Page "Spencer Tracy" Paragraph 4

Tracy was born on April 5, 1900 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He was the second son of Caroline ( née Brown ) and John Edward Tracy, a truck salesman.

His mother was a Presbyterian from a wealthy Midwestern family and his father was of Irish Catholic background.

He had one brother, Carroll, four years his senior.

The young Spencer was a difficult and hyper child with poor school attendance.

Raised as a Catholic, at nine years old he was placed in the hands of Dominican nuns in the hope of transforming his behavior.

Later in life he 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 became fascinated with motion pictures, watching the same ones repeatedly and then re-enacting scenes to his friends and neighbors.

Tracy attended several Jesuit academies in his teenage years, which he claimed took the " badness " out of him and his grades improved.

At Marquette Academy he met future actor Pat O ' Brien, and the pair began attending plays together, awakening Tracy's interest in the theatre.