History of the Stewarts | Famous Stewarts
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In 1923 his parents enrolled him at Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg Pennsylvania, an all-boys school. He graduated from Mercersburg Academy in 1928. Stewart entered his father’s alma mater, Princeton University, in the fall of 1928. Although he initially considered engineering, Stewart finally settled on architecture as his course of study. However because of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed Stewart questioned whether he would find employment as an architect. Two weeks after graduation in 1932, he received an offer from a friend Josh Logan to join the University Players, a summer stock group based in West Falmouth on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and he accepted. In 1932, when the Players had the opportunity to stage Carrie Nation on Broadway, he played a number of small roles that included a constable, a vigilante, an innocent bystander and gardener.
Though Carrie Nation ran only seven weeks on Broadway, Stewart caught the attention of the critics. He also got favourable reviews for his roles in other Broadway plays, Goodbye Again (1932), Spring in Autumn (1933), and All Good Americans (1933). Goodbye Again had a nine month Broadway run before moving to Boston, where he was then cast in We Die Exquisitely. He left to become stage manager for Camille (1933), starring Jane Cowl, and moved back to Broadway to play Sergeant O’Hara in Yellow Jack (1934). This performance earned him a screen test with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Stewart had also done a screen test for the Fox movie studio and was cast in his first moving picture, a Warner Brothers two-reel comedy, Art Trouble (1934). Neither Warner Brothers nor Fox offered him a contract. While waiting to hear from MGM, Stewart was cast in Journey at Night. The play closed after the second night however two months later, MGM called him to Hollywood. Stewart was to play the part of a cub reporter in a Chick Sale short, Important News (1936). MGM then cast Stewart in the role of another newspaper man named “Shortie” in the film Murder Man (1936), starring Spencer Tracy.
From 1935 to 1939 Stewart appeared in twenty-nine films. In addition to film, Stewart also did voice work for the studios and radio networks, including The Lux Radio Theater, The Screen Guild Theater, and MGM’s promotional program, Good News of 1938. The year 1939 was pivotal for Stewart. He performed in his first western, Destry Rides Again, opposite Marlene Dietrich. His performance as Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s Mr Smith Goes to Washington earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He would make nine more pictures before playing the role that would finally win him the Oscar, that of reporter Mike Conner in The Philadelphia Story. He co-starred in that film with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, John Howard and Ruth Hussey. The film received six Oscar nominations, but only Stewart and Donald Ogden Stewart, for best screen play, walked away with a Oscar.
While Stewart was building his reputation as an actor, the rest of the world was about to go to war. When he appeared at Draft Board No. 245 in West Los Angeles in February 1941, the 6’3” Stewart weighed only 9 stone 7 lbs. He was turned down. Stewart wanted to fly and serve his country but by May of 1941 he would have been too old to get into flight school. He went home and ate everything he could that was fattening and went back and enlisted in the Army Air Corps, passing the physical with an ounce to spare.
During the months before he began military service, Stewart appeared in a series of screwball comedies with varying levels of success. He followed the mediocre No Time for Comedy (1940) with Rosalind Russell and Come Live with Me (1941) with Hedy Lamarr with the Judy Garland musical, Ziegfeld Girl, and the George Marshall romantic comedy Pot o´ Gold featuring Paulette Goddard.
Stewart was already a licensed pilot. As a successful actor in 1935 Stewart was able to afford flying lessons, and in 1935 he received his pilot’s license and bought his first airplane. In 1938 he gained his commercial pilot’s license. In the military, he was to make extensive use of his pilot’s training. In March 1941 at age 32, he reported for duty as Private James Stewart at Fort McArthur and was assigned to the Army Air Corps at Moffett Field. In January 1942 Stewart was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant. He was then sent to Mather Field in California as a twin engine instructor. The USAAF´s First Motion Picture Unit shot scenes of Lieutenant Stewart in his pilot´s flight jacket and recorded his voice for narration. The short propaganda film, Winning Your Wings featured Stewart.
Stewart stayed stateside for almost two years, until commanding officers finally yielded to his request to be sent overseas. In November 1943, now a Captain and Operations Officer for the 703rd Squadron, 445th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force, he arrived in Tibenham, England. In March of 1944 he was transferred to the 453rd Bombardment Group at Old Buckenham. While stateside, Stewart flew B-17’s (The Flying Fortress). Stewart’s war record included 20 dangerous combat missions as command pilot, wing commander or squadron commander. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters, The Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, and the French Croix de Guerre with Palm. At the end of the war he had risen to the rank of Colonel. After the war he remained with the US Air Force Reserves and was promoted to Brigadier General in 1959. His uniform and medals are on display at The Jimmy Stewart Museum. Stewart retired from the Air Force in 1968 when he had reached mandatory retirement age and received the Distinguished Service Medal.
Stewart met Gloria Hatrick McLean in the summer of 1948 when he accepted a dinner invitation to the home of Gary and Rocky Cooper. Stewart married her on August 9, 1949. They had a ready-made family, sinceGloria had two children, Ronald then five and Michael, three, from a previous marriage. On May 7, 1951, fraternal twins Kelly & Judy were born.
After the war he took some time off to think about his future but then returned to acting with Magic Town, a comedy film about the then-new science of public opinion polling. It was poorly received. He completed Rope (1948) directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Call Northside 777 (1948), Stewart had two flops with On Our Merry Way (1948) and You Gotta Stay Happy (1949).
He returned to the stage to star in Mary Coyle Chase´s Harvey, 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 as Dowd and Josephine Hull as his sister, Veta. Stewart received his fourth Best Actor nomination for his performance in the film. After Harvey, the comedic adventure film Malaya (1949) with Spencer Tracy and The Stratton Story in 1949, Stewart´s first pairing with "on-screen wife" June Allyson, his career took another turn. During the 1950s, he expanded into the western and suspense genres, thanks to collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Mann.
Other notable performances by Stewart during this time include the critically acclaimed 1950 western Broken Arrow, which featured Stewart as an ex-soldier and Indian agent 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 to 1954. During this time Stewart wore the same cowboy hat and rode the same horse, named "Pie", in most of his Westerns.
In the early 1960s, Stewart took leading roles in three John Ford films, his first work with the acclaimed director. The first, Two Rode Together, paired him with Richard Widmark. The next, 1962´s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (with John Wayne), is a classic "psychological" western, shot in black and white film noir style. How the West Was Won and Cheyenne Autumn were western epics released in 1962 and 1964 respectively. How the West Was Won went on to win three Oscars and reap massive box office figures. Cheyenne Autumn, in which Stewart played Wyatt Earp in a long semi-comedic sequence in the middle of the movie, failed domestically and was quickly forgotten.
Having played his last romantic lead in Bell, Book and Candle (1958), Stewart moved into more family-related films in the 1960s when he signed a multi-movie deal with 20th Century Fox. These included Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), and the less memorable films Take Her, She´s Mine (1963) and Dear Brigitte (1965). The Civil War period film Shenandoah (1965) and the western family film The Rare Breed fared better at the box office.
In 1967 the Pennsylvania Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts was awarded to Jimmy Stewart. The American Film Institute has recognized the magnitude of Jimmy’s accomplishments by awarding him the Life Achievement Award in 1980 for fundamentally advancing the art of American Film. In 1985, Stewart received The Lifetime Achievement Award from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Jimmy Stewart died on July 2, 1997, at the age of 89.
With Thanks to the Jimmy Stewart Museum
