Let No Man Write My Epitaph...I'll Film It Myself: Part I

"Let no man write my epitaph…"
Irish nationalist and rebel leader Robert Emmet, on the eve of his execution in 1803 for high treason

When faced with the inevitable, actors are sometimes afforded the privileged opportunity to look death in the eyes and carve their own epitaph. There are occasions when the final performance is a conscious effort.

On one level, 1967’s "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner" came across as a groundbreaking drama about interracial marriage, as the daughter of an affluent white couple with liberal pretenses returns from a vacation in Hawaii with her new fiancé, a black man. In today’s moviehouse, the film’s social conscience seems muted beneath layers of Hollywood gloss and fluff. When the boyfriend turns out to be successful physician from a respected family, who just happens to be as handsome as Sidney Poitier, audiences were eased into the contemporary controversy.

On another, more significant level, "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner" is memorable as a last testament to the enduring (and controversial in its own right) relationship between the actors who portrayed the young woman’s perplexed parents, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. (The daughter was played by Hepburn’s beautiful niece, Katharine Houghton.)

Tracy and Hepburn were first paired in the 1942 romantic comedy "Woman of the Year," and the chemistry continued the next 25 years, onscreen, in eight more movies, and off. Tracy was already a married man. In 1933, his wife, Louise, announced the couple’s separation after a decade of marriage, but the Catholic Tracy would never consider divorce.

By the time he fell in love with Hepburn, Tracy was adamant as ever about not divorcing Louise. More than religious conviction, it was a concern for his children, and particularly a personal guilt, that dominated his commitment to the marriage. Tracy blamed himself for his son John’s deafness. According to Tracy’s friend, actor Pat O’Brien (star of "Knute Rockne, All American"), "Spence always felt Johnny’s deafness was God’s way of punishing him, the father, for being such a terrible sinner. There was no other explanation for it, as far as he was concerned. Young, healthy Irish guys just didn’t have defective children…unless God wanted it to happen…Spence just didn’t know how to handle it."

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn never talked about their relationship in public. It was an unwritten law in Hollywood that no journalist could mention the affair. The two had taken such calculated measures to keep their relationship under wraps that the public wanted to believe that they were nothing more than steadfast friends. There was even talk that the two were homosexual. After Tracy’s death, Hepburn, in a gesture of friendship, spoke with his widow, Louise, who responded, "I thought you were only a rumor."

By the time he directed "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner," Stanley Kramer had firmly established himself as a filmmaker responsible for several of Hollywood’s socially important "message" movies, including "The Defiant Ones" (1958), "On the Beach" (1959), "Inherit the Wind" (1960), "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961) and "Ship of Fools" (1965). Even "It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963), which Kramer envisioned as the ultimate comedy motion picture, was underscored with a not-so-subtle commentary on the baseness of greed. (Meaningless trivia: Kramer always regretted not adding a fifth "Mad" to the title.)

Spencer Tracy worked with Kramer in "It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," as well as "Inherit the Wind" and "Judgment at Nuremberg." After being diagnosed with diabetes, the aging Tracy’s health steadily declined, exacerbated by his alcoholism. A daily smoker, he had also been suffering from emphysema since the 1950s. Following a heart attack in 1963, he spent the next few years as a virtual recluse.

Stanley Kramer grew concerned that Tracy was wasting away in self-pity. "He was sitting at home doing nothing," Kramer noted. "He wasn’t amused. He wasn’t interested. He wasn’t driving to go on." Kramer said, "Spence, are you going to sit there in your rocker and wait for oblivion?"

The studio didn’t think Tracy would live to the end of the filming of "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner," and his failing health made him uninsurable, so Kramer and Katharine Hepburn volunteered to put their salaries in escrow. If Tracy’s health forced him to quit, or, in a worst case scenario, if he died during production, that money would be used to reshoot scenes with another actor.

"Spencer Tracy is the greatest actor I ever worked with," Kramer recalled. "He had no physical energy for the shooting…and so we had to film it only in the morning," from 9:00am to noon. When the production entered its final week, Tracy pulled Kramer aside to confide, "You know, kiddo, I’ve been looking at this script, and if I die on the way home tonight, you and Kate are in the clear, you can still release the picture with what you’ve got."

Tracy’s eight-minute speech about the shaky future for his daughter and her fiancé, which serves as the film’s emotional climax, took several days to shoot, culminating with his proclamation, "In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel for each other." Casting a heartfelt glance at Hepburn, he continues, "And if it’s half of what we felt, that’s everything."

"Spence was talking about Kate, about their love for each other," Kramer noted. "He was paying tribute to her before millions of people and saying goodbye." The tears welling up in Hepburn’s eyes were genuine. Kramer recalled, "There wasn’t a dry eye in the place."

After completing his last shot, a delighted Tracy phoned his friends with the news, "I made it! I made it!" He died of a heart attack, age 67, 17 days after walking off the soundstage for the last time. He received a posthumous nomination for the Best Actor Oscar. His widow, Louise, attended the ceremony. (Rod Steiger won the Academy Award for his performance in another socially important film, "In the Heat of the Night," costarring Sidney Poitier.)

