Spencer Tracy

He was voted the 19th Greatest Movie Star of all time by "Premiere Magazine".

He was voted the 15th Greatest Movie Star of all time by "Entertainment Weekly".

As of 2009 he is only one of six performers who won a Golden Globe Award as Best Lead Actor/Actress in a Motion Picture Drama without being nominated for an Oscar for that same role (for The Actress (1953)). The others are Anthony Franciosa in Career (1959), Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago (1965), Shirley MacLaine in Madame Sousatzka (1988), Jim Carrey in The Truman Show (1998) and Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road (2008).

His son, John Tracy, died June 15, 2007, at his son's home in Acton, Calif. He was 82. Cause of death, following a long illness, was unknown. His sister, Louise Treadwell "Susie" Tracy, announced his death.

In 2006 his performance as Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind (1960) is ranked #67 on "Premiere Magazine''s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.

In October 1997 he was ranked #64 in "Empire" (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.

Died only 17 days after filming of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) had been completed.

Tracy was offered the role of The Penguin in the TV series Batman (1966) before Burgess Meredith. He said he would only accept the role if he was allowed to kill Batman.

He was supposed to appear in Cheyenne Autumn (1964) and The Cincinnati Kid (1965), but suffered a severe heart attack in 1963. Edward G. Robinson replaced him in both movies.

Was announced as co-star with Paul Newman and Robert Mitchum in the Jerry Wald production of The Enemy Within, based on the book by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, which in 1962/63 was in preparation for 20th Century-Fox.

Turned down the role of the judge in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Edward Arnold's role in Come and Get It (1936), Michael Rennie's role in Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951), Desi Arnaz's role in Forever, Darling (1956), William Powell's role in Mister Roberts (1955), Donald Crisp's role in National Velvet (1944), Melvyn Douglas's role in Ninotchka (1939), and Gregory Peck's role in The Yearling (1946).

Was supposed to star in Ten North Frederick (1958), but had to withdraw due to poor health and was replaced by Gary Cooper.

In 1956/57 when his longtime friend Humphrey Bogart was dying of cancer, Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were two of the few people who visited Bogie (and wife Lauren Bacall) at their home on an almost daily basis. They would sit together at Bogie's bedside for half an hour or so every evening in the months and weeks leading up to his death. After Bogie's death, Bacall requested that Tracy deliver the eulogy at the funeral. He apologetically declined, saying it would simply be too difficult for him. He felt he would be too emotional and wouldn't be able to do it. Bacall understood and director John Huston delivered the eulogy instead.

He was sought for Fredric March's role in The Desperate Hours (1955) opposite Humphrey Bogart, but would not take second billing.

He appears in four of the American Film Institute's 100 Funniest Movies: Adam's Rib (1949) at #22, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) at #40, Father of the Bride (1950) at #83 and Woman of the Year (1942) at #90.

Attended the Democratic National Convention in 1944.

Is one of eight actors who have received an Oscar nomination for their performance as a priest. The others, in chronological order, are: Charles Bickford for The Song of Bernadette (1943); Bing Crosby for Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945); Barry Fitzgerald for Going My Way (1944); Gregory Peck for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944); Karl Malden for On the Waterfront (1954); Jason Miller for The Exorcist--The Version You've Never Seen Before (1973); and Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt (2008). Tracy, Crosby and Fitzgerald all won Oscars for their performances.

Made nine films with Katharine Hepburn, the first of which was Woman of the Year (1942). The last was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).

Tracy suffered from severe alcoholism and diabetes (from the late 1940's), which led to his declining several tailor-made roles in films that would become big hits with other actors in those roles. Although his drinking problems were well known, he was considered peerless among his colleagues (Tracy had a well-deserved reputation for keeping co-stars on their toes for his oddly endearing scene-stealing tricks), and remained in demand as a senior statesman who nevertheless retained box office clout.

His Best Actor Oscar for Boys Town (1938) is inscribed with the name "Dick Tracy."

He became the first actor to win back-to-back Best Actor Oscars for Captains Courageous (1937) and, in a project he initially didn't want to star in, Boys Town (1938).

During Tracy's nearly forty-year film career, he was nominated for his performances inSan Francisco (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).

In 1935 Tracy signed with MGM under the aegis of Irving Thalberg and his career flourished.

Making very little money in stock, Tracy supported himself with jobs as bellhop, janitor and salesman until John Ford saw his critically acclaimed performance in the lead role in the play "The Last Mile" (later played on film by Clark Gable) and signed him for The William Fox Film Company's production of Up the River (1930). Despite appearing in sixteen films at that studio over the next five years, Tracy was never able to rise to full film star status there, in large part because the studio was unable to match his talents to suitable story material. During that period the studio itself floundered, eventually merging with Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck and William Goetz's William 20th Century Pictures to become 20th Century-Fox).

Tracy had a brief romantic relationship with Loretta Young in the 1930s, and a lifelong one with Katharine Hepburn beginning in 1942 after they were first paired in Woman of the Year by director George Stevens. Tracy's strong Roman Catholic beliefs precluded his divorcing wife Louise, though they mostly lived apart.

Had two children from his marriage to Louise Treadwell: Son, John Ten Broeck Tracy (born 26 June 1924, died 15 June 2007) and daughter, Louise Treadwell 'Susie' Tracy (born July 1 1932).

In 1923 both got nonspeaking parts as robots in "R. U. R. ", a dramatization of the groundbreaking science fiction novel by Czech author Karel Capek.

Attended no fewer than six high schools: Wauwatosa (WI) High School; St. John's Cathedral School (Milwaukee, WI); St. Mary's (near Topeka, KS); Rockhurst High School (Kansas City, MO) ; Marquette Academy (Milwaukee); WWI service; Northwestern Military and Naval Academy (Lake Geneva, WI); and West Division High School (Milwaukee), from which he graduated in 1921.

Spencer Tracy was the second son born on April 5, 1900, to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown Tracy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While attending Marquette Academy, he and classmate Pat O'Brien quit school to enlist in the Navy at the start of World War I. Tracy was still at Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia at the end of the war. After playing the lead in the play "The Truth" at Ripon College he decided that acting might be his career. Moving to New York, Tracy and O'Brien, who'd also settled on a career on the stage, roomed together while attending the Academy of Dramatic Arts.