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Post by smith on Jul 3, 2005 18:12:30 GMT -5
If you could write a biography of Katharine/Spencer what would you write about ? What sort of questions would you ask?
I would like to know a lot more about Spencer - ideas about some of the roles and why he chose them
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Post by karina on Jul 9, 2005 13:14:19 GMT -5
I'd like to analyse how much influence they exerted on each other's careers and to speculate on how different their professional lives would have been if they'd not made any films together. I'd also explore the impact made by ST-KH films on Hollywood films & American society at the time.
Mainly though, I'd like to find out more information about their private relationship and would love to be able to interview someone who knew them as well as Garson Kanin did
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Post by Cate on Jul 9, 2005 13:42:38 GMT -5
I'd like to know what made Kate completely dedicate herself to a man with so many problems. She was independent but caring which I'm sure was the basis for their relationship towards the end. It's amazing to me that someone who didn't take sh*t off anyone decided to take sh*t off of an alcoholic, sometimes verbally and once physically abusive man who wouldn't let her wear pants in public. Not that I have anything against Spencer Tracy. I could see her befriending someone with problems because she liked to help people but I couldn't see her falling in love with one of them. But I didn't know her so...
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Post by karina on Jul 9, 2005 14:01:26 GMT -5
Love is rarely predictable and often does strange things to us. We never know when love will strike and I've seen many, many examples of headstrong, independent women becoming almost submissive towards their partner all in the name of love. Not that I'm suggesting Kate was ever submissive, but she did seem to take a lot from Spence that she probably wouldn't have done from anyone else. As she said herself, "Love is nothing to do with what you're expecting to get - only what you are expecting to give - which is everything" She sure seemed to give it everything!
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Post by smith on Jul 9, 2005 14:15:05 GMT -5
Well I think the issue here is people's perception of Spencer . Its not true that for example that Spencer didn't let Katharine wear pants in public - the incident in the Kanin book illustrates that . And the one piece of footage that we have where they filmed each other - of course she is wearing pants . I have read the Lauren Bacall book and my interpretation of it is that maybe there were times when Katharine wearing pants would have created more trouble than it was worth and in those cases Katharine kept a dress handy .
But Spencer was a human being - he was more than a person with a lot of problems and the people who knew them well all spoke of the great affection and love between them - the peope who paint Spencer in a totally negative way usually didn't know him . In fact many women who knew Spencer were crazy about him - I have just finished reading a book on Angela Lansbury and she said that he was incredibly warm and cuddly and that he was pretty much the only guy who treated Katharine like a woman - unfortunately she didn't go into details .
I will continue this post at another time but I will give one example . Many of the more recent books paint Spencer was a womanizer and at certain times in his life he was . However the reports you read particularly in the Leaming book of Spencer continually cheating on Katharine once they got together are false . I really can't emphasise how badly the biographies have treated Spencer and as Kathy Hougton says , he has been villified by people who didn't know him
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Post by Cate on Jul 9, 2005 14:24:29 GMT -5
I am sure he has been villified because it's more fun to write negative gossip than it is to write the truth sometimes... so maybe I'll be more optimistic and believe the positive things I hear about Spence I'd like to believe he was a great man. Just because a person has an addiction doesn't make him a bad person, I am aware of that. I guess I just read too many things about him being condescending. I guess if that was the truth, she probably wouldn't have stayed with him. Karina: I forgot about that quote about love. So true! Such a philosopher lol
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Post by smith on Jul 9, 2005 14:36:53 GMT -5
Well for a start Spencer was a person who suffered from a serious depression problem in the days when the options for treatment were limited - I know he got the best medical care and I have often wondered whether the better more modern treatments were what helped him to eventually give up the alcohol - because I think he did eventually give it up - in the final years of his life .
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Post by smith on Jul 10, 2005 0:40:53 GMT -5
I guess people forget the difference between Katharine in real life and in the movies . In real life she liked lots of different types of guys - I mean in one decade to go out with Luddy , Howard Hughes, Leland and Spencer is quite an achievement . And they were just the serious relationships . However I suspect Katharine inn real life liked men who stood up to her and didn't get intimidated and Spencer was certainly that . Remember that line in The Philadelphia Story where Tracy Lord says, she wants to be loved not worshipped .
By all accounts Spencer was a very intelligent man - Angela Lansbury said that he could "read people" and he read Katharine very well . There was a lot of give and take in the relationship .
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Post by karina on Jul 10, 2005 6:43:56 GMT -5
I suspect Spencer was a very insecure person - often the case with addictive and/or depressive types. He also had a lot of real or imagined guilt to contend with and all these aspects of his personality brought out the maternal side in Katharine.
But as Smith says, Spence was also a "real man", not the type to be intimidated by a headstrong female - and this is what Katharine wanted & needed too, her very own "baked potato / salt of the earth". For her, I think Spence was a mixture of father figure, someone to put her in her place whenever she was in danger of becoming too dramatic or flighty, and careerwise a professional equal whom she could both respect and learn a great deal from.
So too, their living arrangements suited them both - time together when they needed and the freedom to be apart if they wished.
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Post by smith on Jul 10, 2005 8:02:57 GMT -5
There is a section in the Kanin book where he discusses Katharine and he said, she could be flightly , highly unrealistic, overimaginative and something else . Kanin basically said that Spencer used his sense of humour and their personalilties balanced each other very well .
In the Donahue interview Katharine said Spencer was a terrifically interesting man , that he had a great sense of humour and that everything she couldn't do well - he could do . One of the many overlooked facets of their relationship was that they both seemed to like each other very much and enjoyed each other's company . Sounds obvious but its pretty important .
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