In his 1978 book Stanley Kramer: Film Maker, author Donald Spoto remarked that Tracy’s "last role is exactly what it should have been: an honest portrayal of a large-souled man whom Kramer himself always wanted to play his other self on the screen, for Tracy is everywhere the mouthpiece for the struggles, hopes and beliefs of Stanley Kramer. The deep friendship between these two men supported and confirmed their ideological unity."

"I’ll never forget how much he meant to me," Kramer said, "and to everyone who loved good men in the movies or anywhere else for that matter."

It is somehow appropriate that 1976, the year of America’s Bicentennial, witnessed the last ride of Hollywood’s poster boy for patriotism, John Wayne. His final screen role was in "The Shootist" (based on the acclaimed novel by the late Glendon Swarthout) as J.B. Books, a once-feared gunfighter whose arrival in turn-of-the-century Carson City, Nevada, stirs up mixed emotions and suspicions. Informed by the town doctor (an effective cameo by Wayne’s "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" costar James Stewart) that he is dying from cancer, Books devises a plan to exit in a blaze of glory rather than endure a lengthy, agonizing demise.

Lauren Bacall (who starred with Wayne in 1955’s "Blood Alley") shines with dignity as the bristly widow whose boarding house Books chooses as his last address. Her thorny relationship with the gunslinger mellows with a melancholy grace as he develops a mentoring influence on her willfully immature son, Willom, portrayed by the future director of "Apollo 13" and "The Da Vinci Code," Ron Howard.

Director Don Siegel, a filmmaker who was closely associated with Clint Eastwood (most notably the original "Dirty Harry" and "Escape from Alcatraz"), regarded the initial screenplay, written by the novelist’s son, Miles Hood Swarthout, as "cold" and "lousy." Siegel stated he wanted "love between Duke and Betty (Bacall). I wanted real tenderness between Duke and Ron Howard," unlike the callous, irredeemable punk depicted in the novel (after all, the character was being played by TV’s beloved "Opie Taylor" and "Richie Cunningham!). "I wanted to bring tears to the eyes of the audience," Siegel said.

The producers had originally wanted George C. Scott as Books, but John Wayne aggressively pursued the role. Contrary to popular belief, Wayne, though in failing health, was not himself dying from cancer when he made "The Shootist." The facts are that his entire left lung and a number of ribs had been surgically removed in September 1964, and in 1969 he was diagnosed cancer-free. It was not until a decade later, three years after "The Shootist," that the cancer returned.

Nevertheless, Richard Boone, who portrayed one of Wayne’s snarling antagonists in "The Shootist," recalled in an interview, "Duke never said as much, but I think he knew in his heart of hearts that this would be his final film. He always talked of future plans, but he knew."

One observant reviewer noted that Wayne utilized what moviegoers were familiar with - his battle with cancer, his being misunderstood by a younger generation - to his advantage, complementing that with the complexities of the character of J.B. Books.

According to Boone, "Duke was angry at everything because he couldn’t smoke, he couldn’t drink, he couldn’t have any fun. And poor Don Siegel took the brunt of it all. But I think there was something about the film, and about his death scene, that put him in a bad frame of mind. He was suddenly faced with a moment in time when he must have been wondering, ‘Is this my last scene? Will I ever work again? Is this really my last ride?’"

In his 1993 autobiography, A Siegel Film, the director, after commenting how "Duke’s constant hammering had cost me my senses," recounted the feelings once the filming was completed - "alive, well and happy. So happy that in Duke’s trailer we toasted each other and ‘The Shootist’ with his golden tequila."

A real-life gunfighter of the Old West, Tom Horn, variously a lawman, railroad employee, stagecoach driver, miner, teamster and Pinkerton detective, served in the army during the Spanish-American War in Cuba as a master of a pack train, and, as an army scout, helped track Apaches in the Arizona and New Mexico Territories, as well as northern Mexico. Despite his lofty claims otherwise, Horn only marginally participated in the surrender and capture of Geronimo.

In the early 1900s, Horn was employed by the Stockman’s Association in Wyoming as a stock detective, tasked with deterring cattle rustling. His subsequent success as, more or less, a hired killer, proved to be an embarrassment to the Association, and in 1903, he was tried for the killing of an unarmed boy. Some say the shooting was a case of mistaken identity, while others maintained that Horn was framed by jealous lawmen. He was found guilty of murder and was hanged.

According to some accounts, Steve McQueen starred in 1980’s "Tom Horn" only to fulfill a contractual obligation to First Artists, a production company formed by Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand and Sidney Poitier, with McQueen and Dustin Hoffman coming onboard later. Hollywood legend, however, has it that McQueen spent a night at the grave of Horn in Boulder, Colorado, and later claimed, "I could feel him under there. It was like he said to me, ‘Please tell my story.’" During production, McQueen told director of photography John Alonzo (who had worked with McQueen as an actor in "The Magnificent Seven") that it was his destiny to tell the true story of Tom Horn.

