Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [91]
The picture was a surprise hit, opening as it did between two much fancier Fox productions, the $2 million widescreen epic The Big Trail and the futuristic musical Just Imagine. Louise thought the film terrifically funny—particularly a safecracking scene with Warren Hymer loafing and listening to the radio while Tracy did the dirty work—but Spence’s reaction was sharper, more critical, and he couldn’t quite fall into the lighthearted mood of the crowd. “I thought I was the worst actor I had ever seen on the screen,” he later said of the experience. “I was surprised that Ford and the Fox officials didn’t remake the picture.”
The Last Mile ended its New York run after thirty-six weeks, and Tracy left for Chicago on November 1. Johnny’s left leg had improved steadily—he could now sit on the floor and hitch himself along—and he was back to taking short lessons at home from one of his teachers at the Wright Oral School. Both Spence and Louise thought the play would have a decent run at Chicago’s Harris Theatre, and that there would be plenty of time to pack before the move to Los Angeles. “We decided to store our furniture until we came back,” Louise said. “That we might not come back, except on trips, I do not think ever occurred to either of us.”
The Last Mile got off to a slow start in Chicago, and the company manager posted a closing notice the week of November 10. Then there was an urgent message from Fox asking Spence to come immediately, so he wired Louise and asked if she could meet him in Chicago that following week.
The prospect [Louise wrote] of sorting our various possessions, packing those we might need for the next six months or year, arranging for their shipping, and that of the Ford roadster we had bought the preceding spring, as well as the storing of the furniture, all within a week, and transporting an invalid child who could not even stand, as well as a still unbroken Irish Setter puppy across the continent, with an overnight stop in Chicago, and, at the end of the trip, finding a place to live, more doctors, and a teacher for John, well might have filled me with dismay. But, except for a faint picture of myself, telegram in hand, wondering why it was men always happened to be someplace else when there was any moving, and thinking this would be the scramble to end all scrambles, I remember no particular emotion. I knew we would make it somehow. We always did.
In Chicago the closing notice stayed up all of forty minutes, then it was removed on orders from New York. Two days later, a letter from Fox set Tracy’s start date at December 1, promising twenty weeks at $750 a week and commencing with a six-week layoff period. He would be expected to report to work in Los Angeles on January 11, 1931. With the play set to move from the Harris to the smaller Princess, he started dickering with both Shumlin and Equity to get out of town on a two-week notice.
When Johnny’s doctor heard they were leaving New York, he told Louise he would like an orthopedist to examine the child and it was arranged. After he had carried the boy from the waiting room into his office, the orthopedist asked Louise what she thought the trouble was. She said, “Polio.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “Polio!” he exclaimed. “How long ago?”
“Three months.”
“And you mean nothing has been done for him up to now?”
She told him her story, ending with the news that they would be leaving for California in a few days. He told her he could do nothing in three days, and that he should have seen the boy when the attack first occurred. He wrote down the name of a doctor in Los Angeles. “He is one of the two finest men on the coast, and, I believe, the finest. Don’t waste a moment after you reach there before making an appointment. Tell whomever you talk to in his