Lee Tracy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. William Lee Tracy (April 14, 1898 – October 18, 1968) was an American actor. He was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in the 1964 film The Best Man. In 1929, Tracy arrived in Hollywood, where he played the role of newspapermen in several films. He, for example, played a Walter Winchell-type gossip columnist in Blessed Event (1932). Tracy also starred as the columnist in Advice to the Lovelorn (1933), very loosely based on the novel Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West; and he played a conscience-stricken editor in the 1943 drama The Power of the Press, based on a story by former newspaperman Samuel Fuller. Tracy played "The Buzzard," the criminal who leads Liliom (Charles Farrell) into a fatal robbery, in the film version of Liliom (1930). He also played Lupe Vélez's frenetic manager in Gregory LaCava's The Half-Naked Truth (1932) and portrayed John Barrymore's agent in Dinner at Eight (1933), directed by George Cukor. Lee Tracy's flourishing film career was temporarily disrupted on 19 November 1933, while he was on location in Mexico filming the Wallace Beery vehicle Viva Villa! According to the actor and producer Desi Arnaz, in his published autobiography The Book (1976), Tracy stood on a balcony in Mexico City and urinated down onto a passing military parade. Elsewhere in his autobiography, Arnaz claims that from then on, if one watched other crowds of spectators, they would visibly disperse any time an American stepped out onto a balcony. However, other crew members there at the time disputed this story, giving a sharply different account of events. In his autobiography, Charles G. Clarke, the cinematographer on the picture, said that he was standing outside the hotel during the parade and the incident never happened. Tracy, he said, was standing on the balcony observing the parade when a Mexican in the street below made an obscene gesture at him. Tracy replied in kind; and the next day a local newspaper printed a story that, in effect, Tracy had insulted Mexico, Mexicans in general, and their national flag in particular. The story caused an uproar in Mexico, and MGM decided to sacrifice Tracy in order to be allowed to continue filming there. The young actor Stuart Erwin replaced Tracy. The film's original director, Howard Hawks, was also fired for his refusal to testify against Tracy. Jack Conway replaced him. During World War II, Tracy returned to military service. Later, he had two television series in the 1950s. One was Martin Kane: Private Eye, in which he was one of four actors to play the title role. The others were William Gargan, Lloyd Nolan, and Mark Stevens. In 1958, he returned to a newspaper reporter role in the syndicated New York Confidential. After World War II, his screen career was largely relegated to television, but he portrayed the former President of the United States, Art Hockstader, a character loosely based on Harry Truman, in both the stage and film versions of The Best Man (1964), written by Gore Vidal. The movie version featured Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson. Tracy received his only Academy Award nomination, as Best Supporting Actor, for his performance in the film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Lee Tracy, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Known For: Acting

Born: Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 1898-04-13

Died: 1968-10-18

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1929	Salute	Radio Announcer (uncredited)	47
2	1929	Big Time	Eddie Burns	60
3	1930	Born Reckless	Bill O'Brien	55
4	1930	Liliom	The Buzzard	68
5	1930	She Got What She Wanted		0
6	1932	The Strange Love of Molly Louvain	Scott 'Scotty' Cornell	59
7	1932	Love Is a Racket	Stanley Fiske	56
8	1932	Doctor X	Lee Taylor	60
9	1932	The Night Mayor	Mayor Bobby Kingston	70
10	1932	Blessed Event	Alvin Roberts	65
11	1932	Washington Merry-Go-Round	Button Gwinett Brown	67
12	1932	The Half-Naked Truth	Jimmy Bates	52
13	1933	Clear All Wires!	Buckley Joyce Thomas	65
14	1933	Private Jones	Pvt. William 'Bill' Jones	0
15	1933	The Nuisance	Joseph Phineas 'Joe' Stevens	50
16	1933	Turn Back the Clock	Joe Gimlet	51
17	1933	Bombshell	E.J. 'Space' Hanlon	65
18	1933	Advice to the Lovelorn	Toby Prentiss	70
19	1933	Dinner at Eight	Max Kane	67
20	1934	I'll Tell the World	Stanley Brown	0
21	1934	You Belong to Me	Bud Hannigan	70
22	1934	The Lemon Drop Kid	Wally Brooks aka The Lemon Drop Kid	50
23	1935	Carnival	Chick Thompson	0
24	1935	Two-Fisted	Hap Hurley	70
25	1935	Pirate Party on Catalina Isle	Pirate (uncredited)	56
26	1936	Sutter's Gold	Pete Perkin	0
27	1936	Wanted: Jane Turner	Tom Mallory	53
28	1937	Cinema Circus	Himself - Ringmaster	0
29	1937	Criminal Lawyer	Brandon	59
30	1937	Behind The Headlines	Eddie Haines	62
31	1938	Crashing Hollywood	Michael Winslow	58
32	1939	Fixer Dugan	Charlie "Fixer" Dugan	65
33	1939	The Spellbinder	Jed Marlowe	60
34	1940	Millionaires in Prison	Nick Burton	60
35	1942	The Payoff	Brad McKay	58
36	1943	Power of the Press	Griff Thompson	62
37	1945	Betrayal from the East	Eddie Carter	58
38	1945	I'll Tell the World	Gabriel Patton	0
39	1947	High Tide	Hugh Fresney	59
40	1964	The Best Man	President Art Hockstader	73
41	1964	The Big Parade of Comedy	Space in 'Bombshell' (archive footage)	63

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1948	Ford Theatre	Captain Gallagher	0
2	1949	Lights Out		53
3	1949	Martin Kane, Private Eye		60
4	1959	New York Confidential	Lee Cochran	0
5	1961	87th Precinct		75
6	1961	Ben Casey		56
7	1962	Going My Way		57
8	1964	Profiles in Courage	Senator Robert A. Taft	50

Lee Tracy

Film

Television