Spencer Tracy made Mannequin with Joan Crawford and fell in love with her. The two began an affair. But Tracy's alcoholism problem was a serious problem for Joan Crawford. She said "he smelled of alcohol" in contrary his former lovers who never complain about his alcoholism. He met resistance from Joan Crawford.
In later years Crawford appeared to be of two minds about Tracy. In her autobiography, published during his lifetime, she said it was “inspiring” to play opposite him, and in a public statement several years after his death, she called him “one of the most beautiful men” she’d ever known. “Pure male with a mixture of small boy attitudes which made him beguiling beyond belief.” Privately, though, she expressed real bitterness over Mannequin, contending that Tracy was so miscast “he made an absolute muddle out of my part, which wasn’t all that great to begin with.” She continued: “At first I felt honored working with Spence, and we even whooped it up a little bit off the set, but he turned out to be a real bastard. When he drank he was mean, and he drank all through production. He’d do cute things like step on my toes when we were doing a love scene—after he chewed on some garlic.”
Tracy, of course, was completely dry during the making of the film and for a considerable time thereafter. (His datebook entry for October 4: “1 month on the wagon instead of 21 months! Jackass!”) Crawford’s anger was surely over the fact that it was Tracy who ended the dalliance and not Crawford herself. Her obsessive-compulsive behavior and slavish devotion to the business of being a movie star would quickly have grated on him, and when the brief sexual infatuation had faded, he would have lost no time in distancing himself. A few months later, he reportedly came off at her while rehearsing “Anna Christie” for the Lux Radio Theatre. “For crissake, Joan, can’t you read the lines?” he erupted as she nervously fumbled with her script. “I thought you were supposed to be a pro.” They never made another film together.