The movie eventually involved, at various stages, five different directors, who were either fired or departed over disputes with the star: Don Siegel (the aforementioned director of "The Shootist"), Elliot Silverstein ("Cat Ballou," "A Man Called Horse"), James William Guercio ("Electra Glide in Blue"), McQueen himself, and finally William Wiard, a TV director ("The Rockford Files") for whom "Tom Horn" was his first and only feature film. "We started thinking it was going to be a $10 million epic," co-producer Philip Parslow later lamented, "and it ended up being a $3 million TV movie."

Neile McQueen Toffel, in her 1986 memoir My Husband, My Friend, noted, "Steve’s biggest problem was his inability to trust someone else’s judgment. He’d delegate responsibility and then he would take it away…As an actor, when he worked with strong directors…his contributions to the success of his movies could be enormous. Left to fend for himself as the chief executive of his own works, charged with making all the final decisions, his 360s were in great part to blame for his failures. ‘Tom Horn’ suffered from too many writers and too many directors." She wrote, "Steve was a stickler for details in all his movies. Unfortunately, he carried it to such an extreme the films suffered under the weight of all that detailing."

In a review on a British website, Mike Sutton commented, "‘Tom Horn’ is so nearly a great film that viewing it becomes a rather frustrating experience. The result of a tortuous production history, it contains so many good things that you desperately want it to take flight…Sadly, this never quite happens but there’s enough good in the film to make it…undeserving of its status as a largely forgotten film. It’s also, incidentally, notable as the film which should have been Steve McQueen’s last…before his untimely death - and if you forget that ‘The Hunter’ ever happened (which isn’t difficult) then it’s a very appropriate swan song."

Calling "Tom Horn" an "ambitious failure," Sutton pointed out that it was McQueen’s "last film which he was passionate about and upon which he put his considerable stamp." According to Sutton, McQueen seemed "to recognize a kindred spirit in Tom Horn, someone who history couldn’t change or divert from his own very peculiar individuality. The knowledge that McQueen was already dying when the film was made gives it particular edge when watched now, and the final moments have a heartbreaking sincerity. If this touching, lyrical paean to the spirit of the individual, more at peace with the hills and the open range than with other people, is considered his last testament then it’s as fitting as any…"

On the other hand, writing in Western Films, Brian Garfield noted, "The movie seems to have been sabotaged by everyone connected with it…McQueen’s performance is sometimes poignant - partly because we know the actor was to die soon after completing this picture - but…it was largely his meddling that caused the picture to be such a botch." Garfield also pointed out that "there is some question how much of the picture was directed by McQueen himself - a man deaf and ill and hardly competent to direct a major film."

Early in the troubled production, McQueen admonished cinematographer John Alonzo for the latter’s smoking habit, telling him, "I know what’s going to happen to me and I know I’m not going to be around much longer, so I’m going to tell you, don’t smoke." He added, "This may be my last movie."

James Coburn, who costarred with McQueen in "The Magnificent Seven," "Hell Is for Heroes" and "The Great Escape," observed, "I thought ‘Tom Horn’ was McQueen’s best film. He was loose and free and he wasn’t guarded…I always felt that Steve would really be a good actor if he ever grew up…I think he finally did on ‘Tom Horn.’ That was him finding his adulthood."

One of the most storied accounts of an artist giving his life for his art has to be that of Italian actor Massimo Troisi’s starring role in "Il Postino," the 1994 Oscar-nominated film that depicts a fictional relationship between real-life, Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, in political exile on a small Italian island, and a simple postman.

A director and poet himself, Troisi had suffered a number of bouts with rheumatic fever in childhood, resulting in a damaged heart. He got his start on Italian TV’s version of "Saturday Night Live" in the 1970s. His screen roles were highlighted by his self-deprecating and gesture-laden comedy, earning him the nickname "The Steve Martin of Italy."

Troisi was well aware of his fragile heart condition and was told he was in dire need of surgery. "He knew he needed a transplant," Michael Radford, the director of "Il Postino" recalled. "But he was determined not to have one until this movie (was done)."

During production, the weakened Troisi showed up late and would ask if he could perform certain scenes seated or leaning against something. Several cast and crew members thought he was just being lazy. On the last day of shooting, Troisi told Radford, "I’m really sorry not to have given you my best, but I promise you, the next five, I will.." Radford remembered, "I just burst into tears, because I knew this guy was in for it."

Twelve hours after shooting finished, and two days before he was scheduled to fly to London for a transplant, he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 41. Like Spencer Tracy before him, he was posthumously nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award. (The Oscar went to Nicolas Cage for "Leaving Las Vegas.")

Ten thousand mourners attended Troisi’s funeral. According to Italian television producer Franco Schipani, "When he died, people weren’t sad. They were pissed off. They wanted to see more from him."

Actress Jennifer Beals (costar of TV’s "The L Word"), who had befriended Troisi when they were working on adjacent film sets, noted, "I’m sure he’s somewhere laughing. Just knowing that his name is being pronounced, or mispronounced, by Americans must give him satisfaction."