SPENCER TRACY BIOGRAPHY Spencer BonaventureTracy was born April 5, 1900 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father John Tracy was Irish; his mother Caroline Brown Tracy could trace her ancestors back to American Colonial days.  Spencer also had a brother, Carroll, older by four years. Young Spencer did not enjoy school and wanted to quit to find a job when he was sixteen. The plan was quickly vetoed by his parents, so Spencer enrolled at Marquette Academy. However, when America entered World War I in 1917, he saw his chance to "get out of school once and for all, pack up and get right smack into the middle of a lot of excitement."  He joined the Navy, was sent to Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia, and was still there when the war ended.  So much for excitement.With no specific plans upon his discharge, Tracy decided to take advantage of servicemen's education benefits and enrolled at Ripon College as a pre-med student.  He joined the debating team and to his vast surprise enjoyed it immensely. Acting in school plays was the next logical step, and Tracy's first performance was a leading role, earning him praise in the school newspaper as an "unusually strong actor" with "steadiness...strength, and suppressed emotion." Tracy was soon considering acting as a career, and auditioned at the Sargent school in New York. His father agreed to pay the tuition for the first semester, although he proclaimed that this acting "sounded like a silly idea."  Tracy took a room in a lodging house. His roomate was another Sargent student, by the name of Pat O'Brien. The two survived on 30 dollars a month, and a frequent diet was pretzels and water.  Tracy later said he studied dramatics "like I'd never studied anything before in my life" - primarily because he was sure he wouldn't be able to afford to attend classes for very long, and wanted to learn all he could as fast as possible. In 1923, Tracy joined a stock company from White Plains, NY.  Among the players was a young actress named Louise Treadwell. She and Tracy worked together often, fell in love, and were married in September of that year. The couple kept busy touring with different companies in many plays, sometimes playing the leads, sometimes as supporting players.  In June of 1924, Mrs. Tracy gave birth to a baby boy, whom they named John.  Several months later John was discovered to be deaf - news that shocked and saddened the Tracys. They were determined that young John would have a full and happy life despite his disability, and Louise began work on plans for what would eventually become the renowned John Tracy Clinic.  In 1932, daughter Susie was born to complete the family circle. Tracy's big professional break came with the 1930 play "The Last Mile", in which he played convict 'Killer' Mears. He was an overnight sensation. Film director John Ford saw Tracy's performance and convinced Fox Film Corporation to hire Tracy for Ford's film "Up the River".  Also in the cast was a young Humphrey Bogart - "Up the River" was the feature film debut for both these future superstars Tracy accepted a contract from Fox Films and he and his family moved to Hollywood in November of 1931.  He believed that exposure was the key to success in films; in his first three years at the studio he made sixteen films, with co-stars such as Joan Bennett, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, and Loretta Young. In 1935 Tracy signed a new contract with the most prestigious studio of the time, MGM, where he would remain for almost 20 years. Unlike Fox Films, MGM gave him scripts with depth and variety, and Tracy continued to amaze critics and audiences alike with his versatilty.  In 1936 alone he played an innocent man almost killed by a lynch mob in Fritz Lang's stark "Fury", a feisty priest opposite Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald in the spectacular "San Francisco", followed by "Libeled Lady", literally a four-star screwball comedy, with William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Jean Harlow. For 1937's "Captains Courageous" and 1938's "Boys Town" Tracy became the first man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for two consecutive years (a record matched only by Tom Hanks 55 years later). 1942 the John Tracy Clinic was founded, the result of Louise Tracy's desire to help deaf children and their families. The Clinic trains teachers and provides services - free of charge - that can break the barrier of silence for children ages one to five years.  Spencer Tracy's commitment and support of the project ensured the success of the Clinic, which continues its work today.     1942 also marked the release of "Woman of the Year", Tracy's first film with Katharine Hepburn.  