Feature of the Month: Jimmy Stewart

Jimmy Stewart

James Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American film and stage actor, best known for his self-effacing persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime Achievement award. He was a major MGM contract star. He also had a noted military career, a World War II and Vietnam War veteran, who rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force Reserve.

Throughout his seven decades in Hollywood, Stewart cultivated a versatile career and recognized screen image in such classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, Harvey, It's a Wonderful Life, Rear Window, Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo. He is the most represented leading actor on the AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) and AFI's 10 Top 10 lists. He is also the most represented leading actor on the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list presented by Entertainment Weekly. As of 2007, ten of his films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry.

Stewart left his mark on a wide range of film genres, including westerns, suspense thrillers, family films, biographies and screwball comedies. He worked for a number of renowned directors later in his career, most notably Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, George Cukor, and Anthony Mann. He won many of the industry's highest honors and earned Lifetime Achievement awards from every major film organization. He died at age 89, 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.

Filmography and death

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, Rear Window, 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.

In 1991, James Stewart voiced the character of Sheriff Wylie Burp in the movie An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, which was his final role in a film before his death.

Shortly before his 80th birthday, he was asked how he wanted to be remembered. "As someone who 'believed in hard work and love of country, love of family and love of community.'"

Stewart died from a blood clot on a lung on July 2, 1997, at his home in Beverly Hills. His death came one day after fellow screen legend and The Big Sleep co-star Robert Mitchum had died. Stewart is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

"America lost a national treasure today," President Bill Clinton said on the day Stewart died. "Jimmy Stewart was a great actor, a gentleman and a patriot."

See Jimmy Stewart at his best!

Filled with great musical numbers and a thoroughly amusing storyline, Stewart plays a small-town music lover who reluctantly travels to the city to help his uncle run the family business. Once there, he falls for the daughter of a rival family (think: Hatfields and McCoys), unbeknownst to both parties. That is, until a live radio broadcast ends up getting everyone into trouble! Also starring Paulette Goddard, Charles Winninger (who is hilarious as Uncle Charlie) and bandleader Horace Heidt. Trivia note: This was the first (and last) feature-length production by James Roosevelt, son of then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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