Spencer Tracy: A Biography

Spencer Tracy: A Biography

€œThe best goddamned actor I€ve ever seen!€€"George M. Cohan<br><br>His full name was Spencer Bonaventure Tracy. He was called €œThe Gray Fox€ by Frank Sinatra; other actors<b> </b>called him the €œThe Pope.€<br><br>Spencer Tracy€s image on-screen was that of a self-reliant man whose sense of rectitude toward others was matched by his sense of humor toward himself. Whether he was Father Flanagan of <i>Boys Town</i>, Clarence Darrow of<b> </b><i>Inherit the Wind,</i> or the crippled war veteran in <i>Bad Day at Black Rock</i>, Tracy was forever seen as a pillar of strength.<br><br>In his several comedy roles opposite Katharine Hepburn (<i>Woman of the Year</i> and <i>Adam€s Rib</i> among them) or in <i>Father of the Bride</i> with Elizabeth Taylor, Tracy was the sort of regular American guy one could depend on.<br><br>Now James Curtis, acclaimed biographer of Preston Sturges (€œDefinitive€ €"<i>Variety</i>), James Whale, and W. C. Fields (€œBy far the fullest, fairest, and most touching account . . . we have yet had. Or are likely to have€ €"Richard Schickel, <i>The</i> <i>New York Times Book Review, </i>cover review), gives us the life of one of the most revered screen actors of his generation.<br><br>Curtis writes of Tracy€s distinguished career, his deep Catholicism, his devoted relationship to his wife, his drinking that got him into so much trouble, and his twenty-six-year-long bond with his partner on-screen and off, Katharine Hepburn. Drawing on Tracy€s personal papers and writing with the full cooperation of Tracy€s daughter, Curtis tells the rich story of the brilliant but haunted man at the heart of the legend. <br><br>We see him from his boyhood in Milwaukee; given over to Dominican nuns (€œThey drill that religion in you€); his years struggling in regional shows and stock (Tracy had a photographic memory and an instinct for inhabiting a character from within); acting opposite his future wife, Louise Treadwell; marrying and having two children, their son, John, born deaf.<br><br>We see Tracy€s success on Broadway, his turning out mostly forgettable programmers with the Fox Film Corporation, and going to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and getting the kinds of roles that had eluded him in the past€"a streetwise priest opposite Clark Gable in <i>San Francisco;</i> a screwball comedy, <i>Libeled Lady</i>; Kipling€s classic of the sea, <i>Captains Courageous</i>. Three years after arriving at MGM, Tracy became America€s top male star.<br><br>We see how Tracy embarked on a series of affairs with his costars . . . making <i>Northwest Passage</i> and <i>Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, </i>which<i> </i>brought Ingrid Bergman into his life. By the time the unhappy shoot was over, Tracy, looking to do a comedy, made <i>Woman of the Year</i>. Its unlikely costar: Katharine Hepburn.<br><br>We see Hepburn making Tracy her life€s project€"protecting and sustaining him in the difficult job of being a top-tier movie star.<br><br>And we see Tracy€s wife, Louise, devoting herself to studying how deaf children could be taught to communicate orally with the hearing and speaking world.<br><br>Curtis writes that Tracy was ready to retire when producer-director Stanley Kramer recruited him for <i>Inherit the Wind</i>€"a collaboration that led to <i>Judgment at Nuremberg, It€s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World,</i> and Tracy€s final picture, <i>Guess Who€s Coming to Dinner </i>. . . <br><br>A rich, vibrant portrait€"the most intimate and telling yet of this complex man considered by many to be <i>the</i> actor€s actor.