1900-04-05 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
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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Gene Kelly mène la danse | Self (archive footage) | 2025-01-02 |
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Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story | Fr. Edward Flanagan (archive footage) | 2024-10-08 |
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Rat Pack | Self (archive footage) | 2022-01-11 |
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Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood | Self (archive footage) | 2018-07-27 |
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And the Oscar Goes To... | Self (archive footage) | 2014-02-01 |
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Classic Movie Bloopers: Uncensored | Self (archive footage) | 2013-01-29 |
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1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year | Self (archive footage) | 2009-07-02 |
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Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults | Self (Archival Footage) | 1999-07-20 |
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Bogart: The Untold Story | Self (archive footage) (uncredited) | 1997-01-05 |
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Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults | Self (Archival Footage) | 1997-11-18 |
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Ingrid Bergman Remembered | Self (archive footage) | 1996-04-06 |
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Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell | Self (archive footage) | 1993-02-06 |
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La Classe américaine | The Professional Witness (archive footage) | 1993-12-31 |
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Something a Little Less Serious: A Tribute to 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World' | Self (archive footage) | 1991-01-01 |
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Movie Tough Guys | Self (archive footage) | 1991-01-01 |
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Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To | (archive footage) | 1990-06-04 |
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The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind | Self (archive footage) | 1988-10-01 |
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James Stewart: A Wonderful Life | Self (archive footage) | 1987-03-13 |
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The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn | Self (archive footage) | 1986-03-09 |
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George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey | Self (archive footage) | 1985-03-03 |
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Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage | Self (archive footage) (uncredited) | 1983-02-25 |
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That's Entertainment, Part II | (archive footage) | 1976-05-16 |
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? | Self (archive footage) | 1975-08-06 |
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That's Entertainment! | (archive footage) (uncredited) | 1974-06-21 |
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Hollywood: The Dream Factory | Self (archive footage) | 1972-01-10 |
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner | Matt Drayton | 1967-12-11 |
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The Big Parade of Comedy | Haggerty in 'Libeled Lady' (archive footage) | 1964-09-02 |
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It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World | C. G. Culpepper | 1963-11-07 |
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How the West Was Won | Narrator (voice) | 1962-11-02 |
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The Devil at 4 O'Clock | Father Matthew Doonan | 1961-10-18 |
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Judgment at Nuremberg | Dan Haywood | 1961-12-18 |
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Hollywood: The Selznick Years | Self (archive footage) (uncredited) | 1961-12-31 |
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Inherit the Wind | Henry Drummond | 1960-07-07 |
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The Last Hurrah | Mayor Frank Skeffington | 1958-12-31 |
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The Old Man and the Sea | The Old Man | 1958-10-07 |
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Desk Set | Richard Sumner | 1957-08-02 |
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The Mountain | Zachary Teller | 1956-05-31 |
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Bad Day at Black Rock | John J. Macreedy | 1955-01-13 |
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Broken Lance | Matt Devereaux | 1954-09-25 |
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The Actress | Clinton Jones | 1953-09-25 |
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Plymouth Adventure | Capt. Christopher Jones | 1952-11-28 |
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Pat and Mike | Mike Conovan | 1952-06-13 |
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The People Against O'Hara | James P. Curtayne | 1951-09-01 |
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Father's Little Dividend | Stanley Banks | 1951-04-05 |
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Father of the Bride | Stanley T. Banks | 1950-05-18 |
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Edward, My Son | Arnold Boult | 1949-03-01 |
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Malaya | Carnaghan | 1949-12-27 |
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Adam's Rib | Adam Bonner | 1949-11-18 |
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State of the Union | Grant Matthews | 1948-04-30 |
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Cass Timberlane | Cass Timberlane | 1947-11-06 |
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The Sea of Grass | Col. James B. Brewton | 1947-04-25 |
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Without Love | Pat Jamieson | 1945-03-22 |
