Spencer Tracy Hepburn, living what she described as a quiet life: reading, painting, and listening to music. On June 10, 1967, 17 days after completing what was his last film role in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", Tracy awakened at 3:00 am to make himself a cup of tea in his apartment in Beverly Hills, California. Hepburn described in her autobiography how she followed him to the kitchen: "Just as I was about to give [the door] a push, there was a sound of a cup smashing to the floor—then clump—a loud clump." She entered the room to find Tracy lying dead
Spencer Tracy screens for almost a year before returning to 20th Century Fox on loan and appearing as Henry M. Stanley in "Stanley and Livingstone", his only screen appearance of 1939. Curtis maintains that Tracy's non-visibility did little to affect his standing with the public or exhibitors. In October of that year, a "Fortune" magazine survey to find the nation's favorite movie actor listed Tracy in first place. MGM capitalized on Tracy's popularity, casting him in four movies for 1940. "I Take This Woman" with Hedy Lamarr was a critical and commercial failure, but the historical drama "Northwest Passage"—Tracy's first film in