page_title: Spencer Tracy
section_title: Reputation and acting style
hierarchical_section_title: Spencer Tracy / Reputation and acting style
caption_attribution_description: Studio publicity photo of actor Spencer Tracy.
context_page_description: Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American actor, known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy won two Academy Awards for Best Actor from nine nominations, sharing the record for nominations in the category with Laurence Olivier.
  Tracy first discovered his talent for acting while attending Ripon College, and he later received a scholarship for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He spent seven years in the theatre, working in a succession of stock companies and intermittently on Broadway. His breakthrough came in 1930, when his lead performance in The Last Mile caught the attention of Hollywood. After a successful film debut in John Ford's Up the River in which he starred, he was signed to a contract with Fox Film Corporation. Tracy's five years with Fox featured one acting tour de force after another that were usually ignored at the box office, and he remained largely unknown to audiences after 25 films, almost all of them starring him as the leading man. None of them were hits, although his performance in The Power and the Glory was praised at the time.
context_section_description: Tracy had a solid reputation among his peers and received considerable praise from the film industry. After his death, MGM head Dore Schary said that there "can be no question that [Tracy] was the best and most protean actor of our screen". He was referred to as the greatest actor of his generation by Clark Gable, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, John Ford, Garson Kanin, and Katharine Hepburn. Actor Richard Widmark, who idolized Tracy, called him "the greatest movie actor there ever was" and said that he had "learned more about acting from watching Tracy than in any other way".
  Tracy was particularly respected for his naturalism onscreen. Hume Cronyn, who worked with Tracy on The Seventh Cross, admired his screen presence: "His method appeared to be as simple as it is difficult to achieve. He appeared to do nothing. He listened, he felt, he said the words without forcing anything." Joan Crawford likewise expressed her admiration for Tracy's seemingly effortless performances, stating that it was "inspiring" to co-star with him and that "his is such simplicity of performance, such naturalness and humor [...] he walks through a scene [and] makes it seem so easy". His four-time co-star Joan Bennett said that she "never had the feeling he was 'acting' in a scene, but the truth of the situation was actually happening, spontaneously, at the moment he spoke his lines". Cagney noted that Tracy was rarely the target of impressionists because "you can't mimic reserve and control very well [...] there's nothing to imitate except his genius and that can't be mimicked".
  Tracy was praised for his listening and reacting skills; Barry Nelson said that he "brought the art of reacting to a new height", while Stanley Kramer declared that he "thought and listened better than anyone in the history of motion pictures". Millard Kaufman noted that Tracy "listened with every fiber of his entire body". In his memoir, Burt Reynolds noted Tracy's emphasis on naturalism when, as a rookie actor, he observed Tracy on the set of Inherit the Wind. Reynolds later introduced himself to Tracy as an actor and Tracy replied, "An actor, huh? Just remember not to ever let anyone catch you at it."
  Despite the perception that he was able to turn up to a shoot and perform effortlessly, Tracy's acquaintances said that he would carefully prepare for each role in private. Joseph L. Mankiewicz lived with him during the production of Test Pilot, and recounted that Tracy would lock himself in his bedroom "working extremely hard" each night. Many co-workers commented on his strong work ethic and professionalism. However, he did not like to rehearse and would quickly lose his "effectiveness" after shooting two or three takes of the same scene. Kanin described him as "an instinctive player, who trusted the moment of creation". Tracy's close friend Chester Erskine pinpointed his acting style as one of "selection", stating that he strove to give as little as was needed to be effective and reached "a minimum to make the maximum".
  Tracy disliked being asked about his technique or what advice he would give to others. He often belittled the profession of acting, once saying to Kanin, "Why do actors think they're so goddamn important? They're not. Acting is not an important job in the scheme of things. Plumbing is." He was also humble about his abilities, telling a journalist, "It's just that I try no tricks. No profile. No 'great lover' act ... I just project myself as I am—plain, trying to be honest." He was known to have enjoyed the quip once made by Alfred Lunt, "The art of acting is: learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture!" Hepburn, in an interview six years after Tracy's death, suggested that Tracy wished he had held a different profession.
caption: Tracy, c. 1935
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