James Stewart (actor)

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James Stewart
photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1934
Born	James Maitland Stewart 20 May 1908(1908-05-20) Indiana, Pennsylvania, United States
Died	2 July 1997 (aged 89) Los Angeles, California, United States
Other name(s)	Jimmy Stewart
Years active	1935-1991
Spouse(s)	Gloria Hatrick (1949-1994)
Awards won Academy Awards Best Actor 1940 The Philadelphia Story Academy Honorary Award 1985 Lifetime Achievement Golden Globe Awards Best TVActor - Drama 1974 Hawkins Cecil B. DeMille Award 1965 Lifetime Achievement Screen Actors Guild Awards Life Achievement Award 1968 Lifetime Achievement Other Awards AFI Life Achievement Award 1980 Lifetime Achievement NYFCC Award for Best Actor 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1959 Anatomy of a Murder Volpi Cup for Best Actor 1959 Anatomy of a Murder Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actor 1963 Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation Honorary Golden Berlin Bear 1982 Lifetime Achievement National Board of Review 1990 Lifetime Achievement

James Maitland Stewart ( 20 May 1908 – 2 July 1997), popularly known as Jimmy Stewart especially in the United States, was an iconic, Academy Award-winning American film and stage actor, best known for his self-effacing 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. He also had a noted military career, rising to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force.

Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, he first pursued a career as an architect before being drawn to the theatre at Princeton University. 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, It's a Wonderful Life, Rear Window, Rope, and Vertigo. As of 2007, 10 of his films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry.

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.

Stewart left his mark on a wide range of film genres, including screwball comedies, westerns, biographies, suspense thrillers, and family films. He worked for a number of renowned directors later in his career, most notably Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Billy Wilder and Anthony Mann. He won many of the industry's highest honours and earned Lifetime Achievement awards from every major film organization. He died in 1997, leaving behind a legacy of classic performances, 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.

Biography

Early life and career

James Maitland Stewart was born on 20 May 1908, to devoutly Presbyterian parents of Scottish origin, Alexander M. Stewart and Elizabeth Ruth Jackson, in Indiana, Pennsylvania. His Jackson ancestors served in the American Revolution, War of 1812, and the Civil War. The eldest of three children (he had two younger sisters, Virginia and Mary) of a prosperous hardware store owner, he was expected to continue the business, which had been in the family for three generations.

His mother was an excellent pianist but his father discouraged Stewart’s request for lessons. But when his father accepted a gift of an accordion from a guest, young Stewart quickly learned to play the instrument, which became a fixture off-stage during his acting career. As the family grew, music continued to be an important part of family life.

A shy child, Stewart spent much of his after school time in the basement working on model airplanes, mechanical drawing, and chemistry — all with a dream of going into aviation. But he abandoned visions of being a pilot when his father insisted that instead of the Naval Academy he attend Princeton University. Stewart enrolled there in 1928 as a member of the Class of 1932. Earlier, he had graduated from Mercersburg Academy prep school, where he made his first appearance on the stage, as Buquet in the play The Wolves. Stewart excelled at studying architecture, so impressing his professors with his thesis on an airport design that he was awarded a scholarship for graduate studies, but he gradually became attracted to the school's drama and music clubs, including the famous Princeton Triangle Club. He was a member of the Princeton Charter Club. In his spare time, he enjoyed going to the movies at the time when “talkies” were just displacing silent films.

His acting talents led him to be invited to the University Players, a performing arts club of Ivy League musicians and thespians, with Joshua Logan as the director and Margaret Sullavan as the leading lady. Stewart developed an immediate crush on her, but she soon left the group for her Broadway debut in A Modern Virgin.He performed in bit parts in the Players' productions in Cape Cod during the summer of 1932 after he graduated, when he joined the troupe which included Henry Fonda and Sullavan (who suddenly decided to marry each other). Stewart moved to New York City in the fall to become an actor, with the reluctant approval of his father, where he shared an apartment with Henry Fonda, who had quickly divorced Sullavan, and with Joshua Logan. In November, Stewart was cast in his first major stage production as a chauffeur in the Broadway comedy Goodbye Again, in which he had two lines. The New Yorker noted, "Mr. James Stewart’s chauffeur... comes on for three minutes and walks off to a round of spontaneous applause."

The play was a moderate success but times were hard. Many Broadway theaters had been converted to movie houses and the Depression was reaching bottom. "From 1932 through 1934," Stewart later recalled, "I’d only worked three months. Every play I got into folded." By 1934, he got more substantial stage roles, including the hit, Page Miss Glory, and his first dramatic stage role in Sidney Howard's Yellow Jack, which convinced him to continue his acting career. However, Stewart and Fonda, still roommates, were both struggling.

