Spencer Tracy Kramer's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), Tracy's ninth and final film with Hepburn. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" explored the topic of interracial marriage, with Tracy playing a liberal-minded newspaper publisher whose values are challenged when his daughter wishes to marry a black man, played by Sidney Poitier. Tracy was happy to be working again, but he told the press the movie would be his last. To commence filming, Tracy had to be insured for the high premium of $71,000; Hepburn and Kramer both put their salaries in escrow until Tracy completed his scenes. In poor health, Tracy could
Spencer Tracy deteriorated. Spencer was tense and unbending, could not, or would not, take direction". Tracy considered leaving the show before it even opened on Broadway, and lasted there just six weeks before announcing his intention to close the show. It closed on January 19, 1946, after 81 performances. Tracy later explained to a friend: "I couldn't say those goddamn lines over and over and over again every night ... At least every day is a new day for me in films ... But this thing—every day, every day, over and over again." Tracy was absent from screens in 1946, the first