Profile of Spencer Tracy on Famous Like Me

Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American film actor who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967.

He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of John Edward Tracy, a hard-drinking Irish-Catholic truck salesman, and Caroline Brown, a Protestant turned Christian Scientist. Tracy's paternal grandparents, John Tracy and Mary Guhin, were born in Ireland. His mother's ancestry dates back to Thomas Stebbins, who immigrated from England in the late 1630's. At the beginning of World War I, Tracy left school to enlist in the Navy, but remained in Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia throughout the war. Afterward he attended Ripon College where he appeared in a play entitled The Truth, and decided on acting as a career. In the early 1920s he attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. For several years he performed in stock in Michigan, Canada, and Ohio. Finally in 1930 he appeared in a hit play on Broadway, The Last Mile.

In 1923 he married Louise Treadwell. They had two children, John and Louise (Susie). In 1930, director John Ford saw Tracy in the play The Last Mile and signed him to do Up the River for Fox Pictures. Shortly after that he and his family moved to Hollywood, where he made over 25 films in five years. In 1935 Tracy signed with MGM and won the Oscar for Best Actor two years in a row, for Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938). He was also nominated for San Francisco (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). He is tied with Laurence Olivier for the most best actor Oscar nominations.

In 1941 he began a relationship with Katharine Hepburn. Though estranged from his wife Louise, he was a devout Catholic and never divorced. He and Hepburn made nine films together. Seventeen days after filming had completed on his last film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, with Hepburn, he died from a massive heart attack at the age of 67. He is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

More than thirty years after his death, Tracy is still considered by many to be the most skillful actor of his time. He could portray the hero, the villain, or the comedian, and make the audience believe he truly was the character he played. Tracy was one of Hollywood's earliest "realistic" actors; his performances have stood the test of time unlike some of the overly theatrical work done by many of his peers.

Filmography

• The Strong Arm (1930) (short subject)
• Taxi Talks (1930) (short subject)
• The Hard Guy (1930) (short subject)
• Up the River (1930)
• Quick Millions (1931)
• Six Cylinder Love (1931)
• Goldie (1931)
• She Wanted a Millionaire (1932)
• Sky Devils (1932)
• Disorderly Conduct (1932)
• Young America (1932)
• Society Girl (1932)
• The Painted Woman (1932)
• Me and My Girl (1932)
• 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
• The Face in the Sky (1933)
• Shanghai Madness (1933)
• The Power and the Glory (1933)
• Man's Castle (1933)
• The Mad Game (1933)
• The Show-Off (1934)
• Looking for Trouble (1934)
• Bottoms Up (1934)
• Now I'll Tell (1934)
• Marie Galante (1934)
• It's a Small World (1935)
• The Murder Men (1935)
• Dante's Inferno (1935)
• Whipsaw (1935)
• Riffraff (1936)
• Fury (1936)
• San Francisco (1936)
• Libeled Lady (1936)
• They Gave Him a Gun (1937)
• Captains Courageous (1937)
• Big City (1937)
• Mannequin (1937)
• Test Pilot (1938)
• Hollywood Goes to Town (1938) (short subject)
• Boys Town (1938)
• For Auld Lang Syne: No. 4 (1939) (short subject)
• Hollywood Hobbies (1939) (short subject)
• Stanley and Livingstone (1939)
• I Take This Woman (1940)
• Young Tom Edison (1940) (Cameo)
• Northward, Ho! (1940) (short subject)
• Northwest Passage (1940)
• Edison, the Man (1940)
• Boom Town (1940)
• Men of Boys Town (1941)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
• Woman of the Year (1942)
• Ring of Steel (1942) (short subject) (narrator)
• Tortilla Flat (1942)
• Keeper of the Flame' (1942)
• His New World (1943) (documentary) (narrator)
• A Guy Named Joe (1943)
• The Seventh Cross (1944)
• Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
• Without Love (1945)
• The Sea of Grass (1947)
• Cass Timberlane (1947)
• State of the Union (1948)
• Edward, My Son (1949)
• Adam's Rib (1949)
• Malaya (1949)
• Father of the Bride (1950)
• For Defense for Freedom for Humanity (1951) (short subject)
• Father's Little Dividend (1951)
• The People Against O'Hara (1951)
• Pat and Mike (1952)
• Plymouth Adventure (1952)
• The Actress (1953)
• Broken Lance (1954)
• Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
• The Mountain (1956 film) (1956)
• Desk Set (1957)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1958)
• The Last Hurrah (1958)
• Inherit the Wind (1960)
• The Devil at Four O'Clock (1961)
• Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
• How the West Was Won (1962) (narrator)
• It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Books

• Spencer Tracy; a Biography by Larry Swindell, New York, World Pub. Co. 1969
• Tracy and Hepburn by Garson Kanin, New York, Viking 1971
• Spencer Tracy : a Bio-bibliography by James Fisher. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press, 1994

Quotes

• "Know your lines and don't bump into the furniture."
• On drinking: "Hell, I used to take two-week lunch hours!"
• "I couldn't be a director because I couldn't put up with the actors. I don't have the patience. Why, I'd probably kill the actors. Not to mention some of the beautiful actresses."

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