference to Spence.”
Tracy, meanwhile, was home working the phone, elated, relieved, and a little surprised by it all. “Finished!” he cried as Garson Kanin came on the line. “Do you believe it? I don’t. I was betting against myself all the way. I owe me a fortune. I may welch. But finished. Are you impressed?”
“No,” Gar replied. “What impressed me was you starting.”
“I get it,” he said. “Everybody’s down at the party. Both Kathies—everybody.”
“Why not you?”
“Hell, no. Too emotional. This is it. The Big Wrap-Up. I’ve retired.”
“You should have gone to the party.”
“I thought I might, but then right after the last shot today, Stanley said, ‘That’s the one!’ and I knew it was over and we shook hands and he started to cry and so did I, and I figured the hell with it and came home. I think I’ve got about five beers in me! But did you hear me, Jasper? I finished the picture!”
“He was very pleased,” said Louise. “He was very funny [when he came around] the next day. We were all sitting around talking about finishing it, and he said, ‘I told Stanley if I died tomorrow he had the picture. He had enough.’ He didn’t think there would be any retakes. He said, ‘He’s got the whole thing.’ He said, ‘I didn’t think I would make it.’ He pulled out a wad of bills and he said, ‘There. I’ve gotten my first payment.’ He gave us all a nice fat bill. ‘There,’ he said. He was very tired.”
And so he settled back into his cloistered existence in the cottage on St. Ives, still tossing and turning and struggling to sleep. “No bunk—no makeup—no over-interest in clothes—only a few rather pathetic personal treasures,” Kate would later write. “His Carrara marble Madonna made for him and given to him by the carvers at Carrara—a book signed, given to him by Bob Kennedy—a little silver orchestra given to him by Stanley Kramer—‘May your music play on and on’—an old tweed coat—a comfortable pair of shoes—an old hat given to him by Jack Ford—his chair—his car—his few dear friends. He was like a lion in a cage. You gave him meat, he ate the meat. You gave him water, he drank the water and then he walked up and down, up and down in the cage of life, looking out, and in those eyes you saw the jungle—the freedom—the fear—the affection—unblinking, unguarded.”
On May 27, Dr. Covel found him “depressed and very anxious” because of recurrent episodes of shortness of breath. “He was very anxious about that: Why was this happening?” He was better over Memorial Day, seemed to be regaining some strength. At the behest of a news magazine, he was asked to confirm his