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 hostility of a small town in "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955), a film directed by John Sturges. For his work, Tracy received a fifth Oscar nomination and was awarded the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Tracy had personally been unhappy with the picture, and threatened to leave it during production. This behavior became a regular occurrence for the aging Tracy, who was increasingly lethargic and cynical. He began production on "Tribute to a Bad Man" in the summer of 1955, but pulled out when he said that the shooting location in Colorado gave him altitude sickness.