Spencer Tracy

Acting · 1.6 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

How the West Was Won

19627.0

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

19637.0

Judgment at Nuremberg

19618.0

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

19677.6

The Old Man and the Sea

19586.5

Inherit the Wind

19607.7

Bad Day at Black Rock

19557.3

Adam's Rib

19497.1

Father of the Bride

19507.0

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

19446.7

Libeled Lady

19367.3

Captains Courageous

19377.4

La Classe américaine

19937.6

Broken Lance

19546.5

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

19416.5

The Last Hurrah

19587.2

Fury

19367.5

That's Entertainment!

19747.4

Classic Movie Bloopers: Uncensored

20135.5

Boys Town

19386.8

San Francisco

19366.6

State of the Union

19486.8

Desk Set

19577.0

Taxi Talks

19307.0

The Mountain

19566.9

Father's Little Dividend

19516.5

The Actress

19536.4

Boom Town

19406.9

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

20185.9

Brasileiros em Hollywood

1970

Cass Timberlane

19476.0

1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year

20097.5

Pat and Mike

19526.4

That's Entertainment, Part II

19767.0

Woman of the Year

19426.9

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life

19876.5

Stanley and Livingstone

19396.4

Edison, the Man

19406.8

The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies

19958.0

20,000 Years in Sing Sing

19326.4

The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

19888.2

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

19756.3

Society Girl

19327.5

Test Pilot

19386.1

Northwest Passage

19406.6

Keeper of the Flame

19436.6

Ingrid Bergman Remembered

19966.7

The People Against O'Hara

19515.8

Twenty Years After

19448.0

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

19837.0

Up the River

19305.8

Hollywood: Style Center of the World

19405.8

A Guy Named Joe

19446.7

Tortilla Flat

19425.8

Without Love

19457.0

Rat Pack

20229.0

Young Tom Edison

19405.9

The Seventh Cross

19446.8

The Big Parade of Comedy

19647.2

Hollywood: The Dream Factory

19727.3

Goldie

19315.6

Cavalcade of the Academy Awards

19406.3

Malaya

19496.9

The Devil at 4 O'Clock

19616.4

Stardust: The Bette Davis Story

20066.6

The Murder Man

19357.1

The Sea of Grass

19476.1

Big City

19377.7

The Romance of Celluloid

19377.0

Gene Kelly - An American in Hollywood

20256.5

Plymouth Adventure

19525.9

They Gave Him a Gun

19376.7

Men of Boys Town

19416.4

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

19918.0

She Wanted a Millionaire

193210.0

The Show-Off

19346.3

Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To

19908.5

The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn

19868.3

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

19999.0

Marie Galante

19344.9

Dante's Inferno

19356.2

George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey

19855.8

Hollywood Goes to Town

19387.0

Hollywood: The Selznick Years

19614.4

Man's Castle

19336.8

Whipsaw

19356.4

Mannequin

19386.0

The Mad Game

193310.0

Me and My Gal

19326.4

Edward, My Son

19496.5

Ring of Steel

19427.5

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

19977.7

Legends in Light: The Photography of George Hurrell

19952.0

It's A Small World

19356.0

From the Ends of the Earth

19395.0

Riffraff

19365.4

Bogart: The Untold Story

1997

Hollywood Hobbies

19395.6

Young America

19325.5

I Take This Woman

19405.8

A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound

19406.8

Six Cylinder Love

19319.0

DEVO

20247.7

Face in the Sky

19335.8

Bottoms Up

19345.2

Another Romance of Celluloid

19385.3

Quick Millions

19317.3

Now I'll Tell

19345.1

Disorderly Conduct

19328.0

Sky Devils

19325.0

Northward, Ho!

19406.7

The Painted Woman

19327.0

The Power and the Glory

19335.9

The Hard Guy

19306.3

Looking for Trouble

19346.7

Shanghai Madness

19338.0

Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story

2024

Movie Tough Guys

199110.0

His New World

19439.0