Joan Bennett & Spencer Tracy

Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett appear together in four films. The first two, Me and My Gal and She Wanted a Millionaire, were made in 1932 when Joan was still very much a natural blonde and Mr. Tracy sported a youthful, darker shade of hair color. Their next two and final films together, Father of the Bride and its sequel Father’s Little Dividend, came nearly twenty years later, i.e. 1950 and 1951, respectively, when Ms. Bennett was very much a brunette while, conversely, Mr. Tracy had acquired a mature and much lighter shock of hair. She had changed from a blonde to a brunette for her role in the 1938 movie Trade Winds and kept her hair that way throughout the remainder of her career. He had simply become gray and apparently, as with Ms. Bennett’s choice of hair color, was satisfied to remain that way.

In each of their collaborations, Ms. Bennett and Mr. Tracy play characters that are or eventually become husband and wife. Except for the Millionaire movie, their scripts also called for a good deal of levity and humorous repartee between the two. Joan Bennett had once noted that working with Spencer Tracy was always a great experience, especially in 1932, when the only film she claimed to enjoy making of the six that she made that year was her Me and My Gal match-up with Mr. Tracy.