In the fall of 1934, Fonda’s success in The Farmer Takes a Wife took him to Hollywood. Finally, Stewart attracted the interest of MGM scout Bill Grady who saw Stewart on the opening night of Divided by Three, a glittering premiere with many luminaries in attendance including Irving Berlin and Moss Hart, and his buddy Fonda who had returned to New York for the show. With Fonda’s encouragement, Stewart agreed to take the screen test and signed a contract with MGM in April 1935, as a contract player for up to seven years at $350 a week.

On his arrival by train to Los Angeles, Fonda greeted Stewart at the station and took him to Fonda's studio-supplied lodging, right next door to Greta Garbo. His first job at the studio was as a participant in the screen tests done for newly arrived starlets. At first, he had trouble being cast in Hollywood films 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 films, he received his first substantial part in 1936's After the Thin Man, playing a psychotic killer.

On the romantic front, soon Fonda was arranging dates for Stewart. In no time, he found himself dating newly divorced Ginger Rogers, whom he had worshipped while a student at Princeton only a few years earlier. The affair soon cooled, however, and by chance Stewart encountered Margaret Sullavan again. Stewart found his footing in Hollywood thanks largely to Sullavan who campaigned for Stewart to be her leading man in the 1936 romantic comedy Next Time We Love. She rehearsed extensively with him, having a noticeable effect on his confidence. She encouraged Stewart to feel comfortable with his unique mannerisms and boyish charm and use them naturally as his own style. In the meantime, roommate Fonda continued to arrange parties with starlets, who found Stewart different from the other young actors and irresistible in his own way. Stewart was enjoying Hollywood life and had no regrets about giving up the stage, as he worked six days-a-week in the MGM factory.In 1936, he acquired big-time agent Leland Hayward, who had just married Margaret Sullavan. Hayward started to chart Stewart’s career, deciding the best path for him was through loan-outs to other studios.

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Prewar success

In 1938, Stewart had a brief, tumultuous, and well-publicized affair with Hollywood queen Norma Shearer whose husband Irving Thalberg, head of production at MGM, had died two years earlier. 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. Frank Capra had been impressed by Stewart’s minor role in Navy Blue and Gold (1937). The director had recently completed several popular movies including It Happened One Night and was looking for the right type of actor to suit his needs—which other recent actors in his films such as Clark Gable, Ronald Colman, and Gary Cooper did not quite fit. Not only was Stewart just what he was looking for, but Capra also found Stewart understood that prototype intuitively and required very little directing. Later Capra commented, “I think he’s probably the best actor who’s ever hit the screen.”.

The heartwarming Depression-era film, starring Capra's "favorite actress," comedienne Jean Arthur, went on to win the 1938 Best Picture Academy Award. The following year 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. Even after this great success, Stewart’s parents were still trying to talk him into leaving Hollywood and its sinful ways, and to return to his home town to lead a decent life. Instead, he took a secret trip to Europe to take a break, and returned home just as Germany invaded Poland.

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. In this Western parody, Stewart is a pacifist lawman and Marlene Dietrich the saloon dancing girl who comes to love him, but doesn’t get him. In it she sings her famous song The Boys In the Back Room. Off-screen, Dietrich did get her man, but the affair was short-lived. Made for Each Other (1939) had Stewart sharing the screen with irrepressible Carole Lombard in a melodrama that garnered good reviews for both stars, but did less well with the public. Newsweek wrote that they were "perfectly cast in the leading roles."Between movies, Stewart began a radio career and became a distinctive voice on the ”Lux Radio Hour’’, the ’’Screen Guild Theatre”, and other radio shows. So well known had his slow drawl become that comedians started to impersonate him, a form of flattery which continued for most of his life.

In 1940, Stewart and Margaret Sullavan teamed 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). It was Stewart’s fifth film of the year and that rare film shot in the story’s sequence; it was completed in only twenty seven days. 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.

Stewart also starred opposite Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in George Cukor's classic The Philadelphia Story (1940). His performance as an intrusive, fast-talking reporter earned him his only Academy Award in a competitive category (Best Actor, 1941), and he beat out his good friend Henry Fonda ( The Grapes of Wrath). Stewart thought his performance “entertaining and slick and smooth” but lacking the “guts” of "Mr. Smith". Stewart gave the Oscar statuette to his father, who displayed it in the window of his hardware store for many years, along side other family awards and military medals.

