Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [521]
And in Moscow, the Soviet director Sergei Gerasimov, writing in the government newspaper Izvestia, eulogized him as one of the great artists of the modern cinema. “By remaining true to himself, Spencer Tracy opened for many persons the best traits of his people … Soviet audiences came to love him for his manly sincerity, his just, kind, and somewhat sad view on the intricate world around him.”
* * *
1 Frank was under the impression the falling out had something to do with Tribute to a Bad Man, but, if it did, neither man ever mentioned it. Cagney disputed Garson Kanin’s assertion that he and Tracy lost touch because it was he who stopped calling. “Bullshit,” Cagney said in an exchange with his biographer, John McCabe. “I had hardly ever called him because he was almost never at the number I was given, and so it became a kind of ritual between us that he would call me. At any hour of day or night … As for my calling him less and less, again bullshit. He started to call me less and less, I always assumed for reasons of health. Pat said that he began to get fewer calls too, and there was no one closer to Spence than Pat. And as to Kanin’s implying that Spence and I were at loggerheads because Spence was liberal and I became a Republican, triple bullshit. Spence always respected other people’s moral and political commitments even if they were a hundred and eighty degrees different from his—as long as those commitments were honestly held, as mine certainly were. Spence was not only a great actor, he was a great heart, and a great heart does not turn away from old friends because they are different from you.”
2 Tracy later told an interviewer that he remembered Maggie Sullavan’s supposed response when offered a Hardy Family picture: “I’ll do one when it is titled Death Comes to Andy Hardy.” Said Tracy: “And I’ll do a Batman when it’s called, ‘Death Comes to Batman.’ ”
3 In all fairness, Hepburn would likely have “sized up” any prospective costar she didn’t already know personally. “I think Kate always gave her co-stars the once-over inspection,” said Katharine Houghton. “I know she did with Nick Nolte because I saw it.”
4 Houghton recalled her mother’s warning when she left for Los Angeles: “Watch out for Kate—she’ll knock you down so that she can pick you up.”
CHAPTER 34
A Humble Man
* * *
The last time she saw him was in profile. He was laid out in an open casket for the Rosary on Sunday night. His strong Irish face had diminished with the years, the thick brown hair of his youth now white and closely cropped. Both Susie and Louise remarked on how much better he looked than he had the previous morning. Had the mortician touched him up? Given him the coating of base he had tried to avoid his entire professional life? The scene seemed surreal, formal, quiet, and airless, not at all like Knocko Minihan’s wake, where he might have been more at home, Jimmy Gleason greeting the guests, Ed Brophy, Frank McHugh, and Wally Ford mingling among them, keeping the liquor flowing and passing the hat for the widow. There were a lot of flowers on display, bushels of them, and Dorothy went around checking the tags. On some of the arrangements the tags had been removed, and she found later that these were the tributes Katharine Hepburn had sent. Earlier, Kate had come to the vigil and she had placed a little painting of flowers under his feet.
The priest led the mourners in prayer for the soul of the departed, candles flanking the casket, a gold crucifix on display. After