Spencer Tracy, Local Boy Became a Legend

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Spencer Tracy was born in Milwaukee on April 5, 1900. His father, John Tracy, brought his family to Milwaukee from Freeport, IL in 1899 to work on the CM&St.P Railroad as a clerk. The family lived at 3003 W. St Paul Avenue and Spencer attended St. Rosa’s Parochial School and West Side High School. The Tracys moved to Bay View on Wentworth Avenue in 1903 where Spencer’s father then clerked at Milwaukee Corrugating Co., a galvanized roofing shingles company. In 1907 the family moved close to Trowbridge Street School in Bay View and lived nearby in a rented duplex on Estes Street.

It was known that Spencer was a difficult child, with poor school attendance. He was raised Catholic, and at nine years old he was placed in the care of St. John’s Cathedral, where nuns were reputedly tough in the hope of transforming his behavior. Spencer's first hint of performing was in the 1911 Christmas show at St. John’s.

The transient Tracys moved once again to Kenesaw Street, near the Bay Street shingle plant where John worked. In 1910, they moved to Logan Ave, near Kinnickinnic Avenue. There Spencer performed magic tricks at home for paying audiences at the age of 12. He got a work permit and part-time job as a lamplighter. In 1913 the Tracys moved once again, this time to Grand Avenue, near 20th Street. Spencer’s father was a member of the Milwaukee Athletic Club and was able to get Spencer a job as a towel boy.

By 1916, the Tracys were renting a Colonial Revival at 4927 W. Woodlawn. At this time, John was a salesman for Sterling Motor Truck in West Allis. John took over the Sterling office in Kansas City where Spencer attended a Jesuit boarding school. When the office closed in 1917, the family returned to a different home on Woodlawn Court. Spencer attended his last school in Milwaukee at Marquette Academy on 10th and State with Pat O'Brien, his lifelong friend and fellow actor.

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Tracy joined the Navy on May 14, 1918, when recruiting was at a fever pitch. He never went overseas and was discharged honorably on Feb 19, 1919. He enrolled at Northwestern Military Academy in Lake Geneva to finish high school in 1919. At the end of the one year, he attended West Division High School in Milwaukee. Later in life Spencer remarked, “I never would have gone back to school if there had been any other way of learning to read the subtitles in the movies.” He attended a total of six different high schools in Milwaukee.

The next step in Spencer’s life was enrollment at Ripon College for three semesters where he first discovered his talent for acting. He left for the theater in New York and began classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1922. He made his New York debut in a play called The Wedding Guests and made his debut on Broadway a few months later playing a wordless robot in a science-fiction play.

Tracy passed away on June 10, 1967 of a heart attack. His rugged good looks and forceful manner were enjoyed by movie fans for 37 years. Hailing from humble Milwaukee beginnings, Tracy went on to become what many actors regarded “the greatest of them all.”