During the months before he began military service, Stewart went on to appear in a series of screwball comedies with varying levels of success. He 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. Stewart was drafted in late 1940 and it coincided with the lapse in his MGM contract, marking a turning point in Stewart's career, with twenty-eight movies to his credit so far.

Military Service

Brig. Gen. James Maitland Stewart United States Air Force
20 May 1908(1908-05-20) – 2 July 1997 (aged 89)
Col. James M. Stewart
Place of birth	Indiana, Pennsylvania
Place of death	Los Angeles, California
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Air Force Reserve United States Army Air Corps
Years of service	1941–1968
Rank	Brigadier General (advanced in rank in 1959)
Battles/wars	World War II Vietnam War
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal French Croix de Guerre with Palm Distinguished Flying Cross (2) Air Medal (4) Army Commendation Medal Armed Forces Reserve Medal

The Stewart family had deep military roots as both grandfathers had fought in the Civil War, and his father had served during both the Spanish-American War and World War I. Since Stewart considered his father to be the biggest influence on his life, it was not surprising that when another war eventually came, he too served. Unlike his family's previous infantry service, Stewart chose to become a military flyer.

Nearly two years before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour, Stewart had become a private pilot and had accumulated over 400 hours of flying time. Considered a highly proficient pilot, he even entered a cross-country race as a co-pilot in 1939. Along with musician/composer Hoagy Carmichael, seeing the need for trained war pilots, Stewart teamed with other Hollywood moguls and put their own money into creating a flying school in Glendale, Arizona which they named Thunderbird Field. This airfield trained more than 200,000 pilots during the War, became the origin of the Flying Thunderbirds, and is now the home of Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Later in 1940, Stewart was drafted into the Army Air Corps but was rejected due to a weight problem. The USAAC had strict height and weight requirements for new recruits and Stewart was five pounds under the standard. To get up to 148 pounds he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's muscle man, Don Loomis, who was legendary for his ability to add or subtract pounds in his studio gymnasium. Stewart subsequently attempted to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps but still came in under the weight requirement although he persuaded the AAF enlistment officer to run new tests, this time passing the weigh-in, with the result that Stewart successfully enlisted in the Army in March 1941. He became the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II.

Since the United States had not entered the conflict and due to the Army's unwillingness to put celebrities on the front, Stewart was initially held back from combat duty, although he enlisted as a private, he earned a commission as a Second Lieutenant and completed pilot training. He was subsequently stationed in Albuquerque, NM, becoming an instructor pilot for the B-17 Flying Fortress.

The only public appearances after he went into flight school were limited engagements scheduled by the Air Corps. "Stewart appeared several times on network radio with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Shortly after Pearl Harbour, he performed with Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Huston and Lionel Barrymore in an all-network radio program called We Hold These Truths, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. But mostly, Stewart's days and nights were spent preparing for his upcoming flight tests, ground school and academic examinations for his commission."

"Still, the war was moving on. For the thirty-six-year-old Stewart, combat duty seemed far away and unreachable, and he had no clear plans for the future. But then a rumor that Stewart would be taken off flying status and assigned to making training films or selling bonds called for his immediate and decisive action, because what he dreaded most was the hope-shattering spector of a dead end." So he appealed to his commander, a pre-war aviator, who understood the situation and reassigned him to a unit going overseas.

In August 1943 he was finally assigned to the 445th Bombardment Group in Sioux City, Iowa, first as Operations Officer of the 703rd Bombardment Squadron and then its commander. In December, the 445th Bombardment Group flew its B-24 Liberator bombers to RAF Tibenham, England and immediately began combat operations. While flying missions over Germany, Stewart was promoted to Major. In March 1944, he was transferred as group operations officer to the 453rd Bombardment Group, a new B-24 unit that had been experiencing difficulties. As a means to inspire his new group, Stewart flew as command pilot in the lead B-24 on numerous missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. These missions went uncounted at Stewart's orders. His "official" total is listed as 20 and are limited to those with the 445th. 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 20 combat missions, Stewart was made chief of staff of the 2nd Combat Bombardment 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.

At the beginning of June 1945, Stewart was the presiding officer of the Court-Martial of a pilot and navigator who were charged with dereliction of duty when they accidentally bombed the Swiss city of Zurich the previous March - the first instance of U.S. personnel being tried over an attack on a neutral country. The Court acquitted the accused.

