Spencer Tracy

Spencer Tracy in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an actor of stage and screen, who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy is generally regarded as one of the finest actors in motion picture history. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Tracy among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 9th on the list of 100. He was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Actor, winning twice.

Quotes

• Know your lines and don't bump into the furniture.
  • As quoted by Katharine Houghton in "Ageless Queen Full of Beans" by John Frook, LIFE (January 5, 1968), P. 64

Quotes about

• The real movie stars were Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift. How could I put myself in the same category as Clark Gable? Tom Cruise is a great movie star. Do I consider myself a movie star? I consider myself a guy with a good job, an interesting job.
  • Johnny Depp, Quoted in Bernard Weintraub, "Playboy Interview: Johnny Depp," Playboy (May 2004)

• A strange man. Undoubtedly a great actor. But so wracked by personal problems. My apartment in Century City looks down on the old Fox lake, which is now paved over with condominiums. And when I look down I think of Spence. He came on to me. He came on to every girl. And when he drank, look out! He went on a bender on this one that lasted for days. His wife was distraught, so I went out on a tour of Hollywood's seedy bars and I found him. Fox dried him out, but a few years later he was dropped because his alcoholism. I was up for the co-lead in A Man's Castle [1933], but Frank Lloyd chose Loretta Young and she really fell for Spence. I saw right through him, which could be the reason Spence asked that I not be chosen. [...] Met him decades later and he just nodded and walked on. Was he embarrassed I might have remembered his drunken antics? Or did he just not remember?
  • Fay Wray, speaking with James Bawden (circa 1970s); as quoted in Classic Film Stars: Interviews from Hollywood's Golden Era (2016) by Bawden and Ron Miller, p. 268

• It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America.
  • Govindini Murty, “Hey, Conservatives: It's Safe to Go to the Movies Again”, The Atlantic, (Oct. 12, 2011).

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