Kate And Spencer: The Films And Lives of Tracy and Hepburn

Spencer Tracy

Spencer Tracy was one of the greatest movie actors of all time. His phenomenal career is highlighted with great performance after great performance.  Father of the Bride. Boys Town. Captains Courageous. 30 Seconds over Tokyo. Edison, the Man. Plymouth Adventure. Northwest Passage. Stanley and Livingston. Each  of these is considered a classic film and each was made before he began his groundbreaking collaboration with Katharine Hepburn. Spencer Tracy was a difficult man – a womanizer and an alcoholic whose Catholic guilt didn’t stop him from being serially unfaithful to his wife. But as an actor, few movie stars can touch him for the power and depth of his performances.

Katharine Hepburn had been a star on Broadway and enjoyed tremendous popularity films before she was labeled “Box Office Poison” and returned to Broadway hoping to get another shot at the silver screen. Like Spencer Tracy, she had a long and distinguished career as one of the top movie stars in America before they met. Her screwball comedies like “Bringing up Baby” & “the Philadelphia Story” showed her comic range. But all time classic dramas such as “Little Women”  & “Summertime” demonstrated that she was a dramatic actress of the first order.

Together they were dynamite. On-screen  they engaged in a seemingly never ending battle of the sexes. Offscreen, they carried on a decades long extramarital affair. Tracy died in her home; his wife had to be notified.    Their relationship with scandalous but widely known.  At the end, Katharine Hepburn  could not even attend his funeral for fear of offending his wife and children. This fascinating multimedia presentation looks at their lives and careers, individually and together.