Kate Remembered

by A. Scott Berg

  Kate felt working together might get him back on the straight and narrow. She was so eager for the opportunity—which would allow her to monitor his behavior at work as well as at home—she overlooked the fact that “the script just wasn’t very good.”

  Knowing a strong director can occasionally mask a weak script with a lot of style and scenery, producer Pan Berman hired the most promising young director on either coast, Elia Kazan—the enfant terrible from the Group Theatre who had recently triumphed in Hollywood with his film version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, upon his arrival at MGM, “Gadg” (short for “Gadget,” a nickname he acquired in his youth because he had always been handy and useful, a fixer) Kazan learned that the gritty realism he had hoped to bring to this picture was being overruled. The studio had already decided on Walter Plunkett’s fancy costumes and process-screen shots on a soundstage instead of playing scenes on location.

  Rather than challenge authority—or quit—Kazan chose to settle into luxurious Malibu surroundings with his family. Before he even began shooting, he threw in the artistic towel and passively directed the piece, giving the studio exactly what it wanted and nothing more. He would return to New York ashamed of the job, only to proceed directly to the works for which he would become justly famous, such Broadway milestones as A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman. Several years later, he would return to Hollywood with more artistic integrity, directing such bold films as Gentleman’s Agreement, Pinky, Viva Zapata!, and On the Water-front. At the time, Hepburn was grateful just to be working with Tracy on a project that went so smoothly. But in retrospect, she said, “I wish Gadg had put up more of a fight. I argued with him plenty as it was, but he never really engaged . . . and for me that’s part of the process of moviemaking. If he had, we’d have had a better picture.”

  Kate was a lifelong liberal who publicly spoke out against the Communist witch-hunts in the late forties and early fifties; and one day, I had to ask how she felt about Elia Kazan’s role as one of the most famous show-business personalities to “name names” during that period. “Look, I can’t blame anyone for saying things so that he can keep working,” she said. “But when somebody says things that keep other people from working, he has crossed a line. Gadg did just that; and I always felt he could have found a way to move on with his career without hurting others. I felt he was a man of enormous talent but very little character. I felt that during Sea of Grass, and I was reminded of that experience during the Mc-Carthy period.”

  The year after The Sea of Grass, Tracy and Hepburn reunited onscreen for more standard fare, State of the Union. Ironically, the project had not been intended for either of them. The picture, based on the Pulitzer Prize—winning play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, was made by Liberty Films, a production company owned in part by the movie’s director, Frank Capra. In fact, Capra had envisioned reteaming his award-winning leads from his groundbreaking comedy It Happened One Night. Clark Gable was meant to play Grant Matthews, a Republican running for President; and Claudette Colbert was meant to play his estranged wife, Mary, who agrees to stand by his side to boost his chances. When she feels she has lost her husband altogether to a scheming newspaper heiress—masterfully played by Angela Lansbury—Mary blows her top at a dinner, haranguing the politicians present for surrendering their values. Nobody is more affected by her words than Grant. Upon realizing that he has forsaken everything he ever cared about, he withdraws from the race.

  MGM would not make Gable available, but they eventually invested in Liberty Films and offered Spencer Tracy instead. Colbert was never thrilled with the material, and up until a few days before shooting was to begin, she threw several deal-breaking conditions at them—including her refusal ever to work after five in the afternoon.

  At the eleventh hour, Hepburn stepped in. She announced that she was completely familiar with the script and was prepared to play the role at a moment’s notice. “I thought it would be wonderful to work with Capra,” she said, “and I’d get to work with Spence again.” More to the point, she had seen Tracy preparing himself psychologically for the part, and she feared his disappointment if it were scrapped. Sensing his anxiety, Hepburn felt the downtime would send him around the bend. Hepburn called Colbert, whom she liked on- and off-screen, and said, “Look, Claudette, you should know that they’re about to replace you in this picture.” Colbert said, “Kate, you’re welcome to it.”

  The film plays to this day—with Hepburn’s first name misspelled as “Katherine” in the credits—as a hybrid. The style of sentimental and patriotic “Capra-corn” never completely meshed with the more sophisticated Tracy-Hepburn banter. While the film won no prizes, it reminded audiences then that no two movie actors performed better in tandem than Tracy and Hepburn. The public came to consider it an event whenever they partnered; and State of the Union reminded the stars that romantic comedy was their long suit.

  With that in mind, Hepburn and Tracy sprang to new heights the next year, in their sixth picture together, again under the direction of George Cukor. Adam’s Rib is the story of a feminist attorney defending a dumb blonde who has shot her philandering husband. She finds herself coming up against her husband, a bright assistant district attorney who has been assigned to prosecute the case. The script—by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon—crackled with repartee in both the bedroom and the courtroom and included some feminist arguments that sound progressive fifty years later. Hepburn, in her early forties, and Tracy, almost fifty, continued to “look good together,” as Kate said. Because every line they uttered had been perfectly pitched to their key, they seemed to be providing glimpses of their off-camera life. Occasional unscripted improvisational moments—nicknames, swats on the backside, funny looks at each other—did exactly that. In so doing, Tracy and Hepburn became iconic as a twosome—smart, successful, supportive, and still sexy.

