James Stewart

James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the eldest child and only son of Elizabeth Ruth Jackson and Alexander Maitland Stewart. He had two younger sisters. His family, of Scottish and Ulster-Scots ancestry, had lived in Pennsylvania for generations. His father ran the J. M. Stewart and Company Hardware Store and expected Stewart to take it over after attending Princeton, as was family tradition. Raised Presbyterian by his devout father, Stewart remained a regular churchgoer. His mother was a pianist, and music was central to the household. When a customer couldn’t pay a bill, Stewart’s father accepted an old accordion; Stewart learned to play it from a local barber, and the instrument later became a signature prop in his acting career. A shy child, he spent his after-school hours in the basement building model airplanes, sketching mechanical drawings, and doing chemistry experiments, all driven by a dream of aviation. He attended Wilson Model School for primary and junior high, where he earned average to low grades—not from a lack of intelligence, his teachers said, but because he was creative and prone to daydreaming.

In fall 1923, Stewart entered Mercersburg Academy prep school, as his father doubted he would get into Princeton if he attended public high school. At Mercersburg, he joined the track team as a high jumper, served as art editor of the yearbook, sang in the glee club, and was a member of the John Marshall Literary Society. His slender build kept him on the third-tier football team, to his disappointment. He made his stage debut there in 1928, playing Buquet in *The Wolves*. During summer breaks, he worked as a brick loader and later as a magician’s assistant. A bout of scarlet fever that led to a kidney infection forced him to take time off in 1927, delaying his graduation until 1928. His passion for aviation grew after Charles Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic flight, but his father steered him toward Princeton, and he abandoned his pilot dreams.

Stewart enrolled at Princeton in 1928, class of 1932, majoring in architecture and joining the Princeton Charter Club. He did well academically but was drawn to the school’s drama and music clubs, including the Princeton Triangle Club. After graduating in 1932, he received a scholarship for graduate architecture studies based on his thesis on an airport terminal design, but instead joined the University Players, a summer stock company in West Falmouth, Massachusetts. There, he performed bit parts and met actors Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan, who became close friends. He made his Broadway debut in 1932 in *Carry Nation*. His first film role was a supporting part in *The Murder Man* (1935). His breakthrough came in Frank Capra’s ensemble comedy *You Can’t Take It with You* (1938), followed by Capra’s political comedy *Mr. Smith Goes to Washington* (1939) and Ernst Lubitsch’s romantic comedy *The Shop Around the Corner* (1940). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for George Cukor’s romantic comedy *The Philadelphia Story* (1940).

During World War II, Stewart enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces, using his private pilot skills to seek combat duty. He rose to become deputy commanding officer of the 2nd Bombardment Wing and commanded the 703rd Bombardment Squadron from 1941 to 1947. After the war, he transferred to the Air Force Reserve, holding various command positions until his retirement in 1968 as a brigadier general. Back in Hollywood, he starred in Capra’s *It’s a Wonderful Life* (1946), which was a critical and commercial disappointment at release but became a beloved classic after its copyright expired in the early 1970s. He then appeared in four Alfred Hitchcock films: *Rope* (1948), *Rear Window* (1954), *The Man Who Knew Too Much* (1956), and *Vertigo* (1958). Other notable films include *Anatomy of a Murder* (1959) and *The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance* (1962). Over his career, Stewart appeared in 80 films from 1935 to 1991. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman persona, his films are considered among the greatest ever made. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him third on its list of greatest American male actors. He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1983, and both the Academy Honorary Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985. Stewart died on July 2, 1997.