Spencer Tracy

American film star Spencer Tracy was one of Hollywood's greatest male leads and the first actor to receive two consecutive Academy Awards for best actor. Tracy appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy ninth among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time.

He was born Spencer Bonaventure Tracy on April 5, 1900 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of John Edward Tracy, an Irish American Catholic truck salesman, and Caroline Brown, a Protestant turned Christian Scientist. Tracy's paternal grandparents, John Tracy and Mary Guhin, were born in Ireland. His mother's ancestry dates back to Thomas Stebbins, who immigrated from England in the late 1630s.

Tracy attended six high schools. After graduating from Milwaukee's West Division High School, he attended Ripon College. There he appeared in a leading role in a play entitled The Truth and decided on acting as a career. While touring the Northeast with the Ripon debate team, he auditioned for and was accepted to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. His first Broadway role was as a robot in Karel Čapek's R.U.R. (1922), followed by five other Broadway plays in the 1920s. In 1923 he married actress Louise Treadwell. They had two children, John and Louise (Susie).

He finally achieved successon stage in the 1930 hit The Last Mile. Director John Ford was impressed by his performance and cast him in Up the River with Humphrey Bogart. Fox Film Corporation signed him to a long term contract, but after five years of mostly undistinguished films, he joined the most prestigious movie studio of the time, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where his career flourished. He won back-to-back Academy Awards for Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938).

In 1942, he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year. The teaming lasted for decades, both on-screen and off. They fell in love and maintained an affair that lasted for decades. (Tracy was already married and, as a Catholic, would not consider divorce.) One of the greatest of cinematic couples, they made eight more films together, ending in 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which was completed shortly before his death.

On June 10, 1967, seventeen days after filming had been completed on his last film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, with Hepburn, Spencer Tracy died of a heart attack at age 67, having long suffered from emphysema since the early 1950s from his daily smoking habit. The film was released in December, six months after his death.

Source: Wikipedia

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American Actor. Tracy, considered one of Hollywood's greatest actors, was nominated for an Academy Award nine times in his career, winning in 1937 for his portrayal of a Portuguese fisherman in 'Captains Courageous', and the following year, winning again for his role as Rev. Edward J. Flanagan in 'Boys Town', becoming the first person to win back-to-back Best Actor awards. A boyhood marked by truancy and fighting, he dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Navy during World War I, but never saw action. Later, he finished high school and entered Ripon College in Wisconsin, where one of his professors steered him towards acting. In 1922, he transferred to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and shared a furnished room with a boyhood friend, actor Pat O'Brien. Tracy landed roles in local theater productions before working his way onto the Broadway stage. In 1930, he appeared in his first film 'The Strong Arm' and would go on to appear in over 75 films in a career that spanned four decades. His nine Academy Award nominations were for 'San Francisco' (1937), 'Captains Courageous' (1938, won), 'Boys Town' (1939, won), 'Father of the Bride' (1951), 'Bad Day at Black Rock' (1956), 'The Old Man and the Sea' (1959), 'Inherit the Wind' (1961), 'Judgment at Nuremberg' (1962) and a posthumous nomination for 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' (1968). Tracy co-starred in eight films with Katharine Hepburn in 'Woman of the Year' (1942), 'Keeper of the Flame' (1943), 'Without Love' (1945), 'The Sea of Grass' (1947), 'State of the Union' (1948), 'Adam's Rib' (1949), 'Pat and Mike' (1952) and 'Desk Set' (1957). He was in a relationship with Hepburn, from 1941 until his death in 1967, although he was married, but separated from his wife Louise. For his contributions to the film industry, Tracy was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is listed at number nine on the American Film Institute's list of greatest actors of all time, has an award for excellence bestowed in his name by the University of California, Los Angeles, and was featured on the U.S. Postal Service's series of stamps of America's Greatest Actors.* Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Apr 24 2020, 4:43:58 UTC