 James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an iconic, Academy
Award-winning American film and stage actor, best known for his homebred screen
persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely
considered classics and was nominated for five Oscars, winning one in
competition and one life achievement.
Along with fellow screen icon James Cagney, Stewart became so familiar to
American audiences that he was most often referred to by them as Jimmy Stewart -
a billing never found on the credits of any of his films. While technically
incorrect, the public's use of the 'nickname' was a testimony to Stewart's
popularity.
Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, he first pursued a career as an architect before
being drawn to the theater in college. His first success came as an actor on
Broadway, before making his Hollywood debut in 1935. Stewart's career gained
momentum after his well-received Frank Capra films, including his Academy Award
nominated role in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Throughout his seven decades in
Hollywood, Stewart cultivated a versatile career and recognized screen image in
such classics as The Philadelphia Story, Harvey, and Vertigo.
Stewart left his mark on a wide range of film genres, including screwball
comedies, westerns, and suspense thrillers. He worked for a number of renowned
directors later in his career, most notably Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and
Anthony Mann. He won many of the industry's highest honors and earned Lifetime
Achievement awards from every major film organization. He died in 1997, leaving
behind a legacy of classic performance, and is considered one of the finest
actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was named the third Greatest Male Star
of All Time by the American Film Institute.
Early Life and Career
James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908 to devoutly Presbyterian
parents, Alexander and Elizabeth Jackson Stewart, in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The
son of a prosperous hardware store owner, he was expected to continue the
business, which had been in the family for three generations. The young Stewart
was first attracted to aviation, but abandoned dreams of being a pilot to attend
Princeton University in 1928 after graduating from Mercersburg Academy. Stewart
took quickly to architecture, and was to continue pursuing the field as a
graduate student, but he gradually became attracted to the school's drama and
music clubs, including the famous Princeton Triangle Club.
His talents led him to be invited to the University Players, a performing arts
club comprised of Ivy League musicians and thespians. Taking bit parts in the
Players' productions over the summer of 1932, he moved to New York City in the
fall, where he shared an apartment with rising actor Henry Fonda and
director/playwright Joshua Logan. In November he was cast in his first major
stage production, as a chauffeur in the Broadway comedy Goodbye Again, in which
he had two lines. The play was a moderate success and brought more substantial
stage roles for Stewart, including the 1934 hit, Page Miss Glory, and his first
dramatic stage role in Sidney Howard's Yellow Jack.
With several favorably reviewed performances on Broadway, he attracted the
interest of MGM, and signed a contract with the company in April 1935. At first,
he had trouble breaking into Hollywood due to his gangly looks and shy, humble
screen presence. His first film was the poorly received Spencer Tracy vehicle,
The Murder Man, but Rose-Marie, an adaptation of a popular operetta, was more
successful. After mixed success in film, he received his first substantial part
in 1936's After the Thin Man, playing a psychotic killer. Stewart found his
footing in Hollywood thanks largely to ex-University Player Margaret Sullavan,
who campaigned for Stewart to be her leading man in the 1936 romantic comedy
Next Time We Love and rehearsed extensively with him.
Stewart was a lifelong supporter of Scouting. He was a Second Class Scout when
he was a youth, an adult Scout leader, and a recipient of the prestigious Silver
Buffalo Award from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). He made advertisements for
BSA, which led to him sometimes incorrectly being identified as an Eagle Scout.
Prewar Success
Stewart began a successful partnership with director Frank Capra in 1938, when
he was loaned out to Columbia Pictures to star in You Can't Take It With You.
The heartwarming Depression-era film, starring matinee idol Jean Arthur, went on
to win the 1938 Best Picture Academy Award. 1939 saw Stewart team with Capra and
Arthur again for the political comedy-drama, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Stewart replaced intended star Gary Cooper in the film about an idealistic man
thrown into the political arena. Upon the film's October release, it garnered
critical praise and became a box office success. For his performance, Stewart
was nominated for the first of five Academy Awards for Best Actor. Destry Rides
Again, also released that year, became Stewart's first western film, a genre for
which he would become famous later in his career.