The two would go on to make eight more films together, portraying equal partners in the film world's quintessential battle-of-the-sexes. Although Tracy's Catholicism prevented him from seeking divorce, he and Louise separated, and Tracy and Katharine Hepburn would become partners off the screen as well as on. The relationship lasted until Tracy's death, and the mutual respect of all concerned prevented any scandalous exposure - a unique occurrence in an age when such arrangements could have caused censure, damaged reputations, and ruined careers. In 1945 Tracy returned to the stage to star in Garson Kanin's "The Rugged Path". The play toured Washington DC, Boston, and New York, but closed after 81 performances.  The close of the decade found him in England, shooting "Edward My Son" with Deborah Kerr.  The film was not a success, but the delightful "Adam's Rib", his sixth film with Katharine Hepburn, was one of the top grossers of 1949. Tracy's son John graduated from college, and was married in 1953. On May 30, 1955 a boy, Joseph Spencer, was born to John and his wife Nadine, making Tracy a proud grandfather. With 1954's "Bad Day at Black Rock" Tracy completed his contract with the MGM studio, and would go on to freelance for Columbia, Warner Bros., and Twentieth Century-Fox. In the early 1960s Tracy was to give two of his finest performances - as defense attorney Henry Drummond in "Inherit the Wind", and as Judge Dan Hayward in "Judgment at Nuremburg".  Both films were directed by Stanley Kramer and Tracy was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for each role (his seventh and eighth nominations). Tracy's health began to fail; he was hospitalized with a congested lung condition n 1963, and was forced to turn down roles in several films in the following years. In 1967 he began work on what would be his final film, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", co-starring Hepburn and directed by Stanley Kramer.  His work-days were limited to just a few hours at a time - he had the enthusiasm and desire to work, but not the stamina.  His main fear was that he would hurt the film and all those involved by not being able to finish it, but finish it he did.  It was as if he had been hanging on for that reason alone; on June 10, 1967, three weeks after filming was completed, Spencer Tracy died of heart failure at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Tracy was considered by many to be the finest actor in films. Elizabeth Taylor has said: "His acting seemed almost effortless, it seemed almost as if he wasn't doing anything, and yet he was doing everything. It came so subtly out of his eyes, every muscle in his face - he was a film actor."  And Richard Widmark: "It's what every actor tries to strive for - to make it so simple, so real that anybody in the audience can say, 'Oh, I could do that' -  if you can ever achieve that kind of grace in acting you're on the way. And Tracy did it from the very beginning." Tracy was a complex and difficult man. Even the person who perhaps knew him best, Katharine Hepburn, was never able to fathom the "demons" that seemed to drive him.  In a 1986 documentary, "The Spencer Tracy Legacy", Hepburn shared a letter she had written to him eighteen years after his death:   "Living wasn't easy for you, was it?  What did you like to do? Sailing - especially in stormy weather. You loved polo, but tennis, golf, swimming - no, not really.  Walking - no, that didn't suit you - that was one of those things where you could think at the same time. Of this, of that...of what, Spence, what was it?  Was it some specific thing, like being a Catholic and you felt a bad Catholic? You concentrated on all the bad, none of the good which your religion offered. It must've been something very fundamental, very ever-present. And the incredible fact that there you were, really the greatest movie actor - you could do it, and you could do it with that glorious simplicity, that directness.  You couldn't enter your own life, but you could be someone else. You were the character in a moment, you hardly had to study - what a relief, you could be someone else for awhile, you weren't you, you were safe.  And then back to life's trials: 'Oh, hell, take a drink. Yes. No. Maybe.' And then stop taking those drinks - you were great at that, Spence, you could just stop.  How I respected you for that - very unusual.  But why the escape hatch? Why was it always open?  To get away from the remarkable you.  I always meant to ask you. Did you know what it was?  Are you having a long rest after all your tossing and turning in life? Are you happy finally?" Click here for other facts about Spencer READ ANOTHER BIOGRAPHY ABOUT SPENCER HERE ________________________________ go back to index