Spencer Tracy, v plnom znení Spencer Bonaventure Tracy, (narodený 5. apríla 1900, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA - zomrel 10. júna 1967, Beverly Hills, Kalifornia), americká filmová hviezda, ktorá bola jedným z najväčších hollywoodskych vodcov a prvá herec získať dve po sebe idúce ceny akadémie za najlepší herec.
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Ako mladý sa Tracy nudil v škole a do Amerického námorníctva vstúpil vo veku 17 rokov. Napriek jeho neochote akademikov sa napokon stal vynikajúcim študentom na Wisconsinskej Ripon College. Zatiaľ čo tam súťažil, vyhral úlohu v začiatočnej hre a zistil, že koná viac ako jeho záľuba ako medicína. V roku 1922 odišiel do New Yorku, kde sa spolu so svojím priateľom Pat O'Brienom zapísal na Americkú akadémiu dramatických umení. V tom istom roku obaja muži debutovali na Broadwayi a hrali trochu role robotov v RUR Karla Čapka. Počas ďalších ôsmich rokov sa Tracy odrazila medzi vystupujúcimi časťami krátkodobých Broadwayových hier a vedúcimi úlohami v regionálnych akciových spoločnostiach, čím nakoniec dosiahla hviezdu, keď v roku 1930 bol Broadway hit The Last Mile. Následne sa objavil v dvoch krátkych predmetoch Vitafónu,bol však so sebou nespokojný a pesimisticky sa pýtal na svoje šance na hviezdny obraz.
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.