1940 saw Stewart and Margaret Sullavan teaming again for two films. The first,
the Ernst Lubitsch romantic comedy, The Shop Around the Corner, starred Stewart
and Sullavan as co-workers unknowingly involved in a pen-pal romance who cannot
stand each other in real life (This was later remade into the romantic comedy
You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan). The Mortal Storm, directed by
Frank Borzage, was one of the first blatantly anti-Nazi films to be produced in
Hollywood, and featured the pair as a husband and wife caught in turmoil upon
Hitler's rise to power. He also starred opposite Katharine Hepburn and Cary
Grant in George Cukor's classic The Philadelphia Story. His performance as an
intrusive, fast-talking reporter earned him his only Academy Award in a
competitive category (Best Actor, 1941).
He went on to appear in a series of screwball comedies with varying levels of
success. Stewart followed the mediocre No Time for Comedy (1940) and Come Live
with Me (1941) with the Judy Garland musical Ziegfeld Girl and the George
Marshall romantic comedy Pot o' Gold. Foreseeing war on the horizon, Stewart
enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in March 1941. Stewart's enlistment
coincided with the lapse in his MGM contract and marked a turning point in
Stewart's career.
Wartime Activity and Marriage
Nearly a year before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Stewart was
drafted into the United States Army Air Corps, although his enlistment was
denied due to a weight restriction. Only five pounds under the minimum limit, he
was able to convince the draft board to accept him. He successfully enlisted in
the army in March 1941. Since the United States had yet to declare war on
Germany and because of the army's unwillingness to put celebrities on the front,
Stewart was held back from combat duty, although he did earn a commission as a
2nd Lieutenant and completed pilot training. He later became an instructor pilot
for the B-17 Flying Fortress stationed in Albuquerque, NM.
While petitioning his superiors for combat assignment, Stewart aligned himself
with the First Motion Picture Unit and starred and produced a number of training
and educational films. Between 1942 and the end of the war, he appeared in
nearly a dozen productions, some of which were screened theatrically in civilian
theaters.
In August 1943 he was finally assigned to the 445th Bombardment Group in Sioux
City, Iowa, first as Operations Officer of the 703d Bomb Squadron, and then its
commander. In December the 445th BG flew its B-24 Liberator bombers to Tibenham,
England and immediately began combat operations. While flying missions over
Germany, Stewart was promoted to major. In March 1944 he was transferred to the
453rd Bomb Group, a new B-24 outfit that had been experiencing difficulties, as
Group Operations Officer. In 1944 he twice received the Distinguished Flying
Cross for actions in combat, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He also
received the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. In July 1944, after flying
twenty combat missions, Stewart was made Chief of Staff of the 2d Combat Bomb
Wing of the Eighth Air Force. Before the war ended he was promoted to colonel,
one of only a few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.
Stewart continued to play an active role in the United States Air Force Reserves
after the war, achieving the rank of Brigadier General on July 23, 1959. He rode
along as an observer on a B-52 Stratofortress bombing run during the Vietnam War
in 1966, though he did not fly any duty missions during that conflict. Stewart
finally retired from the Air Force on May 31, 1968 after twenty-seven years of
service. Stewart did not often talk of his wartime service, perhaps due to his
desire to be seen as a regular soldier doing his duty instead of as a celebrity.
He did appear on the TV series, The World At War, and discussed his
participation as a squadron commander in the October 17, 1943 bombing mission to
Schweinfurt - the mission known in USAF history as Black Thursday due to the
incredibly high casualties it sustained. At the time of his B-52 mission, he
refused the release of any publicity regarding his participation as he did not
want it treated as a stunt for glory, but as his job as an officer in the
reserves.
