Curtis wrote the definitive biographies of Preston Sturges and James Whale (I haven't read his one on WC Fields but I'm assuming its good, too) so you know when he turns his eye on Spencer Tracy the job will be done right. This book clocks in at almost a thousand pages including footnotes and table of contents. Curtis has been helped by one of those gifts all biographers dream: an unpublished memoirs of Louise Tracey, so her point of view is represented like no other work on Tracy. She is best known as the saintly woman who wouldn't let Spencer get a divorce to marry Kate Hepburn but did a lot of good works for deaf people - we get a far more well round picture here.
It was an entertaining read. Periods that normally get skimmed over, like Tracy's childhood, and early theatre days (he put in a solid decade doing plays) and his time at Fox, get thorough treatment. This made me really want to see The Last Mile, it sounds terrific. I also had new appreciation for Fox - it was a fairly shoddy outfit in many respects but they respected Tracey and kept him on in good roles at a decent salary despite him not being a matinee idol or popular merely because he was a good actor. (This was reminiscent of Sean Penn in some ways.)
Tracy has been called an emotionally complex person, including by Curtis. I don't think he was anything of the sort - I think he was just an alcoholic. Many people are. Tracy happened to work at a time and in a field where it was tolerated/encouraged. Throw in a deaf child and an erratic profession and you have plenty of excuses to get on the booze.
Tracy could be a bit of a baby - going in big sulks, and also on benders which resulted in him missing days of production. He loved the security of MGM, who protected and promoted him - he was beloved by Dore Schary and was one of the few stars to thrive in new ways under the Schary regime. He was never close to his son which seems to have prompted paternal feelings for people such as Bob Wagner, Bill Self and Garson Kanin. He was a pants man, too, in his way - not a major Leaguer but he did alright, having flings with Loretta Young, Ingrid Bergman and Gene Tierney, in addition to the famous one with Kate Hepburn (he cheated on Hepburn with Tierney)
Aussies pop up at intervals - Snowy Baker teaches him to play polo, June Dally-Watkins and he have a chaste romance in Europe. Every serious Tracy fan must read.
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