Stewart continued to play an active role in the United States Air Force Reserve after the war, achieving the rank of Brigadier General on 23 July 1959. 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 to discuss the 14 October 1943, bombing mission to Schweinfurt, which was the centre of the German ball bearing manufacturing industry. This mission is known in USAF history as Black Thursday due to the incredibly high casualties it sustained; in total 60 aircraft were lost out of 291 dispatched, as the raid consisting entirely of B17s was unescorted all the way to Schweinfurt and back due to the current escort aircraft available lacking the range. Fittingly, he was identified only as "James Stewart, Squadron Commander" in the documentary.

In 1966, Brigadier General James Stewart flew the B-52 on a bombing mission during the Vietnam conflict. 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, but as part of his job as an officer in the Air Force Reserve. He served as Air Force Reserve commander of Dobbins Air Reserve Base in the early 1950s and after 27 years of service, Stewart retired from the Air Force on 31 May 1968.

Postwar success

Right after the war, Stewart took some time to reassess his career. He was an early investor in Southwest Airways, started by Leland Hayward, and he considered going into the aviation industry if his re-started film career didn’t pan out. Upon Stewart's return to Hollywood in fall 1945, he decided not to renew his MGM contract. He signed with an MCA talent agency. His former agent Leland Hayward got out of the talent business in 1944 after selling his A-list of stars, including Stewart, to MCA. 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. Capra paid RKO the rights for the story and formed his own production company. The female lead went to Donna Reed, after Capra’s perennial first choice, Jean Arthur was unavailable, and after turn downs by Ginger Rogers, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Dvorak and Martha Scott. 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 Clarence Odbody AS2, an "angel, second class," played by Henry Travers.

Although the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Stewart's third Best Actor nomination, it received mixed reviews and 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.

In the aftermath of the film, Capra’s production company went into bankruptcy and it effectively ended his movie career. Stewart started to have doubts about his ability to act after his military hiatus. His father kept insisting he come home and marry a local girl. Meanwhile in Hollywood, his generation of actors was fading and a new wave of actors would soon remake the town, including Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean..

After a poorly received Magic Town (1947) and after the completion of the shooting of Rope, Stewart decided to return to the stage for the Mary Chase-penned comedy, Harvey, which had 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 sanitorium, 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 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. Bing Crosby was the first choice for the movie but he declined. .For his performance in the film, Stewart received his fourth Best Actor nomination.

After Harvey, the comedic adventure film Malaya with Spencer Tracy and the conventional but highly successful biographical film The Stratton Story in 1949, his first pairing with “on-screen wife” June Allyson, 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 Anthony Mann and Alfred Hitchcock.

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. He also starred in the Western radio show The Six Shooter for its one season run from 1953-1954.

Collaborations with Hitchcock and Mann

James Stewart's collaborations with director Anthony Mann expanded Stewart's popularity and expanded his career into the realm of the western. Stewart's first appearance in a film helmed by Mann came with the 1950 western classic, Winchester '73. In choosing Mann (after first choice Fritz Lang declined), Stewart cemented a powerful partnership. The film, which became a massive box office hit upon its release, set the pattern for their future collaborations. In it, Stewart is a tough, revengeful sharpshooter, the winner of a prized rifle which is stolen and then passes through many hands, until the showdown between Stewart and his brother ( Stephen McNally).

Other Stewart-Mann westerns, such as Bend of the River ( 1952), The Naked Spur ( 1953), The Far Country ( 1954), and The Man from Laramie ( 1955) were perennial favorites among young audiences entranced by the American West. Frequently, the films featured Stewart as a troubled cowboy seeking redemption, while facing corrupt cattlemen, ranchers and outlaws—a man who knows violence first hand and struggles to control it. Their collaborations laid the foundation for many of the westerns of the 1950s and remain popular today for their grittier, more realistic depiction of the classic movie genre.

Stewart and Mann also collaborated on other films outside the western genre. 1953's The Glenn Miller Story was critically acclaimed, garnering Stewart a BAFTA Award nomination, and (together with The Spirit of St. Louis) cemented the popularity of Stewart's portrayals of "American heroes." Thunder Bay, released the same year, transplanted the plot arch of their western collaborations in the present day, with Stewart as a Louisiana oil-driller facing corruption. Strategic Air Command, released in 1955, allowed Stewart to use his experiences in the United States Air Force on film.

