Spencer
December 24, 2020
Ron
Spencer Tracy
was the best actor who ever lived, if you ask me, and pretty much everybody in the industry thought so, too. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was a ground-breaking film for its time, and Spencer Tracy has one of the greatest monologues I think ever committed to film. He died seventeen days after filming completed.
Most of my generation of actors wanted to be like Marlon Brando or Jimmy Dean (and I worked the Jimmy Dean thing pretty hard, too -- see below), but Spencer was my aspiration. The very hardest thing to do as an actor is be natural and improvisational. And simple. And honest. And really learning how to listen; listening is everything as an actor, and nobody was present in a scene like Spencer was. Everybody tried to be like him. Even Marlon was just trying to reach what Spencer could.
Spencer was a nine-time Oscar nominee and a two-time winner (for "Captains Courageous" in 1938 and the wonderful "Boys Town" in 1939). There's too many amazing Tracy performances to cite here, but below are few of his most celebrated films. ENJOY!
"BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK" (1955)
[Oscar nomination for Tracy.]
"THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA" (1958)
[Oscar nomination for Tracy. Adapted from the Hemingway classic.]
"INHERIT THE WIND" (1960)
[Oscar nomination for Tracy. One of the finest films ever made, in my opinion.]
"JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG" (1961)
[Oscar nomination for Tracy. Another of the finest films ever made, with an all-star cast of some of the most brilliant luminaries ever to grace the silver screen, including Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift (Oscar nominated), Judy Garland (Oscar nominated), Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell (Oscar winner), and William Shatner.]
"IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD" (1963)
[One of the greatest all-star comic romps ever filmed. It's a madcap race for a hidden treasure and it is pure gold. With Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Dorothy Provine, Jim Backus, Joe E. Brown, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Peter Falk, Norman Fell, Edward Everett Horton, Sterling Holloway, Don Knotts, Buster Keaton, Zasu Pitts, Carl Reiner, the Three Stooges, and Jimmy Durante.]
"GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER" (1967)
[Oscar nomination for Tracy. This is a trail-blazing classic and the monologue featured at the top of this page is from this film. Tracy and Hepburn were together here for the last time on celluloid, and it's a master class in acting. Hepburn won the Academy Award for her role.]
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