Spencer Tracy

The street date of Scotty Bowers' "Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars," written with Lionel Friedberg, is Valentine's Day, but the eagerly anticipated memoir has been generating buzz for several weeks, and will most likely encounter a firestorm of criticism from some segments of the Hollywood set. It offers the former Marine paratrooper, pump jockey and bartender's accounts of three decades of having...

The street date of Scotty Bowers' "Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars," written with Lionel Friedberg, is Valentine's Day, but the eagerly anticipated memoir has been generating buzz for several weeks, and will most likely encounter a firestorm of criticism from some segments of the Hollywood set. It offers the former Marine paratrooper, pump jockey and bartender's accounts of three decades of having...

Irene Dunne The actress-singer of "The Awful Truth" fame played Tracy's character's gal pal in the 1943 romantic fantasy "A Guy Named Joe. " Lana Turner The "Sweater Girl" appeared with Tracy in 1941's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and 1947's "Cass Timberlane. " Jean Harlow The sassy blond bombshell teamed with Tracy for 1931's "Goldie" and 1936's "Libeled Lady. "

'Spencer Tracy: That Natural Thing' Where: Billy Wilder Theatre, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles When: Saturday to March 30 Price: $10 Info: http://www.cinema.ucla.edu

Memories of Spencer Tracy were very much alive here Monday night--memories of the actor and the man, lovingly related by his longtime companion Katharine Hepburn and by others whose lives he had deeply touched. They paid him tribute in person and via a revealing feature-length documentary, "The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A tribute by Katharine Hepburn," which was previewed at the event.

John Tracy, the deaf son of actor Spencer Tracy who inspired his parents to establish the pioneering John Tracy Clinic in Los Angeles to help young hearing-impaired children and their families, has died. He was 82. Tracy died Friday night at his son's ranch in Acton, where he had lived for the past five years, said his sister, Susie Tracy. The cause of death was not specified. He was 17 when his mother, Louise Treadwell Tracy, first spoke publicly about rearing a deaf child.

Norris Church Mailer, an actress, model, author and painter who enjoyed and endured the ride of her life as the sixth and final wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, died at her home in Brooklyn on Sunday. She was 61. Her death was announced on the website of the Norman Mailer Society , which said she passed away "after a long and valiant struggle with cancer. " As Norris Mailer wrote in her 2010 memoir, "A Ticket to the Circus," she was a single mother in her mid-20s when she met the then-52-year-old Norman Mailer at a 1975 party in Russellville, Ark. Their attraction was immediate, even if he was breaking up with his fourth wife and seeing the woman who would become his fifth.

Champlin erred in calling one of Mamoulian's landmark films "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" with Spencer Tracy. Fredric March starred in Mamoulian's version and won the Best Actor Oscar (tied with Wallace Beery) for his performance. Spencer Tracy played Jekyll and Hyde in a later version directed by Victor Fleming. Asked once what advice he would give to aspiring actors, Tracy said they should never play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. ROBERT E. MORSBERGER Claremont

In Kenneth Turan's review of "Preston Sturges" (Sept. 16), you quote Spencer Tracy from the movie "Pat and Mike" in praising the book (". . . may be lean, but it is cherce"). Spencer Tracy may have interpreted the lines beautifully, but Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin wrote them. I have seen reviewers and journalists quote actors' lines from films for years as if the actors who spoke the lines actually invented them. This is a sorry practice, if journalistically convenient, especially when the article is about, in your own words, "the most gifted writer/director of comedy that Hollywood has ever seen."

Sold: A bronze bust of Spencer Tracy, sculpted by Katharine Hepburn, has sold for $316,000 at auction.... Peter Garrett, the towering former singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil has joined the opposition Labor Party and announced he's running for Parliament.

There are plenty of usual suspects in the UCLA Film & Television Archive's expansive three-month Spencer Tracy film retrospective. Titled "That Natural Thing," the festival opens Saturday evening at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood with Tracy's 1960 drama, "Inherit the Wind," directed by Stanley Kramer, which brought the actor an Oscar nomination as an attorney based on Clarence Darrow. Over the months, cinephiles can watch the two-time Oscar-winning actor in classic films made at MGM such as 1936's "San Francisco," which brought him his first Academy Award nomination; 1937's "Captains Courageous," which earned him his first Academy Award as a colorful Portuguese fisherman, and 1938's "Boys Town," for which he received his second Oscar as Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town.