Stewart's starring role in Winchester '73 was also a turning point in Hollywood. Universal Studios, who wanted Stewart to appear in both that film and Harvey, balked at his $200,000 asking price. Stewart's agent, Lew Wasserman, brokered an alternate deal, in which Stewart would appear in both films for no pay, in exchange for a percentage of the profits and cast and director approval. It wasn't the first such deal at Universal; Abbott and Costello also had a profit participation contract, but they were no longer top-flight moneymakers by 1950. Stewart ended up earning about $600,000 for Winchester '73 alone. Hollywood's other stars quickly capitalized on this new way of doing business, which further undermined the decaying " studio system."

The second collaboration to define Stewart's career in the 1950s was with acclaimed mystery and suspense director Alfred Hitchcock. Like Mann, Hitchcock uncovered new depths to Stewart’s acting, showing a protagonist confronting his fears and his repressed desires. Stewart's first movie with Hitchcock was the technologically innovative 1948 film Rope, shot in long “real time” takes.

The two collaborated for the second of four times on the 1954 hit Rear Window, one of Hitchcock’s masterpieces. Stewart portrays photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries, loosely based on Life photographer Robert Capa, who projects his fantasies and fears onto the people he observes out his apartment window while on hiatus due to a broken leg. Jeffries gets into more than he can handle, however, when he believes he has witnessed a salesman ( Raymond Burr) commit a murder, and when his glamorous girlfriend ( Grace Kelly), at first disdainful of his voyeurism and skeptical about any crime, eventually is drawn in and tries to help solve the mystery. Limited by his wheelchair, Stewart is masterfully forced by Hitchcock to react to what his character sees with mostly facial responses. It was a landmark year for Stewart, becoming the highest grossing actor of 1954, and the most popular Hollywood star in the world, displacing John Wayne.

After starring in Hitchcock's remake of the director's own production, The Man Who Knew Too Much, with co-star Doris Day, Stewart starred in what many consider Hitchcock's most personal film, Vertigo. The film starred Stewart as “Scottie”, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman he is shadowing. Scottie's obsession inevitably leads to the destruction of everything he once had and believed in. Though the film is widely considered a classic today, and the pairing with Kim Novak one of the screen’s most perfect, ‘’Vertigo’’ met with negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and marked the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. Stewart was also disappointed. The director blamed the film's failure on Stewart looking too old to still attract audiences, and replaced him with Cary Grant for North by Northwest (1959). In reality, Grant was actually four years older than Stewart.

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 hot-tempered soldier Ben Gazzara who claims temporary insanity after murdering a tavern owner who raped his sexy wife Lee Remick. The film featured a career-making performance by George C. Scott as the prosecutor. The film was sexually frank for its time (some thought it sordid), and its provocative promotional campaign helped gain it box office success, though Ben-Hur outgrossed all movies by a huge margin and swept the Academy Awards that year. Stewart's nomination was one of seven for the film ( Charlton Heston was the winner), and saw his transition into the final decades of his career.

On January 1, 1960 Stewart received the devastating news that Margaret Sullavan had committed suicide, most likely over despondency from her loss of hearing and its impact on her stage career. As a friend, mentor, and focus of his early romantic urges, she had a unique impact on Stewart’s life.

In the early 1960s Stewart took leading roles in three John Ford films, his first with the acclaimed director. Despite his high anticipation for the pairing, the first Ford film, Two Rode Together was a sub-par effort from the director and a disappointing vehicle for Stewart, whose performance was criticized as over the top. The next 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 with his personal integrity on the day Liberty Valance was shot. 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. The film garnered so-so reviews (Stewart was seen as being far too old for the young character he played) and faired poorly at the box office, but is now considered a late Ford classic.

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, and silver-haired (although not all was his -- he had begun wearing a hairpiece in the early 1950s), Stewart transitioned into more family-related films in the 1960s when he signed a multi-movie deal with 20th Century Fox. 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 as the object of Stewart’s son's mash notes. 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.

As an aviator, Stewart was particularly interested in aviation films and had pushed to appear in several in the 1950s. He continued in this vein in the 1960s, most notably in a role as a hard-bitten pilot in Flight of the Phoenix (1965). Subbing for Stewart, famed stunt pilot and air racer Paul Mantz was killed when he crashed the " Tallmantz Phoenix P-1," the specially-made, single-engine movie model, in an abortive "touch-and-go".

After a progression of lesser western films in the late '60s and early '70s, James Stewart transitioned from cinema to television. In the 1950’s he had made guest appearances on the Jack Benny Program (Benny was his real life neighbour and good friend). Stewart 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. ( Andy Griffith fared much better later in Matlock, based on a similar formula.) 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 compiled into a short collection titled Jimmy Stewart and His Poems (1989).

