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Spencer Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was a two-time Academy
Award-winning American film and stage actor who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to
1967. Tracy is generally regarded as one of the finest actors in motion picture
history. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Tracy among the Greatest Male
Stars of All Time, ranking 9th on the list of 100. He was nominated for nine
Academy Awards for Best Actor.
 Career
He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of John Edward Tracy, an Irish
American Catholic truck salesman, and Caroline Brown, a Protestant turned Christian
Scientist, and was christened Spencer Bonaventure Tracy.
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 1630s. Tracy attended six high schools, starting with Wauwatosa High School in
1915 and St. John's Cathedral School for boys in Milwaukee the following year. The
Tracy family then moved to Kansas City, where Spencer was enrolled at St. Mary's
College, Kansas, a boarding school in St. Marys, Kansas 30 miles west of Topeka,
Kansas, then transferred to Rockhurst, a Jesuit academy in Kansas City, Missouri.
John Tracy's job in Kansas City did not work out, and the family returned to
Milwaukee six months after their departure. Spencer was enrolled at Marquette
Academy, another Jesuit school, where he met fellow actor Pat O'Brien. The two left
school in spring 1917 to enlist in the Navy with the American entry into World War
I, but Tracy remained in Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia throughout the war.
Afterwards, Tracy continued his high school education at Northwestern Military and
Naval Academy in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, but finished his studies at Milwaukee's
West Division High School (now Milwaukee High School of the Arts) in February
1921.
Afterward he attended Ripon College where he appeared in a leading role in a play
entitled The Truth, and decided on acting as a career. Tracy received an honorary
degree from Ripon College in 1940. While touring the Northeast with the Ripon
debate team, he auditioned for and was accepted to the American Academy of Dramatic
Arts in New York. His first Broadway role was as a robot in Karel Čapek's R.U.R.
(1922), followed by five other Broadway plays in the 1920s. In 1923 he married
fellow actor Louise Treadwell. They had two children, John and Louise (Susie).
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. Director John Ford saw
Tracy in 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 Metro Goldwyn Mayer. He won the Academy Award 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 posthumously for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
(1967). Tracy and Laurence Olivier share the record for the most Academy Best Actor
nods with nine Oscar nominations.
In 1941, Tracy began a relationship with Katharine Hepburn, whose agile mind and
New England brogue complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo very well.
Though estranged from his wife, Louise, he was a practicing Roman 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 heart failure at the age of 67.
Forty years after his death, Tracy is still widely considered one of the most
skillful actors 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. In
the 1944 film The Seventh Cross, for example, he was effective as an escaped
prisoner from a German concentration camp despite his heavy-set build.
Tracy was one of Hollywood's earliest "realistic" actors; his performances have
stood the test of time. Actors have noted that Tracy's work in 1930s films
sometimes looks like a modern actor interacting with the more stylized and dated
performances of everyone around him.
In 1988, the University of California, Los Angeles' Campus Events Commission and
Susie Tracy created the UCLA Spencer Tracy Award. The award has been given to
actors in recognition for their achievement in film acting. Past recipients include
William Hurt, James Stewart, Michael Douglas, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Sir
Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Harrison Ford, Anjelica Houston, Nicolas Cage, Kirk
Douglas, Jack Lemmon and Morgan Freeman.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Spencer
Tracy - Manifesting Generator - Biography