Irene Dunne The actress-singer of "The Awful Truth" fame played Tracy's character's gal pal in the 1943 romantic fantasy "A Guy Named Joe. " Lana Turner The "Sweater Girl" appeared with Tracy in 1941's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and 1947's "Cass Timberlane. " Jean Harlow The sassy blond bombshell teamed with Tracy for 1931's "Goldie" and 1936's "Libeled Lady. "

According to James Curtis, author of the new 1,056-page "Spencer Tracy: A Biography," it could have been actress Loretta Young who became the love of Tracy's life, not Katharine Hepburn, his partner for 26 years with whom he made nine films. Tracy and Young, both Catholics, began their romance while working together on the 1933 Depression-era drama "A Man's Castle. " Though Tracy was married to Louise Treadwell, the illicit pair would go to Mass and confessions together. "I think they were drawn together because of the shared bond of faith," said Curtis, who spent six years on the book, drawing from Tracy's own papers and obtaining the cooperation of the actor's daughter, Susie Tracy.

? Jeff Bridges, who won the lead actor Oscar last year for "Crazy Heart," is up in the same category for his performance as Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit. " Only two actors have won Academy Awards in the lead actor category two years in a row ? Spencer Tracy won for 1937's "Captains Courageous" and 1938's "Boy's Town," and Tom Hanks earned Oscars for 1993's "Philadelphia" and 1994's "Forrest Gump" ? Two lead performer nominees ? Jesse Eisenberg, 27, ("The Social Network") and Jennifer Lawrence, 20, ("Winter's Bone")

Norris Church Mailer, an actress, model, author and painter who enjoyed and endured the ride of her life as the sixth and final wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, died at her home in Brooklyn on Sunday. She was 61. Her death was announced on the website of the Norman Mailer Society , which said she passed away "after a long and valiant struggle with cancer. " As Norris Mailer wrote in her 2010 memoir, "A Ticket to the Circus," she was a single mother in her mid-20s when she met the then-52-year-old Norman Mailer at a 1975 party in Russellville, Ark. Their attraction was immediate, even if he was breaking up with his fourth wife and seeing the woman who would become his fifth.

SERIES Shatner's Raw Nerve: Jason Alexander sits down with William Shatner (7 p.m. Biography). American Idol: Auditions continue in Chicago, with Shania Twain serving as a guest judge (8 p.m. Fox). Nova: Scientists learn how the Sphinx was carved and reveal details about the people who built it (8 p.m. KCET). NCIS: Los Angeles: A wealthy bachelor who falls to his death from a rooftop during a party. Callen (Chris O'Donnell, Cool J, Linda Hunt, Peter Cambor and Daniela Ruah also star in this repeat (9 p.m. CBS)

Should William Hurt win best actor for his performance in "Children of a Lesser God," it would mark the first time since 1938 that one man has won that award two years in a row. Hurt (who won in 1986 for "Kiss of the Spider Woman") would repeat Spencer Tracy's feat in 1937--when Tracy won for "Captains Courageous"--and in 1938, when the actor won again for "Boys Town."

When Hollywood stars raise funds for a cause related to one of their own children, they're following the lead of Spencer Tracy's wife, Louise, who opened the hearts and ears of the world to the plight of deaf children. She founded the John Tracy Clinic, the first preschool in the nation to offer free emotional support, information and speech and lip-reading classes to help families cope with deafness. It's named for the couple's son, who is deaf.

John Tracy, the deaf son of actor Spencer Tracy who inspired his parents to establish the pioneering John Tracy Clinic in Los Angeles to help young hearing-impaired children and their families, has died. He was 82. Tracy died Friday night at his son's ranch in Acton, where he had lived for the past five years, said his sister, Susie Tracy. The cause of death was not specified. He was 17 when his mother, Louise Treadwell Tracy, first spoke publicly about rearing a deaf child.

Director Frank Capra explored idealism and corruption in politics in 1939's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and 1941's "Meet John Doe" as well as 1948's "State of the Union," which makes its DVD debut (Universal, $15) today.