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The Seventh Cross | George Heisler | 1944-07-24 |
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Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo | Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle | 1944-11-15 |
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Twenty Years After | (archive footage) | 1944-01-01 |
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His New World | Narrator (voice) | 1943-01-24 |
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Keeper of the Flame | Stevie O'Malley | 1943-04-01 |
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A Guy Named Joe | Pete Sandidge | 1943-12-24 |
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Tortilla Flat | Pilon | 1942-05-21 |
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Woman of the Year | Sam Craig | 1942-02-05 |
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Ring of Steel | Narrator (voice) | 1942-04-02 |
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Men of Boys Town | Edward Flanagan | 1941-04-11 |
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Dr. Henry 'Harry' Jekyll / Mr. Hyde | 1941-08-12 |
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Edison, the Man | Thomas A. Edison | 1940-05-10 |
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I Take This Woman | Karl Decker | 1940-02-02 |
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Young Tom Edison | Man Admiring Portrait of Thomas A. Edison | 1940-03-15 |
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Northward, Ho! | Himself | 1940-02-10 |
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A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound | Self | 1940-10-24 |
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Hollywood: Style Center of the World | Self | 1940-05-29 |
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Northwest Passage | Major Robert Rogers | 1940-02-23 |
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Boom Town | Square John Sand | 1940-08-30 |
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Cavalcade of the Academy Awards | Self | 1940-07-31 |
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Stanley and Livingstone | Henry M. Stanley | 1939-08-18 |
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From the Ends of the Earth | Self | 1939-05-28 |
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Hollywood Hobbies | Self (uncredited) | 1939-05-03 |
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Hollywood Goes to Town | Self | 1938-07-07 |
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Boys Town | Father Flanagan | 1938-09-08 |
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Test Pilot | Gunner Morse | 1938-04-16 |
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Another Romance of Celluloid | Self (uncredited) | 1938-02-05 |
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Mannequin | John Hennessey | 1938-01-21 |
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Big City | Joe Benton | 1937-09-03 |
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Captains Courageous | Manuel Fidello | 1937-06-25 |
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They Gave Him a Gun | Fred P. Willis | 1937-05-07 |
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The Romance of Celluloid | Self (archive footage) | 1937-08-27 |
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Riffraff | Dutch | 1936-01-03 |
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Libeled Lady | Warren Haggerty | 1936-10-09 |
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San Francisco | Father Tim Mullin | 1936-06-26 |
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Fury | Joe Wilson | 1936-06-05 |
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Dante's Inferno | Jim Carter | 1935-08-23 |
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Whipsaw | Ross 'Mac' McBride aka Danny Ross Ackerman | 1935-12-18 |
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It's A Small World | Bill Shevlin | 1935-04-12 |
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The Murder Man | Steven 'Steve' Grey | 1935-07-12 |
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Bottoms Up | 'Smoothie' King | 1934-04-12 |
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Looking for Trouble | Joe Graham | 1934-03-28 |
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Now I'll Tell | Murray Golden | 1934-06-07 |
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The Show-Off | J. Aubrey Piper | 1934-03-09 |
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Marie Galante | Dr. Crawbett | 1934-10-25 |
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Man's Castle | Bill | 1933-11-20 |
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The Power and the Glory | Tom Garner | 1933-10-06 |
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Face in the Sky | Joe Buck | 1933-01-15 |
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Shanghai Madness | Pat Jackson | 1933-08-03 |
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The Mad Game | Edward Carson | 1933-10-27 |
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing | Tommy Connors | 1932-12-24 |
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Me and My Gal | Danny Dolan | 1932-12-04 |
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She Wanted a Millionaire | William Kelley | 1932-02-21 |
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Sky Devils | Wilkie | 1932-03-12 |
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Young America | Jack Doray | 1932-04-17 |
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Disorderly Conduct | Dick Fay | 1932-03-20 |
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Society Girl | Briscoe | 1932-05-29 |
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The Painted Woman | Tom Brian | 1932-08-20 |
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Quick Millions | Daniel J. 'Bugs' Raymond | 1931-04-17 |
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Six Cylinder Love | William Donroy | 1931-05-10 |
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Goldie | Bill | 1931-06-27 |
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The Hard Guy | Guy | 1930-09-06 |
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Up the River | Saint Louis | 1930-10-10 |
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Taxi Talks | Taxi Driver | 1930-06-06 |