Stewart returned to films after an absence of five years with a major role in John Wayne's final film, The Shootist (1976) where 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." Stewart also appeared in supporting roles in Airport '77, the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep with Robert Mitchum, and The Magic of Lassie (1978). The latter film received poor reviews and flopped at the box office. Some critics expressed their dismay at seeing the 70-year-old veteran singing as the grandfather. Stewart responded it was the only script he had been offered without any sex, profanity and graphic violence.

Later career and death

Stewart was offered the role of the father in On Golden Pond which went instead to Henry Fonda and earning Stewart’s friend his first Best Actor Oscar, just before his death. Long-time friend Grace Kelly, his favorite female co-star, died shortly afterwards. A few months later, Stewart starred with Bette Davis in Right of Way, which had the distinction of being the first made-for-cable movie. After filming several television movies in the 1980s, including Mr. Krueger's Christmas, James Stewart, still receiving considerable offers to play “grandfather” roles, retired from acting to spend time with his family. He made frequent visits to the Reagan White House and traveled on the lecture circuit. The re-release of his Hitchcock films gained Stewart renewed recognition. Especially Rear Window and Vertigo were greatly elevated in status by the film critics, which helped bring those films to the attention of the younger movie-going generation.

Stewart was a real life “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” in 1988, making an impassioned plea in Congressional hearings, along with aging superstars Burt Lancaster and Katherine Hepburn, and film purist Martin Scorsese, against Ted Turner’s decision to “colorize” classic black and white films, including It’s a Wonderful Life. Stewart stated, “the coloring of black-and-white films is wrong. It’s morally and artistically wrong and these profiteers should leave our film industry alone”. The traditionalists eventually prevailed.

One of Hollywood's most shrewd businessmen, Stewart had diversified investments including real estate, oil wells, a charter-plane company and membership on major corporate boards. He became a multimillionaire. In the 1980s and 1990s, he did voiceovers for commercials for Campbell's Soups.

In 1989, Stewart joined 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 5 January 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 It's a Wonderful Life to 200 million Russians who celebrated an American holiday tradition with the American people for the first time in Russian history.

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 worked from 1987 to 1993 on projects that enhanced the public appreciation and understanding of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Stewart died at the age of 89 on 2 July 1997, at his home in Beverly Hills, of cardiac arrest and a pulmonary embolism following a long illness from respiratory problems. He had also suffered from Alzheimer's disease. 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.

Personal life

Stewart was almost universally described by his collaborators as a kind, soft spoken man and a true professional.

After World War II, Stewart settled down, at age 41, marrying former model Gloria Hatrick McLean (1918-1994) on 9 August 1949. As Stewart loved to recount in self-mockery, “I, I, I pitched the big question to her last night and to my surprise she, she, she said yes!”.

Stewart adopted her two sons, Michael and Ronald, and together they had twin daughters, Judy and Kelly, on 7 May 1951. They remained devotedly married until her death on 16 February 1994, due to lung cancer. Ronald McLean was killed in action on 8 June 1969, at the age of 24, while serving as a Marine Corps Lieutenant in Vietnam. Dr. Kelly Stewart is an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis.

While visiting India in 1959, Stewart reportedly smuggled the remains of a supposed yeti, the so-called Pangboche Hand, by hiding them in his luggage (specifically, in his wife, Gloria's underwear) when he flew from India to London, as a favour to Tom Slick.

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). In later years, he made advertisements for BSA, which led to him sometimes incorrectly being identified as an Eagle Scout. (Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, was also the leader of the "Boy Rangers," an organization patterned after cub scouts.) An award for Boy Scouts, The James M. Stewart Good Citizenship Award has been presented since 17 May 2003.

One little-known talent of Stewart's was his homespun poetry. Once on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Stewart read from his poem, "My Dog, Beau." By the end of his reading, Carson's eyes were welling with tears. This was later parodied on a late 1980s episode of the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live, with Dana Carvey as Stewart reciting the poem on Weekend Update and bringing then anchor Dennis Miller to tears.

In addition to poetry, Stewart would talk during Tonight Show appearances about his avid gardening. Stewart purchased the house next door to his own home at 918 North Roxbury Drive, razed the house, and installed his garden in the lot.

