Spencer Tracy
Acting
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.
Known For
The original concept of the show was to allow the viewer to see the inner workings of a movie studio and featured interviews with MGM stars and explanations of how movies were made. Later, the format changed to show edited versions of MGM films.
MGM Parade
A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.
Judgment at Nuremberg
The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.
How the West Was Won
Proud father Stanley Banks remembers the day his daughter, Kay, got married. Starting when she announces her engagement through to the wedding itself, we learn of all the surprises and disasters along the way.
Father of the Bride
Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.
Inherit the Wind
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
One-armed war veteran John J. Macreedy steps off a train at the sleepy little town of Black Rock. Once there, he begins to unravel a web of lies, secrecy, and murder.
Bad Day at Black Rock
Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone and creates a potion that allows his evil side, Mr. Hyde, to come to the fore. He faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run amok.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.
Captains Courageous
Rival reporters Sam Craig and Tess Harding fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.
Woman of the Year
A woman's attempted murder of her uncaring husband results in everyday quarrels in the lives of Adam and Amanda, a pair of happily married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of the case in court.
Adam's Rib
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.
San Francisco
Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the ranch.
Broken Lance
A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
Joe, who owns a gas station along with his brothers and is about to marry Katherine, travels to the small town where she lives to visit her, but is wrongly mistaken for a wanted kidnapper and arrested.
Fury
Santiago is an aging, down-on-his-luck, Cuban fisherman who, after catching nothing for nearly 3 months, hooks a huge Marlin and struggles to land it far out in the Gulf Stream.
The Old Man and the Sea
Newly married Kay Dunstan announces that she and her husband are having a baby, leaving her father to come to grips with the fact that he will soon be a granddad.