Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor, from nine nominations. During his career, he appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Tracy in State of the Union (1948)
Tracy at the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy in 1919
Tracy (background) in The Last Mile – the 1930 Broadway role that saw him scouted for Hollywood
With Dickie Moore in Disorderly Conduct (1932), Tracy's seventh film
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema is a term used in film criticism to describe both a narrative and visual style of filmmaking that first developed in the 1910s to 1920s during the later years of the silent film era. It then became characteristic of American cinema during the Golden Age of Hollywood, between roughly 1927 and 1960. It eventually became the most powerful and pervasive style of filmmaking worldwide.
Film classic Gone with the Wind (1939) starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh
Still from the silent film The Birth of a Nation (1915), starring Lillian Gish (second from right)
Theatrical release poster for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)