STEWART, JAMES

born May 20, 1908, Indiana, Pa., U.S. died July 2, 1997, Beverly Hills, Calif. in full James Maitland Stewart, byname Jimmy Stewart major American motion-picture star known for his portrayals of diffident but morally resolute characters. Stewart was a graduate of Princeton University in the field of architecture and became part of the University Players at Falmouth, Mass., joining such future film actors as Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. He moved to Hollywood in the mid-1930s, but his slow speaking pattern and angular features puzzled directors as to how best to cast him. His naive, engaging manner, however, led to quick acceptance by the movie-going public. Stewart's first film was The Murder Man (1935). In the late 1930s, he appeared in such hit comedies as director Frank Capra's You Can't Take It with You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). In 1940 his role in The Philadelphia Story earned him an Academy Award. During World War II, Stewart rose from private to colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps, and as a bomber pilot he flew a number of missions over Germany. The first film he made after the war, Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946), became an annual Christmas classic. In it Stewart played George Bailey, an embittered idealist who is helped to see how significant he has beendespite his frustrated ambitions and his genteel povertyto his family and his community. Stewart then appeared in several westerns directed by Anthony Mann, including Winchester '73 (1950), Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), and The Man from Laramie (1955). His performances in Harvey (1950), in the Alfred Hitchcock thrillers Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Vertigo (1958), and in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959) are among his greatest. He also portrayed the American bandleader Glenn Miller in The Glenn Miller Story (1953) and the pilot Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis (1957). Among his last films were The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), The Flight of the Phoenix (1966), and The Shootist (1976). Stewart received four other Academy Award nominations for best actor in the course of his career, and in 1985 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour.