Spencer Tracy Several of Tracy's films, particularly his comedies, are regarded as classics of American cinema. He starred in four of the titles on the American Film Institute's list of "100 Years ... 100 Laughs": "Adam's Rib", "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "Father of the Bride" and "Woman of the Year". "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was included on AFI's list of the 100 greatest American movies, while "Captains Courageous" was featured on their list of America's most inspiring movies. Tracy was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Actor, a category record he holds with Laurence Olivier. He was
Spencer Tracy ordinary man, and just the man for the part." "The Last Mile" opened on Broadway in February, where Tracy's performance was met by a standing ovation that lasted 14 curtain calls. The "Commonweal" described him as "one of our best and most versatile young actors". The play was a hit with critics, and ran for 289 performances. In 1930, Broadway was being heavily scouted for actors to work in the "talkies", the new medium of sound film. Tracy was cast in two Vitaphone short movies ("Taxi Talks" and "The Hard Guy"), but he had not considered becoming a film actor: