Spencer Tracy

July 25, 2011
Hollywood craziness claims the least "Hollywoodâ of stars in this massive, eye-opening biography. Onscreen, in Boys Town to Judgment at Nuremberg, Tracy (1900â1967), was the unflashy everyman imbued with stolid rectitude, all embodied in the understated, naturalistic style that made Tracy Hollywood's greatest actor. Offscreen, in Curtis's unflinching but unsensationalized account, it's the full neurotic, out-of-control movie-star turn: the epic drinking that halted productions and landed Tracy in jail and detox; the careful modulation of mood with Nembutal and Dexedrine; the bedding of starlets from Ingrid Bergman to Gene Tierney; the humiliating struggle with weight; the affectations (like an English toff, Tracy played polo). Curtis fingers Tracy's Catholic self-loathing and irrational guilt over his son's deafness and gives his relationship with Katharine Hepburnâhe hit and perhaps choked her during drunken ragesâa nuanced treatment. Still, this thoroughly researched, at times over-stuffed biography, gives us a rich and definitive portrait of the actor in all his baffling contradictions. Photos.

September 1, 2011

Spencer Tracy (1900–1967), warts and all.

Acclaimed biographer Curtis (W.C. Fields, 2003, etc.) presents an exhaustive and exhausting biography of the legendary Hollywood star, famed for his uncanny naturalism and authority on camera and best remembered for the series of films he made with longtime companion Katharine Hepburn. Impeccably researched, Curtis' doorstopper chronicles Tracy's steady rise from stock company star to Broadway sensation to silver screen icon in copious and sometimes plodding detail, recording salary negotiations, scheduling conflicts and press notices with laser-like focus. Happily, the author is equally expansive on the production details of Tracy's many classic films, his friendships and affairs with fellow glitterati and the culture of working actors in a variety of milieus. The heart of the book concerns Tracy's turbulent relationship with Hepburn; in Curtis' telling, it was a miraculous meeting of two diametrically opposed and difficult temperaments in which the neuroses and rough edges of each party found succor and understanding in the other. Truthfully, they both come across as monumentally annoying, and Tracy's lugubrious personality—guilt-ridden, painfully sensitive, diffident, gloomy—casts a bit of a pall over the narrative. Curtis is scrupulous but not salacious in documenting Tracy's catastrophic alcoholism and philandering. His long-suffering wife Louise (they never divorced, despite the open secret of his decades-long affair with Hepburn) emerges as an unlikely hero, an intelligent and proud woman who devoted her life to the establishment and expansion of The John Tracy Clinic, named for the couple's deaf son and tasked with improving the lot of deaf children and their parents through education and progressive treatments. Tracy regularly supplied funding for the clinic and seemed to regard its existence as the noblest aspect of his legacy—unsurprising for a self-loathing man who always reckoned he should have become a doctor or a priest and regarded his chosen profession as an embarrassment.

A monumental, definitive biography of one the finest film actors in the history of the medium.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2011

Having profiled W.C. Fields and Preston Sturges, Curtis here turns to quintessential actor Spencer Tracy. From Tracy's 73 films to his Catholic faith, battles with alcohol, and longtime affair with Katharine Hepburn, it's all here--or had better be, given the astonishing 1000-plus pages. Tracy's daughter gave Curtis unparalleled access to the actor's journals and papers. For all film nuts; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2011
This exhaustive and sometimes exhausting biography of Spencer Tracy offers a balanced and intriguing look at one of the screen's greatest actors. Writing with the cooperation of Susie Tracy, Spencer's daughter, Curtis has obtained access to everything from Tracy's date books to his health records. He also interviewed remaining family members, coworkers, and friends. All of this research makes possible an incredibly detailed account of Tracy's life, with stage work and films and their effect on him all noted. Perhaps less successful are Curtis' efforts in getting at the heart of the man, though that's understadable, considering even Tracy's companion of 25 years, Katharine Hepburn, never quite figured out why he was such a tortured soul. When it comes to Hepburn, it appears judgment on the affair between Tracy and the celebrated actress has now come full circle. In the first book to explore their relationship, friend Garson Kanin's Tracy and Hepburn (1988), they were portraryed as a devoted couple, with Hepburn, perhaps, the more devoted. Then came books claiming that Hepburn was lesbian, and her liaison with Tracy was more an affair of the heart. Curtis, in an addendum, denounces the latter theories, but, finally, his book is Tracy's, the saga of an actor's actor who never quite trusted his success; an ordinary-looking guy who bedded many of Hollywood's most beautiful women; an alcoholic who never stopped trying to beat his addiction. Those who remember him will be fascinated; younger readers will be spurred to rent his films and revel in his talent. The extensive back matter includes a complete filmography.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)