"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind; And the foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart." Proverbs 11:29 STANLEY KRAMER (29 September 1913, Brooklyn—19 February 2001, Woodland Hills, CA, penumonia) from Leonard Maltin's Film Encyclopedia:Although unfashionable with latter-day film critics who find some of his "message movies" to be simplistic, Stanley Kramer can take credit for producing (and later directing) some of Hollywood's boldest, most socially conscious movies-at a time when much of the industry was reverting to formula and cowering in the wake of the Communist witch-hunts. Moreover, his projects consistently attracted the 14 FEBRUARY 2006, XII:5 top talent working on both sides of the cameras in Hollywood. Making STANLEY KRAMER: INHERIT THE WIND 1960 his pictures independently gave Kramer freedom from studio 128 min. interference, and he produced a run of powerful films, among them the Spencer Tracy...Henry Drummond gritty boxing drama Champion a study of Army racism, Home of the Fredric March...Matthew Harrison Brady Brave (both 1949); a drama of paralyzed war veterans, The Men (1950, Gene Kelly...E. K. Hornbeck Marlon Brando's first film); a notable adaptation of Arthur Miller's play Dick York...Bertram T. Cates Death of a Salesman (1951); and the antiMcCarthy Western, High Noon Donna Anderson...Rachel Brown (1952). He then signed with Columbia, where he produced the first Harry Morgan...Judge Mel "biker" film, The Wild One and The Caine Mutiny (both 1954), as well as Claude Akins...Rev. Jeremiah Brown a Dr. Seuss musical fantasy, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), a Elliott Reid...Prosecutor Tom Davenport notorious flop in its day but now a cult classic. Kramer finally began Paul Hartman...Deputy Horace Meeker (bailiff) directing with, oddly, a glossy soap opera, Not as a Stranger (1955). Philip Coolidge...Mayor Jason Carter After helming a large-scale actioner, The Pride and the Passion Noah Beery Jr....John Stebbins (1957), he returned to social commentary, attacking racism in The Norman Fell...WGN Chicago Radio Broadcaster Defiant Ones (1958, Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Best Director), nuclear proliferation in On the Beach (1959), creationism in Directed by Stanley Kramer Inherit the Wind (1960), and Nazi war criminals in Judgment at Original play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Nuremberg (1961, Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Director). Screenplay by Nedrick Young Harold Jacob Smith Challenged to make something "a little less serious," he vowed to make Produced by Stanley Kramer...producer the "comedy to end all comedies," and almost pulled it off with the Cinematography by Ernest Laszlo elephantine, overproduced, all-star blockbuster It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), still his most popular film. After a lavish adaptation of Ship of Fools (1965), Kramer made Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967, Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Director), which dealt head-on with interracial marriage. His later films, including The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969), R.P.M (1970), Bless the Beasts and Children (1971), the underrated Oklahoma Crude (1973), and The Domino Principle (1977), were not successful, to say the least. The Runner Stumbles (1979), a particularly aloof and unconvincing thriller, was dismissed by critics and audiences alike, making it a dismal swan song to Kramer's career. In 1980 he retired and moved to Seattle, where he taught and wrote a newspaper column; a decade later he was back in Hollywood, planning new film projects. Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (from Wikipedia) (April 5, 1900, He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of Milwaukee – June 10, 1967, Hollywood, diabetes-related heart John Edward Tracy, a hard-drinking Irish American Catholic truck attack ) was an American film actor who appeared in 74 films salesman, and Caroline Brown, a Protestant turned Christian from 1930 to 1967. He is often regarded as one of the finest actors Scientist. Tracy's paternal grandparents, John Tracy and Mary in motion picture history. Guhin, were born in Ireland. His mother's ancestry dates back to Thomas Stebbins, who immigrated from England in the late to the Navy, Manslaughter and Laughter (all 1930)-before 1630s. At the beginning of World War I, Tracy left school to achieving his first major success, repeating a role he'd performed enlist in the Navy, but remained in Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia on stage, broadly mimicking John Barrymore in the film throughout the war. Afterward he attended Ripon College where adaptation of The Royal Family of Broadway (1930), and earning he appeared in a play entitled The Truth, and decided on acting as his first Oscar nomination in the process. a career. In the early 1920s he attended the Academy of Dramatic Following several routine assignments in 1931, March Arts in New York. For several