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 Hepburn then paired together for the eighth time in the office-based comedy "Desk Set" (1957). He again had to be convinced to stay with the film which met with a weak response. In 1958, Tracy appeared in "The Old Man and the Sea", a project that had been in development for five years. An adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novella of the same title, Hemingway's agent, Leland Hayward, had previously written to the author: "Of all Hollywood people, the one that comes the closest to me in quality, in personality and voice, in personal dignity and ability, is Spencer Tracy." Tracy