Postwar Success
Upon James Stewart's return to Hollywood in the fall of 1945, he decided not to
renew his MGM contract. Instead, Stewart signed with an MCA talent agency. The
move made Stewart one of the first independently contracted actors and gave him
more freedom to choose the roles he wished to play. For the remainder of his
career, Stewart was able to work without limits to director and studio
availability.
For his first film in five years, Stewart appeared in his third and final Frank
Capra production, It's a Wonderful Life. Stewart appeared as George Bailey, a
small-town man and upstanding citizen, who becomes increasingly frustrated by
his ordinary existence and financial troubles. Driven to suicide on Christmas
Eve, he is led to reassess his life by an angel-in-training, played by Henry
Travers. Though the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including
Stewart's third Best Actor nomination, it received only moderate success at the
box office, possibly due to its dark nature. However, in the decades since the
film's release, it grew to define Stewart's film persona and is widely
considered as a sentimental Christmas film classic and, according to the
American Film Institute, one of the best movies ever made.
Stewart also returned to the stage for the Mary Chase-penned comedy Harvey,
which opened to nearly universal praise in November 1944. Elwood P. Dowd, the
protagonist and Stewart's character, is a wealthy eccentric, whose best friend
is an invisible rabbit, living with his sister and niece. His eccentricity,
especially the friendship with the rabbit, is ruining the niece's hopes of
finding a husband. While trying to have Dowd committed to a sanitarium, his
sister is committed herself while the play follows Dowd on an ordinary day in
his not-so-ordinary life. James Stewart took over the role from Frank Fay in
1947 and gained an increased Broadway following in the unconventional play. The
play, which ran for nearly three years with Stewart as its star, was
successfully adapted into a 1950 film, directed by Henry Koster, with Stewart
playing Dowd and Josephine Hull as his sister, Veta. For his performance in the
film, Stewart received his fourth Best Actor nomination.
After Harvey, the comedic adventure film Malaya and the conventional
biographical film The Stratton Story in 1949, Stewart entered what many critics
cite as his golden era as an actor. During the 1950s, he took on more
challenging roles and expanded into the western and suspense genres, thanks
largely to collaborations with directors Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Mann.
Other notable performances by Stewart during this time include the critically
acclaimed 1950 Delmer Daves western Broken Arrow, which featured Stewart as an
ex-soldier making peace with the Apache; a troubled clown in the 1952 Best
Picture The Greatest Show on Earth; and Stewart's role as Charles Lindbergh in
Billy Wilder's 1957 film The Spirit of St Louis.
Career in The 1960s and 1970s
In 1960, James Stewart was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award for
Best Actor and nominated for his fifth and final Academy Award for Best Actor
for his role in the 1959 Otto Preminger film Anatomy of a Murder. The early
courtroom drama starred Stewart as Paul Biegler, the lawyer of a man who claims
temporary insanity after murdering the man who raped his wife. Stewart's
nomination was one of seven for the film, and saw his transition into the final
decades of his career.
The early 1960s saw Stewart taking lead roles in three John Ford films. The
first, 1962's twist-ending The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (with John Wayne),
is a classic psychological western, with Stewart featured as an Eastern attorney
who goes against his nonviolent principles when he is forced to confront a
psychopathic outlaw (played by Lee Marvin) in a small frontier town. At story's
end, Stewart's character — now a rising political figure - faces a difficult
ethical choice as he attempts to reconcile his actions on the day Liberty
Valance was shot with his personal integrity. The film's billing is unusual in
that Stewart was given top billing over Wayne in the trailers and on the posters
but Wayne had top billing in the film itself, a system later repeated by Robert
Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men. How the West Was Won and
Cheyenne Autumn were western epics released in 1962 and 1964 respectively. While
the Cinerama production How the West Was Won went on to win three Oscars and
reaped massive box office figures, Cheyenne Autumn, in which a white-suited
Stewart played Wyatt Earp in a long sequence in the middle of the movie, failed
domestically and was quickly forgotten.
