He was born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of John Edward Tracy, an
Irish American Catholic truck salesman, and Caroline Brown, a
Protestant turned
Christian Scientist, and was christened
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy.
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, starting with
Wauwatosa High School in 1915 and
St. John's Cathedral School for boys in Milwaukee the following year. The Tracy family then moved to
Kansas City, where Spencer was enrolled at
St. Mary's College, Kansas, a boarding school in St. Marys, Kansas 30 miles west of
Topeka, Kansas, then transferred to
Rockhurst, a
Jesuit academy in
Kansas City, Missouri. John Tracy's job in Kansas City did not work out, and the family returned to Milwaukee six months after their departure. Spencer was enrolled at
Marquette Academy, another Jesuit school, where he met fellow actor
Pat O'Brien. The two left school in spring 1917 to enlist in the
Navy with the American entry into
World War I, but Tracy remained in
Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia throughout the war. Afterwards, Tracy continued his high school education at
Northwestern Military and Naval Academy in
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, but finished his studies at Milwaukee's West Division High School (now
Milwaukee High School of the Arts) in February 1921.
Afterward he attended
Ripon College where he appeared in a leading role in a play entitled
The Truth, and decided on acting as a career. Tracy received an honorary degree from Ripon College in 1940. 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).
For several years he performed in stock in Michigan, Canada, and Ohio. Finally in 1930 he appeared in a hit play on Broadway,
The Last Mile. Director
John Ford saw Tracy in
The Last Mile and signed him to do
Up the River for
Fox Pictures. Shortly after that he and his family moved to
Hollywood, where he made over 25 films in five years.
In 1935 Tracy signed with
Metro Goldwyn Mayer. He won the
Academy Award for
Best Actor two years in a row, for
Captains Courageous (1937) and
Boys Town (1938).
He was also nominated for
San 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 posthumously for
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). Tracy and
Laurence Olivier share the record for the most Academy Best Actor nods with nine Oscar nominations.
In 1941, Tracy began a relationship with
Katharine Hepburn, whose agile mind, sleek elegance and
New England brogue complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo very well. Their relationship, which neither would discuss publicly, lasted until Tracy's death in 1967. Whether the two stars were close friends and kindred spirits, or had a sexual affair, is still a
matter of speculation. Though estranged from his wife, Louise, Tracy was a practicing
Roman Catholic and never divorced.
Seventeen days after filming had completed on his last film,
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, with Hepburn, he died from heart failure at the age of 67. Forty years after his death, Tracy is still widely considered one of the most skillful actors of his time. He could portray the hero, the villain, or the comedian, and make the audience believe he truly was the character he played. In the 1944 film
The Seventh Cross, for example, he was effective as an escaped prisoner from a German
concentration camp despite his heavy-set build.
Tracy was one of Hollywood's earliest "realistic" actors; his performances have stood the test of time. Actors have noted that Tracy's work in 1930s films sometimes looks like a modern actor interacting with the more stylized and dated performances of everyone around him.
In 1988, the University of California, Los Angeles' Campus Events Commission and Susie Tracy created the UCLA Spencer Tracy Award. The award has been given to actors in recognition for their achievement in film acting. Past recipients include
William Hurt, James Stewart, Michael Douglas, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Sir
Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Harrison Ford, Anjelica Houston, Nicolas Cage, Kirk Douglas, Jack Lemmon and
Morgan Freeman.
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