From 1949 to 1954, he was also featured in the weekly radio and television versions of the series Martin Kane: Private Eye, as well as starring as the newspaper columnist Lee Cochran in the 1958–1959 British-American crime drama New York Confidential.

[1][2] Lee during his teenage years studied at the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois and graduated from that preparatory school before briefly attending Union College in New York to pursue a degree in electrical engineering.

Although he served in the army for only a short time, he quickly rose to the rank of second lieutenant, a promotion likely attributable to his prior education at Western Military Academy and to his knowledge in engineering.

[2][3] Soon after his discharge from the army, Tracy decided to alter his career plans, abandoning engineering and turning instead to acting and to working in local stage productions.

Then, in 1928, his stage performance as the "hard-drinking, fast talking" news reporter Hildy Johnson in the original Broadway production of The Front Page received widespread popular and critical acclaim.

Despite Tracy's success portraying the character Hildy Johnson in the Broadway production, the film's producers did not believe he possessed sufficient star power to attract large audiences to cinemas to see the comedy drama.

The year 1933 attracted further attention to Tracy as he starred as a columnist in Advice to the Lovelorn and portrayed John Barrymore's agent in the director George Cukor's highly successful production Dinner at Eight.

According to the actor and producer Desi Arnaz, in his autobiography A Book (1976), Tracy stood on a balcony in Mexico City and urinated down onto a passing military parade.

Between 1949 and 1954, he performed on both the radio and televised versions of the weekly series Martin Kane: Private Eye, in which he was one of four actors to play the title role.

In 1964, he portrayed the former President of the United States "Art Hockstader", a fictitious character loosely based on Harry Truman, in both the stage and film adaptations of Gore Vidal's novel The Best Man.