Stewart, James

Stewart, James (Maitland)

James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

(credit: Culver Pictures)

(born May 20, 1908, Indiana, Pa., U.S.—died July 2, 1997, Beverly Hills, Calif.) U.S. film actor. He made his film debut in 1935, but at first, Stewart's slow, halting line delivery (perhaps his most readily identifiable trademark) and angular features made him difficult to cast. His engaging manner, however, led to quick acceptance by the movie-going public, and he played endearingly simple and idealistic characters in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It with You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). He won an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in The Philadelphia Story (1940). After serving as a bomber pilot in World War II, he starred in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), which became a Christmas classic. He was known for his portrayals of diffident but morally resolute characters. His many movies include Destry Rides Again (1939), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), The Man from Laramie (1955), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955), and Vertigo (1958).

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Stewart, James (Maitland) (1908–  ) film actor; born in Indiana, Pa. He was a magician and accordionist when he was a boy, and while he was attending Princeton University he appeared in campus productions. After graduation he joined a repertory company in Massachusetts, where two of his coperformers were Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. This tall, gangly, drawling young man arrived in Hollywood in 1935, where he appeared in The Murder Man, but it wasn't until he starred in such films as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) that filmmakers realized how appealing he was to the American public. In 1940 he won an Academy Award for The Philadelphia Story. He was a bomber pilot in World War II, flying 20 missions over Germany and attaining the rank of colonel. After the war, he returned, once again playing the quintessential small-town man in It's a Wonderful Life (1947), a movie revived every Christmas on television. He went on to a variety of roles—cowboys, detectives, and other masculine types. He was given an honorary Oscar in 1984.