Spencer Tracy(1900 — 1967)

In 1938 and 1939, Spencer Tracy became the first actor in history to win two Best Actor Oscars in two consecutive years, for “Captains Courageous” and then “Boys Town.” At the second ceremony, the statuette was even mistakenly engraved with the name “Dick Tracy,” the comic strip hero!

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made nine films together between 1942 and 1967, forming one of Hollywood's most famous couples. Both on screen and off, their bond was real, but it long remained discreet because Tracy, a Catholic, never divorced his wife.

Tracy hated long rehearsals and learned his lines very quickly. His acting advice became famous: “Know your lines and don't bump into the furniture.” This restraint actually concealed relentless work to give the impression that nothing was being acted at all.

His very last film, “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner” (1967), tackled the marriage between a young white woman and a black man, a burning issue in the United States at the time. Very ill, Tracy died just two weeks after filming wrapped, without having seen the finished film.

Tracy had first considered becoming a priest, then a doctor, before discovering theater at university. A student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, he made his Broadway debut before Hollywood spotted him at the dawn of talking pictures.