years he performed in stock in lobbied for and won the dual role in Rouben Mamoulian's Michigan, Canada, and Ohio. Finally in 1930 he appeared in a hit production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (released 1932), resulting play on Broadway, The Last Mile. in his best screen outing to date, which won him a Best Actor In 1923 he married Louise Treadwell. They had two Academy Award. Today, his Mr. Hyde seems very much over the children, John and Louise (Susie). In 1930, director John Ford top, with March slobbering over his grotesque makeup and saw Tracy in the play The Last Mile and signed him to do Up the chewing whatever scenery hasn't been nailed down. Nonetheless, River for Fox Pictures. Shortly after that he and his family moved his phenomenal success in the part made him one of Hollywood's to Hollywood, where he made over 25 films in five years. hottest tickets. In 1935 Tracy signed with MGM. He won the Oscar for Still a relatively young man, March had the leading man's Best Actor two years in a row, for Captains Courageous (1937) classic good looks, which served him well in Merrily We Go to and Boys Town (1938). He was also nominated for San Francisco Hell (1932), The Sign of the Cross (also 1932, memorable in this (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), Bad Day at Black Rock Cecil B. DeMille spectacular as a Roman officer won over to (1955), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Inherit the Wind Christianity), Tonight Is Ours, The Eagle and the Hawk (both (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming 1933), Design for Living (also 1933, particularly engaging in this to Dinner (1967). He and Laurence Olivier share the record for sophisticated Noël Coward comedy), Death Takes a Holiday the most best actor Oscar nominations (9). (another well remembered role, as the Grim Reaper himself), In 1941 he began a relationship with Katharine Hepburn, Good Dame, Affairs of Cellini (in the title role), The Barretts of whose agile mind and New England brogue complemented Tracy's Wimpole Street (as Robert Browning), We Live Again (all 1934), easy working-class machismo very well. Though estranged from Les Miserables (as the persecuted Jean Valjean), Anna Karenina, his wife Louise, he was a devout Catholic and never divorced. He The Dark Angel (all 1935), Anthony Adverse (in the title role), and and Hepburn made nine films together. Seventeen days after The Road to Glory (both 1936). filming had completed on his last film, Guess Who's Coming to Two David O. Selznick productions in 1937, both filmed Dinner, with Hepburn, he died from a massive heart attack at the in the then-novel threestrip Technicolor process, showed March to age of 67. He is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery particularly good advantage: In A Star Is Born he was in Glendale, California. Oscar-nominated for the role of Norman Maine, a washed-up More than thirty years after his death, Tracy is still movie star whose career fades as his young wife's soars. In widely considered one of the most skillful actors of his time. He Nothing Sacred he played the conniving reporter who makes a could portray the hero, the villain, or the comedian, and make the media celebrity of Carole Lombard, who's mistakenly thought to audience believe he truly was the character he played. Tracy was be dying. Those roles, along with his starring stints as Jean Lafitte one of Hollywood's earliest "realistic" actors; his performances in DeMille's The Buccaneer and a debonair detective in Tay have stood the test of time. Garnett's Trade Winds (both 1938), elevated March to a lofty A new full length biography of Spencer Tracy is pinnacle reached by few other stars in the Hollywood of the currently being written by James Curtis, author of the acclaimed 1930s. 2003 biography of W.C. Fields. March took fewer film assignments in the 1940s. Susan and God, Victory (both 1940), So Ends Our Night, One Foot in FREDERICK MARCH (30 August 1897, Racine, WI—14 April Heaven, Bedtime Story (all 1941), I Married a Witch (1942), The 1975, Los Angeles, prostate cancer) from Leonard Maltin's Adventures of Mark Twain and Tomorrow the World (both 1944) Movie Encyclopedia: One of the finest actors who ever worked were, for the most part, worthy vehicles for the star, but none of onscreen, Fredric March resisted typecasting by the studios-and, them achieved the success of his best films of the preceding in fact, refused long- term contracts, hand-picking his roles with decade. A notable exception: the Academy Award-winning classic incredible success. The result was an exemplary film career. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, a Goldwyn film directed by Bitten by the acting bug while studying economics in college, he William Wyler), a nearly perfect production from every participated in campus dramatics but followed through on his standpoint, offered March a strong role as a returning WW2 original plans and, after graduating, went to New York to work at veteran; he won his second Oscar for the performance.