Spencer Tracy, v celoti Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (rojen 5. aprila 1900, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ZDA - umrl 10. junij 1967, Beverly Hills, Kalifornija), ameriški filmski zvezdnik, ki je bil eden največjih moških v Hollywoodu in prvi igralec prejel dve zaporedni oskarjevi nagradi za najboljšega igralca.
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Filmska šola: dejstvo ali fikcija?
Pri snemanju filmov je osvetlitev ključna.
Tracyju je kot mladostnik dolgčas prišel v šolo in se pri 17 letih pridružil ameriški mornarici. Kljub nejevolji do akademikov je sčasoma postal ugledni študent na Wisconsinovem fakultetu Ripon. Medtem, ko je bil tam, je nastopal avdicijo in dobil vlogo v začetku predstave in odkril je, da je igranje bolj všeč kot medicini. Leta 1922 je odšel v New York City, kjer se je s prijateljem Pat O'Brienom vpisal na Ameriško akademijo dramskih umetnosti. Istega leta sta oba moška posnela svoj skupni broadwayski prvenec in igrala bitne vloge kot roboti v RUR-u Karela Čapeka. Naslednjih osem let se je Tracy prebijala med predstavljenimi deli v kratkotrajnih igrah na Broadwayu in vodilnimi vlogami v regionalnih delniških družbah, s čimer je končno dosegla vrhunec, ko bil je igralec kot smrtni zapornik Killer Mears v uspešnici Broadway leta 1930 The Last Mile. Pozneje je nastopil v dveh kratkih temah Vitaphone,vendar je bil nezadovoljen sam s seboj in pesimističen glede svojih možnosti za zaslonsko zvezdo.
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.
