James Stewart from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
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James Stewart From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997), also known as James Stewart Jimmy Stewart, was an American actor and military officer who is among the most honored and popular stars in film history. A major MetroGoldwynMayer contract player, Stewart was known for his distinctive drawl and downtoearth persona, which helped him often portray American middleclass men struggling in crisis. Many of the films he starred in have become enduring classics. Stewart was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition for Stewart in 1948 The Philadelphia Story (1940), and Born May 20, 1908 received an Academy Lifetime Indiana, Pennsylvania, U.S. Achievement award in 1985. In 1999, Died July 2, 1997 (aged 89) Stewart was named the third greatest Beverly Hills, California, U.S. male screen legend of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Cause of Pulmonary embolism[1] Institute, behind Humphrey Bogart and death Cary Grant.[3] The American Film Resting place Forest Lawn, Glendale, California Institute has also named five of Stewart's Alma mater Princeton University (B.A., 1932) films to its list of the 100 best American Occupation Actor films ever made.[4] Years active 1932–1991 He also had a noted military career and Known for First American movie star to enlist in was a World War II and Vietnam War World War II[2][N 1] veteran, who rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force Notable work Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Reserve, becoming the highestranking Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Rear Window, Vertigo, The actor in military history.[5] Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Spouse(s) Gloria Hatrick McLean (m. 1949; d. 1994) (her death) Contents Children 4 (including two stepchildren) Awards Academy Lifetime Achievement 1 Early life and career (1985) 2 Prewar success Academy Award for Best Actor 3 Military service (1941) 4 Postwar career Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille 5 Collaborations with Hitchcock and Mann Award (1965) 5.1 Career in the 1960s and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor 1970s – Television Series Drama (1974) 6 Last years and later career 7 Personal life 7.1 Politics 8 Death 9 Filmography 10 Broadway performances 11 Radio appearances 12 Legacy 13 Honors and tributes 14 See also 15 References 15.1 Notes 15.2 Citations 15.3 Bibliography 16 External links Early life and career Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth Ruth Jackson (1875–1953) and Alexander Maitland Stewart (1871–1961), who owned a hardware store.[6][7] Stewart was mainly of Scottish ancestry and was raised as a Presbyterian.[8][9][10] He was descended from veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the American Civil War.[10] The eldest of three children (he had two younger sisters, Virginia and Mary), he was expected to continue his father's 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. When his father accepted a gift of an accordion from a guest, young Stewart quickly learned to play the instrument, which became a fixture offstage during his acting career. As the family grew, music continued to be an important part of family life.[11] Stewart attended Mercersburg Academy prep school, graduating in 1928. He was active in a variety of activities. He played on the football and track teams, was art editor of the KARUX yearbook, and a member of the choir club, glee club, and John Marshall Literary Society. During his first After the Thin Man (1936) summer break, Stewart returned to his hometown to work as a brick loader for a local construction company and on highway and road construction jobs where he painted lines on the roads. Over the following two summers, he took a job as an assistant with a professional magician.[12] He made his first appearance onstage at Mercersburg, as Buquet in the play The Wolves.[13] A shy child, Stewart spent much of his afterschool time in the basement working on model airplanes, mechanical drawing and chemistry—all with a dream of going into aviation. It was a dream greatly enhanced by the legendary 1927 flight of Charles Lindbergh, whose progress 19yearold Stewart, then stricken with scarlet fever, was himself avidly following from home; thus foreshadowing his starring movie role as Lindbergh 30 years later.[14] However, he abandoned visions of being a pilot when his father insisted that instead of the United States Naval Academy he attend Princeton University. Stewart enrolled at Princeton in 1928 as a member of the class of 1932. He excelled at studying architecture, so impressing his professors with his thesis on an airport design that he was awarded a scholarship for graduate studies;[12] but he gradually became attracted to the school's drama and music clubs, including the Princeton Triangle Club.[15] His acting and accordion talents at Princeton led him to be invited to the University Players, an intercollegiate summer stock company in West Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. The company had been organized in 1928 and would run until 1932, with Joshua Logan, Bretaigne Windust and Charles Leatherbee as directors. Stewart performed in bit parts in the Players' productions in Cape Cod during the summer of 1932, after he graduated. The troupe had previously included Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. Stewart and Fonda became close friends over the summer of 1932 when they shared an apartment with Joshua Logan and Myron McCormick.[16] When Stewart came to New York at the end of the summer stock season, which had included the Broadway tryout of Goodbye Again, he shared an apartment with Fonda, who had by then finalized his divorce from Sullavan. Along with fellow University Players Alfred Dalrymple and Myron McCormick, Stewart debuted on Broadway in the brief run of Carry Nation and a few weeks later – again with McCormick and Dalrymple – as a chauffeur in the comedy Goodbye Again, in which he had two lines. The New Yorker commented, "Mr. James Stewart's chauffeur... comes on for three minutes and walks off to a round of spontaneous applause."[17] 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."[18] By 1934, he was given more substantial stage roles, including the modest 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 Al Hirschfeld drawing from scout Bill Grady who saw Stewart on the opening night of Yellow Jack (Stewart, upper Divided by Three, a glittering première with many left) luminaries in attendance, including Irving Berlin, Moss Hart and Fonda, who had returned to New York for the show. With Fonda's encouragement, Stewart agreed to take a screen test, after which he signed a contract with MGM in April 1935, as a contract player for up to seven years at $350 a week.[19] Upon Stewart's arrival by train in Los Angeles, Fonda greeted him at the station and took him to Fonda's studio supplied lodging, next door to Greta Garbo. Stewart's first job at the studio was as a participant in screen tests with newly arrived starlets. At first, he had trouble being cast in Hollywood films owing to his gangling looks and shy, humble screen presence. Aside from an unbilled appearance in a Shemp Howard comedy short called Art Trouble in Stewart made four features 1934, his first film was the poorly received Spencer Tracy with Margaret Sullavan, the vehicle, The Murder Man (1935). Rose Marie (1936), an second of which was The adaptation of a popular operetta, was more successful. After Shopworn Angel (1938) having mixed success in films, he received his first intensely dramatic role in 1936's After the Thin Man, and played Jean Harlow's character's frustrated boyfriend in the Clark Gable vehicle Wife vs. Secretary earlier that same year. On the romantic front, he dated newly divorced Ginger Rogers.[20] The romance 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. 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.[21] In 1936, he acquired bigtime agent Leland Hayward, who would eventually marry Sullavan. Hayward started to chart Stewart's career, deciding that the best path for him was through loanouts to other studios. Prewar success In 1938 Stewart had a brief, tumultuous romance 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.