  While Hepburn continued to boss people around on the set—questioning any detail that offended her—her motives proved less and less selfish. Since 1941, her primary concern was always Tracy’s comfort. He seldom argued with directors—simply delivering his lines, then leaving the set. If he had any strong objections, he never even had to voice them. Kate would fight his battles to the bitter end or until he yanked her chain and called her off.

  For all her assertiveness, Kate’s interests were what she thought was best for the picture. “Now, I have always felt that moviemaking is about the survival of the fittest, but it’s never about just one person,” she explained one day in her living room in New York. “It’s a collaborative medium, but it’s not a democracy. And I always considered myself pretty bright with a good sense of what worked with an audience and what didn’t. So I would speak my mind. But after I had my say, I knew to shut up. I listened to the good strong directors . . . and I learned from them. I was smart enough to know that if everybody around me looked good, then I looked good.”

  There was no better illustration of Hepburn’s philosophy than on Adam’s Rib, especially in the development of one of the supporting characters, the dizzy defendant, Doris Attinger. Hepburn, Tracy, and George Cukor were all besotted with Judy Holliday, an actress making a huge splash on Broadway in Garson Kanin’s Born Yesterday. Holliday, who had kicked around the theater and even made a few film appearances, brought heart and soul to her role in the hit play, making something unique out of what might have been just another dumb-blonde role. Harry Cohn had secured the film rights of the play as a possible showcase for his leading lady, Rita Hayworth. It had not occurred to him to cast Judy Holliday, whom he never considered glamorous enough to be a film star.

  The stars, writers, and director of Adam’s Rib set out to prove him wrong. Not only did they offer her the role of Doris in their movie but they offered to beef it up, enough so that it would be better than any screen test Harry Cohn might make of her, which he refused to make anyway. While filming Holliday’s close-ups in Adam’s Rib, Hepburn remained on the set even when she was off-camera—a co
urtesy most big stars seldom extended—to provide moral support. Her generosity didn’t end there.

  Hepburn suggested to Cukor that in shooting Holliday’s key scene, he do some big close-ups of her that wouldn’t even end up in the picture. For the rest of the scene, he recommended shooting with Hepburn’s back to the camera. “Everybody knew what I looked like,” Kate explained. “This way he could ‘present’ Judy, the way he had presented me in A Bill of Divorcement.”

  Then Hepburn went to Howard Stickling, the publicity director at MGM, who leaked to the press some misinformation she had fed him, tidbits hinting that “Kate and Spencer are certainly burned because Judy Holliday was stealing the picture.” Once the rumors began to circulate, Harry Cohn asked if he might see some of the Adam’s Rib footage. Cukor sent him an entire scene shot and edited—complete with the unnecessary “ravishing” shots of Judy Holliday. Cohn promptly cast her in the role she had created on Broadway, assigned George Cukor to direct, and Born Yesterday proved to be one of the great successes of 1950. Competing that year against Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard and Bette Davis for All About Eve (both in “comeback” roles)—to say nothing of Hepburn, who was not even nominated for Adam’s Rib—Judy Holliday won the Academy Award as Best Actress. The success of Adam’s Rib was great enough to let Kate breathe easily for a moment, about both Spencer Tracy and her career.

  Putting her work in second place during these years had left Hepburn with a lot of time on her hands. She used many of the spare hours to deepen friendships with several older actresses, especially Ethel Barrymore and Constance Collier. Just because she was not performing so much, she realized, was no reason not to keep practicing. Several hours a week she read and rehearsed the great plays with the great ladies of the theater, especially Miss Collier. Hepburn devoted herself to the role of Rosalind in As You Like It for a production the Theatre Guild was mounting. They rehearsed for a few weeks in New York, previewed on the road, then opened at the Cort Theatre at the end of January 1950. The reviews ranged from acceptable to wonderful; and everyone granted that Katharine Hepburn was the only movie star of her caliber working on a stage, performing Shakespeare at that. “I just felt I was getting flabby,” Kate said of the experience, “and this toned me up.”

  Predictably, Tracy sank into a drunken depression. He had the willpower to sober up for his appearances in Malaya and Father of the Bride (with Elizabeth Taylor playing his daughter); and he visited Hepburn in a few of the towns on her tour. But before her departure and during her run, he was drinking harder than ever, often into a stupor.

  Whenever Kate spoke to me about Spencer Tracy, I couldn’t help thinking he was a textbook alcoholic and she a classic enabler. It pained me to think of her stuck in a role of such powerlessness. One night, after we had both sipped several Scotches by the fireplace in Fenwick, she told me to “give the fire a kick.” Colorful sparks sprayed from the saltwater-soaked logs. As I returned to my chair, I asked, without quite facing her, “Did anyone ever think of Alcoholics Anonymous?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I did.” But she wanted me to understand that AA was quite new and mysterious back then. She spoke of it as smoke-filled little rooms with “winos.” “Spencer Tracy was the biggest star in the world,” she said, “and I don’t think he would have been anonymous there for very long. And news of this sort would have killed his career.” Kate said she had investigated several private hospitals, where famous people could dry out in seclusion. “But he could control his drinking when he wanted to control his drinking,” she explained. “And as long as it didn’t interfere with his work, he didn’t think he had a problem. And as long as I was there for him, he seemed to be okay.” In fact, during that period when Kate was returning to the stage, he told a few friends that he was trying to clean up his act for fear that she would walk out on him for good.

