Book Choice --- Spencer Tracy by James Curtis

There is an amazing bio of Spencer Tracy just out. I went in the library and cleared out three or so previous ones to make a wide and permanent spot for this near thousand page final word on a Golden Age star who till now hadn't got definitive life story treatment. To that daunting length, I'd add that two thousand pages would have been welcome, more the merrier always my stance where writers good as James Curtis go --- but hold on, how many are so capable as this author of prior (and also best-in-category) W.C. Fields, Preston Sturges, and James Whale life-and-career coverage? Curtis by his account spent seven years on Tracy. What came of that is the best book on Tracy or any filmic figure for a long while to come (or at least till JC's next).



Fox He-Men In Residence Circa 1932 --- George O'Brien and Tracy



Tracy was one of very few movie stars who got recognized for great acting during their lifetime. Most were dismissed for having "played themselves" and many remain stuck in that speed so far as legacy goes. Tracy was said to transcend mere performance toward a naturalness other movie-folk didn't get near. Fellow players were awed just seeing him work, reason why Tracy sets became teacher lab for up-climbing Metro youth. To audiences, he seemed like a regular guy talked occasionally into doing pictures, somehow above stardom's process and disdainful of trappings that entailed. Spence shunned make-up, interviews, personal apps, etc., whenever he could --- the above-such stance woven quick into his public persona. Customers weary of artifice respected him for it. Not for nothing did my own father pick Tracy for a favorite actor, so long as he had to bother thinking about any of Hollywood's phony lot, and I'd bet many other men-folk felt the same.



Tracy with Acolytes Tom Ewell and David Wayne During Adam's Rib Shoot




Spence Subdued Even During a Seventh Cross Prison Break

 Tracy generally let co-stars do the go-getting. Clark Gable was several times the reckless doer to Spence's moderation (wish they'd teamed once more at least after the war). Katharine Hepburn took mannered flight to his grounded watching. Tracy reactions to KH stood in for ticket-buyers similarly nonplussed. His underplaying tipped us off to Spence better knowing the score. Restraint earned respect as screen talking sought natural levels --- few line readings registered more sensibly than Tracy's. Ideal was casting him as General Doolittle in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. No temperament came better suited to lead WWII's most crucial raid. Patrons liked Spence best as unimpeachable good guy and horse sense purveyor. Sometimes his tamping down made for somnolence of The Seventh Cross, one that might profitably have used a live wire like Gable to contrast Tracy's by-then committed minimizing.



For My Long Haul, The Most Wide-Awake Tracys Were Ones He Did With Gable



He seemed happiest in the embrace of age, referring to himself as an old man when barely past fifty and incessantly so from there on. I've re-checked the Tracy birthdate more than once --- was he really just fifty-four when Bad Day At Black Rock was made (and a looking- sixty-plus Father Of The Bride four years before?). The drink and pace took tolls. Tracy still had authority, but health concerns made investors worry he might not make a finish line. I'd have preferred more action or combat parts during the war instead of one fey Hepburn teaming after another. He's so good as Doolittle to make us imagine Spence the sub commander, flight lieutenant, whatever victory might have been assured by his leading. Hard case and mean drunk Tracy was but glimpsed in 1949's Malaya, a startling detour to trash piles and for that reason, one of my favorite ST's. If this star played himself, Malaya was likeliest the place he did it. Too bad there weren't more along such lines.



Wanted: Less Tracy Teamings with Hepburn and More with Syd Greenstreet, As Here In 1949's Malaya




A Good One, The Power and The Glory, with Colleen Moore, But Surviving Prints Are Rough To Purist-Only Point


Coiled-spring Spence was kept to minimums once Metro handlers took charge. A Fury happened once but wouldn't again. Too many priests and excess rectitude got in the broth. Eventually you knew high roads were the only ones Tracy would travel. Playing Jekyll/Hyde spooked him for having been so long away from heavies, good as he finally was when push came to shove (though ST looked back on the venture with low regard). A treasure among many James Curtis found for his book was a day journal Tracy kept through most of his career. Turns out the actor seldom rated finished pics above barking level, him surprised most of all when one turned out to be a hit.



Bad Day At Black Rock May Be Tracy's Best Because (1) He's Great In It, (2) It's Short, and (3) He Judo-Chops Ernie Borginine Through a Screen Door



If young folks of a last fifty years knew Tracy at all, it was for his top-lining Mad, Mad World. GF Ann recognized him from that and nothing else, she having been minted in 1960. Imagine ones younger to whom Spence is altogether foreign matter. Could he have realized in 1963 that consorting among low comics would secure a place under the big tent (still) maintained by Mad World devotees? I don't know of another Tracy film with this one's staying power. If he got a Wizard Of Oz, I guess Mad World is it.



Another Of Interminable Trophies Tracy Picked Up, This One For Narrating an Appeal For a Texas Crippled Children Fund. Eddie Mannix is Second From The Left and Dore Schary Is On The Right. Do You Suppose ST's Family Still Has The Trophy?





Audiences Sat For Her With Him, But Hepburn Without Tracy Was Tougher Selling


Curtis reveals more what-if's and came closes: Tracy balked at ABC's tender of Batman villainy (or at least a "window" spot) on that 1966 camp-out (Holy Denigration! might have crossed his mind at the prospect), but he did consider Bracken's World, to which minds (at least mine) boggle. There's remarkable and detailed account in the book of ST barely getting through Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, which like others the actor had recently done, climaxed in a l-o-n-g speech which had become near as time-honored as John Wayne hurling balsa chairs over bar counters. By this time, we were all beat over heads that there was acting ... and then there was Spencer Tracy, him the enshrined 1% to the rest's 99.



Tracy's Last and The Biggest Profit of Any His Made --- Guess Who's Coming To Dinner



A Tracy ten years younger and sprung from Hepburn's influence might have knocked out Guns at Navarone or even led the Dirty Dozen. I'd rather have seen him do stuff along these lines than yelling down skull-capped Fredric March, that Inherit The Wind confrontation one I barely got through on a recent try, despite HD rendering. The making of Tracy films as detailed by author Curtis is at least as absorbing as the pics themselves, and in the case of later ones for producer Stanley Kramer, lots more so. I wish all star bios were this good ... course if they were, I'd go blind reading, as Spencer Tracy trailed me non-stop for the happy week I spent in its pages. My only regret came of reading the final one. Please, Mr. Author, sir, may I have another thousand?