Spencer Tracy

Acting · 1.5 popularity

Age

126

Movies

119

Born: April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967
From: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Biography

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.

Works

119 films

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

19637.0

How the West Was Won

19627.0

Judgment at Nuremberg

19618.0

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

19677.6

Inherit the Wind

19607.7

Father of the Bride

19507.0

Bad Day at Black Rock

19557.3

Adam's Rib

19497.1

The Old Man and the Sea

19586.5

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

19416.5

Captains Courageous

19377.4

That's Entertainment!

19747.4

Libeled Lady

19367.3

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

19446.7

Desk Set

19577.0

Fury

19367.5

San Francisco

19366.6

Classic Movie Bloopers: Uncensored

20135.5

Boys Town

19386.8

Broken Lance

19546.5

Father's Little Dividend

19516.5

Boom Town

19406.9

Northwest Passage

19406.6

That's Entertainment, Part II

19767.0

Edison, the Man

19406.8

Taxi Talks

19307.0

Cass Timberlane

19476.0

Pat and Mike

19526.4

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

19756.3

The Actress

19536.4

The People Against O'Hara

19515.8

The Last Hurrah

19587.2

The Mountain

19566.9

Woman of the Year

19426.9

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life

19876.5

20,000 Years in Sing Sing

19326.4

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

19837.0

Brasileiros em Hollywood

1970

La Classe américaine

19937.6

State of the Union

19486.8

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

20185.9

Malaya

19496.9

The Big Parade of Comedy

19647.2

Rat Pack

20229.0

Society Girl

19327.5

They Gave Him a Gun

19376.7

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

19888.2

Stanley and Livingstone

19396.4

Twenty Years After

19448.0

The Seventh Cross

19446.8

Test Pilot

19386.1

The Sea of Grass

19476.1

The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies

19958.0

A Guy Named Joe

19446.7

Stardust: The Bette Davis Story

20066.6

Men of Boys Town

19416.4

Keeper of the Flame

19436.6

The Devil at 4 O'Clock

19616.4

1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year

20097.5

Hollywood: Style Center of the World

19405.8

Plymouth Adventure

19525.9

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards

19406.3

Hollywood: The Dream Factory

19727.3

Without Love

19457.0

Goldie

19315.6

The Murder Man

19357.1

DEVO

20247.7

Tortilla Flat

19425.8

The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn

19868.3

The Romance of Celluloid

19377.0

Young Tom Edison

19405.9

Up the River

19305.8

Ingrid Bergman Remembered

19966.7

Gene Kelly - An American in Hollywood

20256.5

Hollywood: The Selznick Years

19614.4

From the Ends of the Earth

19395.0

She Wanted a Millionaire

193210.0

Dante's Inferno

19356.2

Something a Little Less Serious: A Tribute to 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World'

19918.0

Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults

19999.0

Mannequin

19386.0

Big City

19377.7

Edward, My Son

19496.5

Hollywood Goes to Town

19387.0

It's A Small World

19356.0

Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To

19908.5

I Take This Woman

19405.8

George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey

19855.8

A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound

19406.8

Legends in Light: The Photography of George Hurrell

19952.0

The Show-Off

19346.3

Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults

19977.7

Man's Castle

19336.8

Whipsaw

19356.4

Marie Galante

19344.9

Riffraff

19365.4

Hollywood Hobbies

19395.6

Young America

19325.5

Bogart: The Untold Story

1997

The Power and the Glory

19335.9

Me and My Gal

19326.4

The Mad Game

193310.0

Face in the Sky

19335.8

Sky Devils

19325.0

Now I'll Tell

19345.1

Ring of Steel

19427.5

Bottoms Up

19345.2

Six Cylinder Love

19319.0

Another Romance of Celluloid

19385.3

The Painted Woman

19327.0

Disorderly Conduct

19328.0

Quick Millions

19317.3

Shanghai Madness

19338.0

The Hard Guy

19306.3

Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story

2024

Northward, Ho!

19406.7

Movie Tough Guys

199110.0

Looking for Trouble

19346.7

His New World

19439.0