  A little past twelve, I stared into the dying fire and stammered out a question I thought Kate was begging to be asked: “Did he ever—strike you?” As I turned toward her, she looked into the few remaining embers.

  “Once,” she said.

  She proceeded to describe a fiendish night at the Beverly Hills Hotel. While Kate was trying to put Tracy to bed, he smacked the back of his hand across her face. She said he was so drunk she believed he neither knew that he’d done it nor that he’d remember. Dignity prevented her from telling him the next day—not hers so much as protecting his. She made her separate peace, privately forgiving him but never forgetting.

  “Did you ever think of walking out?” I asked, our eyes now meeting.

  “What would have been the point?” she asked. “I mean, I loved him. And I wanted to be with him. If I had left, we both would have been miserable.”

  Then I remembered Kate’s telling me how uncomfortable Tracy had always been at Fenwick. He found the clannish Hepburns—all well-educated, opinionated, and outspoken—so different from his own family. Additionally, he could never appreciate the simple wonders of nature there and the happy solitude it could provide. And in that moment, when Kate voiced her passion for this deeply troubled man, I realized that she was not, in fact, the victim I had supposed. I saw that she possessed the one trait most long-suffering spouses of alcoholics lacked: She ultimately took care of herself. Indeed, returning to the theater had not been strictly a professional decision. Even with Tracy’s periods of boozing and brawling, she had the wherewithal to take her leave and perform Shakespeare. She knew too well that “one man in his time plays many parts,” and she had learned to go off—whether it was to Fenwick or to Broadway—and play hers.

  “What do you think was Spencer’s problem?” Kate asked me that night, as I was putting out the fire, leaning the heavy screens up against the hearth. “Why do you think he drank?”

  “Oh, Kate, I don’t know. I mean, I never met Spencer Tracy. All I could give you is some dime-store psychology.”

  “Well, you always have an opinion on everything else. I don’t see why you don’t have one on this particular subject.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Here goes.” And I plunged into what I felt was a completely embarrassing monologue.

  “I have a sense that Spencer Tracy was raised in a rather tough household with a hard-drinking father, a guy who probably wasn’t very happy with his lot in life and took it out on his wife and kids. He probably got drunk and loud and knocked them all around a bit. And he probably told Spencer that nothing he did was right, that he was good for nothing, that he was pretty worthless. And so young Spencer hid out as much as he could in his dreams—dreaming of getting out in the world, of being somebody. And every time he tried to express that, his father squashed him like a bug and said, ‘Who do you think you are? Don’t you know, you’re not very bright, you’re not very strong, you’re not very good-looking. You’re worthless.’

  “And yet he held on to the dreamy part of his life and made his way into the theater, where he married the first woman who really smiled upon him. And just when things started to break right for him, his baby came into the world deaf. And so, of course, he thinks, ‘My father was right. I am worthless. And who did I think I was trying to find any kind of life in the theater with a family?’ And so, with his genetic predisposition, he drank, and he kept trying to cut himself off from them. He took up with a lot of women, because that made him feel attractive and powerful for a while, and it put a wedge between him and his wife and children. And it all became a vicious cycle, making his worthlessness a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so he drank some more.

  “But he kept hanging on to the dream, and lo and behold, he made it and he made it really big. But because he ‘knew’ he was worthless, he couldn’t attach too much importance to all the fame and fortune that fell upon him. What did the world know? And so while he loved getting lost in his roles, he always felt unjustly rewarded for doing such artistic work, something not quite manly. There seemed to be something wrong with the system, something basically wrong with life, rewarding a worthless wretch
like him. And so he drank some more.

  “And then you came along, and you were the best and most beautiful creature he had ever seen. You got high on life. And he couldn’t quite believe that somebody like you could be interested in somebody like him; and he figured he could never keep up with the likes of you. And so he often tried to tear you down, squash your good nature. He made fun of your family and your endless enthusiasm. He tried to cut you down to size. And when he couldn’t do that, he started to realize that maybe he wasn’t so worthless to have kept somebody like you hanging in there. But periodically, he’d find that too hard to believe, and so he’d drink some more. Or, you would abandon him. You’d go off on location or go off and do a play. And he’d say to himself, ‘See, I told you I was worthless.’ And so he’d drink some more.

  “But in the end, you both hung in there. And that—not all your movies—remains the most important thing in either of your lives. That’s what I think.”

  And then there was silence.

  Kate, poker-faced, just rose from the couch. We turned out the lights and walked up the stairs without saying a word, her bad foot clomping behind on the bare wooden steps. When we reached the top, she came into my bedroom to turn down the bed. By then, she looked stunned, even a little wounded. We hugged good night; and, as she headed for the door, she spoke at last.

  “Will you be staying up to write?” she asked.