Spencer Tracy, u potpunosti Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (rođen 5. travnja 1900., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, SAD - umro 10. lipnja 1967., Beverly Hills, Kalifornija), američka filmska zvijezda koja je bila jedna od najvećih holivudskih glavnih uloga i prva glumac dobio dvije uzastopne nagrade Akademije za najboljeg glumca.
Kviz
Filmska škola: činjenica ili fikcija?
Prilikom izrade filmova ključno je rukovanje zaduženo za osvjetljenje.
Kao mladosti Tracy je dosadio školski posao i pridružio se američkoj mornarici u dobi od 17 godina. Unatoč nezadovoljstvu akademicima, na kraju je postao predpostavljeni student na Wisconsinovom fakultetu Ripon. Dok je bio tamo, bio je na audiciji i dobio ulogu u početnoj predstavi i otkrio je da gluma više odgovara njegovoj medicini nego medicini. Godine 1922. otišao je u New York City, gdje se s prijateljem Patom O'Brienom upisao na Američku akademiju dramskih umjetnosti. Iste godine obojica su izvela zajednički debi na Broadwayu, igrajući bitne uloge kao roboti u RUR-u Karela Čapeka. Sljedećih osam godina Tracy je skakao između istaknutih dijelova u kratkim igrama na Broadwayu i vodećih uloga u regionalnim dioničkim društvima, napokon postižući sjaj kad bio je glumljen kao zatvorenik s ubistvom Killer Mears u hitru The Broad Mile 1930. godine. Nakon toga pojavio se u dvije kratke teme Vitaphonea,ali bio je nezadovoljan sobom i pesimističan u pogledu svojih šansi za filmsku zvijezdu.
Nevertheless, director John Ford hired Tracy to star in the 1930 feature film Up the River, which resulted in a five-year stay at Fox Studios in Hollywood. Although few of his Fox films were memorable—excepting perhaps Me and My Gal (1932), 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932), and The Power and the Glory (1933)—his tenure at the studio enabled him to develop his uncanny ability to act without ever appearing to be acting. His friend Humphrey Bogart once attempted to describe the elusive Tracy technique: “[You] don’t see the mechanism working, the wheels turning. He covers up. He never overacts or is hammy. He makes you believe what he is playing.” For his part, Tracy always denied that he had come up with any sort of magic formula. Whenever he was asked the secret of great acting, he usually snapped, “Learn your lines!”
In 1935 he was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he would do some of his best work, beginning with his harrowing performance as a lynch-mob survivor in Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936). He received his first of nine Oscar nominations for San Francisco (1936) and became the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards, for his performance as the Portuguese fisherman Manuel in Captains Courageous (1937) and for his role as the priest who founded the eponymous facility in Boys Town (1938). In the course of his two decades at MGM he settled gracefully into character leads, conveying everything from paternal bemusement in Father of the Bride (1950) to grim determination in Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). In later years his health was eroded by respiratory ailments and a lifelong struggle with alcoholism, but Tracy worked into the early 1960s, delivering exceptionally powerful performances in producer-director Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind (1960) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).
Married since 1923 to former actress Louise Treadwell, Tracy lived apart from his wife throughout most of their marriage, though as a strict Roman Catholic he refused to consider divorce. From 1942 onward, he maintained a warm, intimate relationship with actress Katharine Hepburn. Tracy and Hepburn were also memorably teamed in nine films, including Woman of the Year (1942), Adam’s Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), Desk Set (1957), and Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), which was completed three weeks before Tracy’s death.