Politics

Politically, Stewart was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. He was an active supporter of the anti-communist movement in Hollywood in the late 1940s, and during the 1960s and 1970s was a hawk on the Vietnam War. One of his best friends was Henry Fonda, despite the fact that the two men had very different political ideologies. One political argument in the spring of 1947 resulted in a fist fight between the two friends, but the two apparently maintained their friendship by never discussing politics again. There is brief reference to their political differences in character in their movie The Cheyenne Social Club. When Fonda moved to Hollywood, he lived with Stewart and the two gained a reputation as playboys. Once married, both men's children noted that their favorite activity when not working seemed to be silently painting model airplanes together.

Filmography

From the beginning of James Stewart's career in 1935 through his final theatrical project in 1991, he appeared in 92 films, television programs and shorts. Through the course of this illustrious career, he appeared in many landmark and critically acclaimed films, including such classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Spirit of St. Louis and Vertigo. His roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Harvey, and Anatomy of a Murder earned him Academy Award nominations (he won for Philadelphia Story). Stewart's career defied the boundaries of genre and trend, and he made his mark in screwball comedies, suspense thrillers, westerns, biographies, and family films.

Broadway stage performances

• Carry Nation (October 1932–November 1932)
• Goodbye Again (December 1932–July 1933)
• Spring in Autumn (October 1933–November 1933)
• All Good Americans (December 1933–January 1934)
• Yellow Jack (May 1934)
• Divided By Three (October 1934)
• Page Miss Glory (November 1934–March 1935)
• A Journey By Night (April 1935)
• Harvey (July–August 1947; July–August 1948 - replacing vacationing Frank Fay)
• Harvey (revival, February 1970–May 1970)

AFI 100 Years... series

• Stewart was named the third Greatest Male Star of All Time.
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)
  • Stewart is one of the most represented stars with five films on the list of 100 films.
  • Stewart is one of the most represented stars with ten films on the list of 400 nominees.
  • Vertigo...# 9
  • It's a Wonderful Life...# 20
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington...# 26
  • The Philadelphia Story...# 44
  • Rear Window...# 48
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers
  • Stewart played the main role in two out of the top five films.
  • It's a Wonderful Life...# 1
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington...# 5
  • The Spirit of St. Louis...# 69
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions
  • It's a Wonderful Life...# 8
  • Vertigo...# 18
  • The Shop Around the Corner...# 28
  • The Philadelphia Story...# 44
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
  • Rear Window...#14
  • Vertigo...# 18
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs
  • The Philadelphia Story...# 15
  • Harvey...# 35
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
  • 50 greatest movie heroes
  • It's a Wonderful Life... George Bailey ...# 9
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington...Jefferson Smith ...# 11

United States National Film Registry

• As of 2007, there are 10 films starring James Stewart preserved in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
  • Destry Rides Again (1939)
  • The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
  • The Philadelphia Story (1940)
  • It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
  • The Naked Spur (1953)
  • Rear Window (1954)
  • Vertigo (1958)
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
  • How the West Was Won (1962)

Film industry awards

Year	Nomination	Work	Won?
Academy Awards
1940	Best Actor	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	No
1941	Best Actor	The Philadelphia Story	Yes
1946	Best Actor	It's a Wonderful Life	No
1951	Best Actor	Harvey	No
1960	Best Actor	Anatomy of a Murder	No
1985	Honorary Award	Lifetime Achievement	Yes
BAFTA Awards
1955	Best Foreign Actor	The Glenn Miller Story	No
1960	Best Foreign Actor	Anatomy of a Murder	No
Golden Globes
1951	Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama	Harvey	No
1963	Best Actor - Musical or Comedy	Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation	No
1965	Cecil B. DeMille Award	Lifetime Achievement	Yes
1974	Best TV Actor - Drama	Hawkins	Yes
NYFCCs
1939	Best Actor	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	Yes
1959	Best Actor	Anatomy of a Murder	Yes
Venice Film Festival
1959	Volpi Cup Best Actor	Anatomy of a Murder	Yes
Berlin International Film Festivals
1963	Silver Bear Best Actor	Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation	Yes
1982	Honorary Golden Bear	Lifetime Achievement	Yes
Screen Actors Guild Awards
1968	Lifetime Achievement	Lifetime Achievement	Yes
American Film Institute
1980	Lifetime Achievement	Lifetime Achievement	Yes
National Board of Review
1990	Lifetime Achievement	Lifetime Achievement	Yes

