1900-04-05 ( 125 years old ) in 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.
Movies
Gene Kelly - An American in Hollywood
2025-01-02
Rat Pack
2022-01-11
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
2018-07-27
And the Oscar Goes To...
2014-02-01
Classic Movie Bloopers: Uncensored
2013-01-29
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
2009-07-02
Bogart: The Untold Story
1997-01-05
Ingrid Bergman Remembered
1996-04-06
La Classe américaine
1993-12-31
Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell
1993-02-06
Movie Tough Guys
1991-01-01
Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home To
1990-06-04
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
1988-11-22
The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind
1988-10-01
George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey
1985-03-03
Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
1983-02-25
That's Entertainment, Part II
1976-05-16
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1975-08-06
That's Entertainment!
1974-06-21
Hollywood: The Dream Factory
1972-01-10
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
1967-12-11
The Big Parade of Comedy
1964-09-02
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
1963-11-07
How the West Was Won
1962-11-02
Hollywood: The Selznick Years
1961-12-31
Judgment at Nuremberg
1961-12-18
The Devil at 4 O'Clock
1961-10-18
Inherit the Wind
1960-07-07
The Last Hurrah
1958-12-31
The Old Man and the Sea
1958-10-07
Desk Set
1957-08-02
The Mountain
1956-05-31
Bad Day at Black Rock
1955-01-13
Broken Lance
1954-09-25
The Actress
1953-09-25
Plymouth Adventure
1952-11-28
Pat and Mike
1952-06-13
The People Against O'Hara
1951-09-01
Father's Little Dividend
1951-04-05
Father of the Bride
1950-05-18
Malaya
1949-12-27
Adam's Rib
1949-11-18
Edward, My Son
1949-03-01
State of the Union
1948-04-30
Cass Timberlane
1947-11-06
The Sea of Grass
1947-04-25
Without Love
1945-03-22
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
1944-11-15
The Seventh Cross
1944-07-24
Twenty Years After
1944-01-01
A Guy Named Joe
1943-12-24
Keeper of the Flame
1943-04-01
His New World
1943-01-24
Tortilla Flat
1942-05-21
Ring of Steel
1942-04-02
Woman of the Year
1942-02-05
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1941-08-12
Men of Boys Town
1941-04-11
Boom Town
1940-08-30
Cavalcade of the Academy Awards
1940-07-31
Hollywood: Style Center of the World
1940-05-29
Edison, the Man
1940-05-10
Young Tom Edison
1940-03-15
Northwest Passage
1940-02-23
Northward, Ho!
1940-02-10
I Take This Woman
1940-02-02
Stanley and Livingstone
1939-08-18
From the Ends of the Earth
1939-05-28
Hollywood Hobbies
1939-05-03
Boys Town
1938-09-08
Hollywood Goes to Town
1938-07-07
Test Pilot
1938-04-16
Another Romance of Celluloid
1938-02-05
Mannequin
1938-01-21
Big City
1937-09-03
The Romance of Celluloid
1937-08-27
Captains Courageous
1937-06-25
They Gave Him a Gun
1937-05-07
Libeled Lady
1936-10-09
San Francisco
1936-06-26
Fury
1936-06-05
Riffraff
1936-01-03
Whipsaw
1935-12-18
Dante's Inferno
1935-08-23
The Murder Man
1935-07-12
It's A Small World
1935-04-12
Marie Galante
1934-10-25
Now I'll Tell
1934-06-07
Bottoms Up
1934-04-12
Looking for Trouble
1934-03-28
The Show-Off
1934-03-09
Man's Castle
1933-11-20
The Mad Game
1933-10-27
The Power and the Glory
1933-10-06
Shanghai Madness
1933-08-03
Face in the Sky
1933-01-15
20,000 Years in Sing Sing
1932-12-24
Me and My Gal
1932-12-04
The Painted Woman
1932-08-20
Society Girl
1932-05-29
Young America
1932-04-17
Disorderly Conduct
1932-03-20
Sky Devils
1932-03-12
She Wanted a Millionaire
1932-02-21
Goldie
1931-06-27
Six Cylinder Love
1931-05-10
Quick Millions
1931-04-17
Up the River
1930-10-10
The Hard Guy
1930-09-06
Taxi Talks
1930-06-06
Powered by Powerxsoft Ltd using the TMDB API