"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Birthday Today - Spencer Tracy

Today is Spencer Tracy's birthday, born in 1900 and, as it happens, in Milwaukee.    Tracy is undoubtedly one of America's greatest actors, and his secret was always that it didn't seem very much like he was acting at all.   Instead, he was always simply natural on screen, as if you were observing a real person living.    My favorite movie of his is probably either Captains Courageous or Judgment at Nuremburg -- I love the wisdom and courage he brings to both roles, as the Portugese fisherman in Captains, and as the old judge in Nuremburg.   Here he is from the former, for which he won the Academy Award in 1937:



UPDATE:

Embarrassingly, I made the mistake of watching this video on Youtube just now, so as we speak I am sitting in my law office with the door closed, weeping.  

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