Awards
Preceded by James Cagney for Angels with Dirty Faces	NYFCC Award for Best Actor 1939 for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	Succeeded by Charles Chaplin for The Great Dictator
Preceded by Robert Donat for Goodbye, Mr. Chips	Academy Award for Best Actor 1940 for The Philadelphia Story	Succeeded by Gary Cooper for Sergeant York
Preceded by David Niven for Separate Tables	NYFCC Award for Best Actor 1959 for Anatomy of a Murder	Succeeded by Burt Lancaster for Elmer Gantry
Preceded by Joseph E. Levine	Cecil B. DeMille Award 1965	Succeeded by John Wayne
Preceded by William Gargan	Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award 1968	Succeeded by Edward G. Robinson
Preceded by Peter Falk for Columbo	Golden Globe Award for Best TV Actor in a Drama Series 1974 for Hawkins	Succeeded by Telly Savalas for Kojak
Preceded by Alfred Hitchcock	AFI Life Achievement Award 1980	Succeeded by Fred Astaire
Preceded by Hal Roach	Academy Honorary Award 1985	Succeeded by Paul Newman, Alex North

Preceded by John Cromwell and Bob Hope 17th Academy Awards	Oscars host 18th Academy Awards (with Bob Hope)	Succeeded by Jack Benny 19th Academy Awards
Preceded by Jerry Lewis 29th Academy Awards	Oscars host 30th Academy Awards (with Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, David Niven, and Rosalind Russell)	Succeeded by Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall, and Mort Sahl 31st Academy Awards

Honours and tributes

He was awarded various lifetime achievement awards from the Academy Awards (1985), Golden Globe Awards (1965), Screen Actors Guild (1969), American Film Institute (1980), Berlin International Film Festival (1982), Kennedy Center Honours (1983), Lincoln Centre (1990), and the National Board of Review (1990).

In 1945, Col. James Stewart was featured on the cover of Life.

Stewart has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street. The star has been stolen. It has since been replaced. He was also invited to leave his handprints in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

In 1947, Princeton University presented Stewart with an honorary degree. In 1990, the University awarded him its highest alumni honour, the Woodrow Wilson Award for outstanding public service. On 30 May 1997, Princeton further honored Stewart by a special tribute and the dedication of the "James M. Stewart '32 Theatre."

In 1971, he was named " Man of the Year" by Harvard University's performance group, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

In 1972, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

In his hometown, Indiana, Pennsylvania, a larger-than-life statue of Stewart was erected on the lawn of the Indiana County Courthouse on 20 May 1983 to celebrate Stewart's 75th birthday. In 1995, The Jimmy Stewart Museum, a museum dedicated to his life and career, opened as well in Indiana, Pennsylvania. A replica of his statue, rendered in green fibreglass resides in the museum.

In honour of his years of service with the U.S. Air Force, Brig. Gen. Stewart's original World War II 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. A World War II air force uniform belonging to Stewart is also on display in the American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, near Cambridge, England

James Stewart has the Indiana County-Jimmy Stewart Airport named in his honour in Pennsylvania.

President Ronald Reagan awarded Stewart the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 23 May 1985.

In November 1997, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich led an unsuccessful attempt to have Los Angeles International Airport renamed in Stewart's honour.

In 1998, a year after Stewart's death, a monument was erected in his memory in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, where he hosted his annual "Jimmy Stewart Marathon". The monument consists of a 25-foot flagpole, atop a rock pedestal, with a plaque praising the actor.

An award for Boy Scouts, The James M. Stewart Good Citizenship Award has been presented since 17 May 2003.

On 13 August 2007, Building 52 on Bolling AFB, Washington D.C. was dedicated to Stewart and was renamed Brigadier General Jimmy Stewart Theater. In the 1940s, the facility served as the base theater. In honor of General Stewart's distinguished military and film careers, the first video shown in the newly dedicated theatre was a ten-minute Air Force recruitment spot he did as a lieutenant.

On 17 August 2007, the United States Postal Service issued a 41-cent commemorative postage stamp honoring James Stewart, with the ceremonies being held at Universal Studios in Hollywood, California.

Military and Civilian Awards

•    Distinguished Service Medal
•    Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster
•    Air Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters
•    Army Commendation Medal
•    American Defense Service Medal
•    European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with 3 Service Stars
•    World War II Victory Medal
•    Armed Forces Reserve Medal
•    French Croix de Guerre with Palm
• Presidential Medal of Freedom

Quote

“	You hear so much about the old movie moguls and the impersonal factories where there is no freedom. MGM was a wonderful place where decisions were made on my behalf by my superiors. What's wrong with that?	”
	— James Stewart,

“	...it seems all we do here in Hollywood is give awards to people...	”
	— James Stewart,

“	I'm going to be with Gloria now.	”
	— James Stewart's last words,