Spencer Tracy - Reputation and Acting Style

Reputation and Acting Style

Tracy had a high reputation among his peers and received considerable praise from the film industry. After his death, Dore Schary, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said, "There can be no question that he was the best and most protean actor of our screen." Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Ford, Garson Kanin and Katharine Hepburn called Tracy the greatest actor of his generation. Tracy was particularly respected for his naturalism on screen and his listening and reacting skills. Barry Nelson said that Tracy "brought the art of reacting to a new height"; Stanley Kramer declared that Tracy "thought and listened better than anyone in the history of motion pictures". Millard Kaufman noted that " listened with every fiber of his entire body". Hume Cronyn, who worked with Tracy on The Seventh Cross, admired his co-star's natural 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. "One never had the feeling he was 'acting' in a scene," said his four-time co-star Joan Bennett, "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" and "there's nothing to imitate except his genius and that can't be mimicked."

"I've never known what acting is. Who can honestly say what it is? ... I wonder what actors are supposed to be, if not themselves ... I've finally narrowed it down to where, when I begin a part, I say to myself, this is Spencer Tracy as a judge, or this is Spencer Tracy as a priest or as a lawyer, and let it go at that. Look, the only thing an actor has to offer a director and finally an audience is his instinct. That's all."

—Spencer Tracy, giving his opinion on acting.

Despite this perception of being able to perform effortlessly, acquaintances of Tracy said that he would carefully prepare for each role. Joseph L. Mankiewicz lived with Tracy during the production of Test Pilot, and recounted that the actor would lock himself in his bedroom "working extremely hard" each night. Many co-workers commented on his strong work-ethic and professionalism. Tracy did not like to rehearse, however, and would lose his effectiveness after two or three takes. Kanin described him as "an instinctive player, who trusted the moment of creation." Tracy's close friend Chester Erskine pinpointed his technique as one of "selection"—he strove to give as little as was needed to be effective—reaching "a minimum to make the maximum." Tracy disliked when he was asked about his technique, or about what advice he would give to others; he often belittled the profession. "Why do actors think they're so God damn important?", he said to Kanin. "They're not. Acting is not an important job in the scheme of things. Plumbing is." Tracy was 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!" Katharine Hepburn, in an interview six years after Tracy's death, suggested that Tracy wished he had held a different profession.

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