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Lee Tracy

Lee Tracy

Birthday: 1898-04-14 | Place of Birth: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. William Lee Tracy (April 14, 1898 – October 18, 1968) was an American actor. He was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in the 1964 film The Best Man. In 1929, Tracy arrived in Hollywood, where he played the role of newspapermen in several films. He, for example, played a Walter Winchell-type gossip columnist in Blessed Event (1932). Tracy also starred as the columnist in Advice to the Lovelorn (1933), very loosely based on the novel Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West; and he played a conscience-stricken editor in the 1943 drama The Power of the Press, based on a story by former newspaperman Samuel Fuller. Tracy played "The Buzzard," the criminal who leads Liliom (Charles Farrell) into a fatal robbery, in the film version of Liliom (1930). He also played Lupe Vélez's frenetic manager in Gregory LaCava's The Half-Naked Truth (1932) and portrayed John Barrymore's agent in Dinner at Eight (1933), directed by George Cukor. Lee Tracy's flourishing film career was temporarily disrupted on 19 November 1933, while he was on location in Mexico filming the Wallace Beery vehicle Viva Villa! According to the actor and producer Desi Arnaz, in his published autobiography The Book (1976), Tracy stood on a balcony in Mexico City and urinated down onto a passing military parade. Elsewhere in his autobiography, Arnaz claims that from then on, if one watched other crowds of spectators, they would visibly disperse any time an American stepped out onto a balcony. However, other crew members there at the time disputed this story, giving a sharply different account of events. In his autobiography, Charles G. Clarke, the cinematographer on the picture, said that he was standing outside the hotel during the parade and the incident never happened. Tracy, he said, was standing on the balcony observing the parade when a Mexican in the street below made an obscene gesture at him. Tracy replied in kind; and the next day a local newspaper printed a story that, in effect, Tracy had insulted Mexico, Mexicans in general, and their national flag in particular. The story caused an uproar in Mexico, and MGM decided to sacrifice Tracy in order to be allowed to continue filming there. The young actor Stuart Erwin replaced Tracy. The film's original director, Howard Hawks, was also fired for his refusal to testify against Tracy. Jack Conway replaced him. During World War II, Tracy returned to military service. Later, he had two television series in the 1950s. One was Martin Kane: Private Eye, in which he was one of four actors to play the title role. The others were William Gargan, Lloyd Nolan, and Mark Stevens. In 1958, he returned to a newspaper reporter role in the syndicated New York Confidential. After World War II, his screen career was largely relegated to television, but he portrayed the former President of the United States, Art Hockstader, a character loosely based on Harry Truman, in both the stage and film versions of The Best Man (1964), written by Gore Vidal. The movie version featured Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson. Tracy received his only Academy Award nomination, as Best Supporting Actor, for his performance in the film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Lee Tracy, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

1964
The Best Man

as    President Art Hockstader

1947
High Tide

as    Hugh Fresney

1945
Betrayal from the East

as    Eddie Carter

1942
The Payoff

as    Brad McKay

1940
Millionaires in Prison

as    Nick Burton

1939
The Spellbinder

as    Jed Marlowe

1938
Crashing Hollywood

as    Michael Winslow

1937
Criminal Lawyer

as    Brandon

1937
Behind The Headlines

as    Eddie Haines

1937
Cinema Circus

as    Himself - Ringmaster

1936
Sutter's Gold

as    Pete Perkin

1936
Wanted: Jane Turner

as    Tom Mallory

1933
Bombshell

as    E.J. 'Space' Hanlon

1933
The Nuisance

as    Joseph Phineas 'Joe' Stevens

1933
Dinner at Eight

as    Max Kane

1932
Blessed Event

as    Alvin Roberts

1932
The Half-Naked Truth

as    Jimmy Bates

1932
Doctor X

as    Lee Taylor

1932
The Strange Love of Molly Louvain

as    Scott 'Scotty' Cornell

1930
Born Reckless

as    Bill O'Brien