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Spencer Tracy

Spencer Tracy

Birthday: 1900-04-05 | Place of Birth: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor, noted for his natural style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy won two Academy Awards for Best Actor from nine nominations, sharing the record for nominations in that category with Laurence Olivier. Tracy first discovered his talent for acting while attending Ripon College, and he later received a scholarship for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He spent seven years in the theatre, working in a succession of stock companies and intermittently on Broadway. Tracy's breakthrough came in 1930, when his lead performance in The Last Mile caught the attention of Hollywood. After a successful film debut in John Ford's Up the River starring Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, he was signed to a contract with Fox Film Corporation. His five years with Fox featured one acting tour de force after another that were usually ignored at the box office, and he remained largely unknown to audiences after 25 films, almost all of them starring Tracy as the leading man. None of them were hits although The Power and the Glory (1933) features arguably his most acclaimed performance in retrospect. In 1935, Tracy joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, at the time Hollywood's most prestigious studio. His career flourished with a series of hit films, and in 1937 and 1938 he won consecutive Oscars for Captains Courageous and Boys Town. He made three smash hit films supporting Clark Gable, the studio's principal leading man, firmly fixing the notion of Gable and Tracy as a team in the public imagination. By the 1940s, Tracy was one of the studio's top stars. In 1942, he appeared with Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year, beginning another popular partnership that produced nine movies over 25 years. Tracy left MGM in 1955, and continued to work regularly as a freelance star, despite an increasing weariness as he aged. His personal life was troubled, with a lifelong struggle against severe alcoholism and guilt over his son's deafness. Tracy became estranged from his wife in the 1930s, but never divorced, conducting a long-term relationship with Katharine Hepburn in private. Towards the end of his life, Tracy worked almost exclusively for director Stanley Kramer. It was for Kramer that he made his last film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967, completed just 17 days before his death. During his career, Tracy appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

1993
Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell

as    Himself (archive footage)

1967
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

as    Matt Drayton

1964
The Big Parade of Comedy

as    Haggerty in 'Libeled Lady' (archive footage)

1963
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

as    C. G. Culpepper

1961
Judgment at Nuremberg

as    Dan Haywood

1961
The Devil at 4 O'Clock

as    Father Matthew Doonan

1960
Inherit the Wind

as    Henry Drummond

1958
The Last Hurrah

as    Mayor Frank Skeffington

1958
The Old Man and the Sea

as    The Old Man

1957
Desk Set

as    Richard Sumner

1956
The Mountain

as    Zachary Teller

1955
Bad Day at Black Rock

as    John J. Macreedy

1954
Broken Lance

as    Matt Devereaux

1952
Plymouth Adventure

as    Capt. Christopher Jones

1952
Pat and Mike

as    Mike Conovan

1951
The People Against O'Hara

as    James P. Curtayne

1951
Father's Little Dividend

as    Stanley Banks

1950
Father of the Bride

as    Stanley T. Banks

1949
Adam's Rib

as    Adam Bonner

1949
Edward, My Son

as    Arnold Boult

1949
Malaya

as    Carnaghan

1948
State of the Union

as    Grant Matthews

1947
Cass Timberlane

as    Cass Timberlane

1947
The Sea of Grass

as    Col. James B. Brewton

1945
Without Love

as    Pat Jamieson

1944
The Seventh Cross

as    George Heisler

1944
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

as    Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle

1943
A Guy Named Joe

as    Pete Sandidge

1943
Keeper of the Flame

as    Stevie O'Malley