Spencer Tracy Tracy left MGM in 1955, and continued to work regularly as a freelance star, despite an increasing weariness as he aged. His personal life was troubled, with a lifelong struggle against severe alcoholism and guilt over his son's deafness. Tracy became estranged from his wife in the 1930s, but never divorced, conducting a long-term relationship with Katharine Hepburn in private. Towards the end of his life, Tracy worked almost exclusively for director Stanley Kramer. It was for Kramer that he made his last film, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" in 1967, completed just 17 days before his death. During his
Spencer Tracy critics than any film I ever made in all the years, and we didn't make enough to pay for the ushers in the theatre," recalled producer Lawrence Weingarten. For his performance in "The Actress", Tracy won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the British Academy Film Award. MGM lent Tracy to Fox for the Western film "Broken Lance", his only appearance of 1954. The picture was well received. In 1955 Tracy turned down William Wyler's "The Desperate Hours" because he refused to take second-billing to Humphrey Bogart. Instead, Tracy appeared as a one-armed protagonist who faces the