Having played his last romantic lead in 1958's Bell Book and Candle, Stewart
transitioned into more family-related films in the 1960s. These included the
successful Henry Koster outing Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), and the less
memorable films Take Her, She's Mine (1963) and Dear Brigitte (1965), which
featured French model Brigitte Bardot. The Civil War period film Shenandoah
(1965) and the western family film The Rare Breed fared better at the box
office; the Civil War movie was a smash hit in the South.
After a progression of lesser western films in the late sixties and early
seventies, James Stewart transitioned from cinema to television. He first
starred in the NBC comedy The Jimmy Stewart Show, which featured Stewart as a
college professor. He followed it with the CBS mystery Hawkins, in which he
played a small town lawyer investigating his cases. The series garnered Stewart
a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Dramatic TV Series, but failed to gain a wide
audience and was cancelled after one season. During this time, Stewart
periodically appeared on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, sharing poems he had
written at different times in his life. His poems were later successfully
compiled into a short collection titled Jimmy Stewart and His Poems (1989).
Stewart finished the decade with supporting roles in John Wayne's final film,
The Shootist (1976), Airport '77, the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep with Robert
Mitchum, and The Magic of Lassie (1978). In The Shootist, Stewart played a
doctor giving Wayne's gunfighter a terminal cancer diagnosis. At one point, both
Wayne and Stewart were flubbing their lines repeatedly and Stewart turned to
director Don Siegel and said, You'd better get two better actors.
Later Career and Death
After filming several television movies in the 1980s, including the popular Mr.
Krueger's Christmas, James Stewart retired from acting to spend time with his
family. Following his retirement he suffered from many health problems including
heart disease, skin cancer, deafness and senility. He returned only to voice
Sheriff Wylie Burp in the successful 1991 animated film An American Tail: Fievel
Goes WeSt
In 1989, Stewart joined Hollywood entrepreneur Peter F Paul in founding the
American Spirit Foundation to apply entertainment industry resources to
developing innovative approaches to public education and to assist the emerging
democracy movements in the former Iron Curtain countries and Russia. Paul
arranged for Stewart, through the offices of President Boris Yeltsin, to send a
special print of It's A Wonderful Life, translated by Moscow University, to
Russia as the first American program ever to be broadcast on Russian television.
On January 5, 1992, coinciding with the first day of the existence of the
democratic Commonwealth of Independent States and Russia, and the first free
Russian Orthodox Christmas Day, Russian TV Channel 2 broadcast Its A Wonderful
Life to 200 million Russians who celebrated an American holiday tradition with
the American people for the first time in Russian history.
Stewart worked from 1987 to 1993 on projects that enhanced the public
appreciation and understanding of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, in
association with politicians and celebrities that included President Ronald
Reagan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, California Governor George
Deukmejian, Bob Hope and Charlton Heston.
Stewart died at the age of 89 on July 2, 1997 of cardiac arrest and a pulmonary
embolism following a long illness from respiratory problems. His death came just
one day after fellow screen legend and The Big Sleep co-star Robert Mitchum had
died of lung cancer and emphysema. Stewart is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial
Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Jimmy Stewart has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street. In
1972, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National
Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was awarded
various lifetime achievement awards from the Academy Awards (1985), American
Film Institute (1980), Lincoln Center (1990), Golden Globe Awards (1965),
National Board of Review (1990), and the Screen Actors Guild (1969).
A statue of Stewart was erected on the lawn of the Indiana County Courthouse in
his hometown, Indiana, Pennsylvania, on May 20, 1983 to celebrate Stewart's 75th
birthday. In 1995, a museum dedicated to his life and career, The Jimmy Stewart
Museum, opened as well.
In honor of his years of service with the U S Air Force Gen. Jimmy Stewart's
original WWII A-2 jacket (a Rough Wear 1401 contract) has been displayed for
many years at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton,
Ohio. A patch for the 703rd Bomb Squadron is still sewn on the front of the
jacket.
In November 1997, Los Angeles County supervisor, Mike Antonovich, lead an
unsuccessful attempt to have Los Angeles International Airport renamed in
Stewart's honor.
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