Seven Things to Know About James Stewart

1. As a young man, James Stewart was fascinated with aviation and avidly followed Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. Many years later, Stewart would play Lindbergh in the film biography The Spirit of St. Louis (1957). It was only one of several aviation-themed films he starred in, with the others including Strategic Air Command, Airport '77, the excellent No Highway in the Sky, and The Flight of the Phoenix (a personal fave).

2. Stewart's introduction to show business came when he worked a couple of summers as a magician's assistant. However, he began to take it seriously as a potential career while at Princeton University. He became a member of an acting troupe called the University Players. Its alumni included Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan (with whom he'd make four movies).

3. After a modestly-successful stage career, James Stewart signed a contract with MGM in 1935. After several minor roles, he attracted attention as the murderer in After the Thin Man (1936), the immediate sequel to William Powell and Myrna Loy's 1934 hit.

Stewart with bunny.

4. Although he was nominated for five Academy Awards, James Stewart only won one Oscar--as Best Actor for The Philadelphia Story (1941). His other nominations were for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1940), It's a Wonderful Life (1947), Harvey (1951), and the gripping Anatomy of a Murder (1960). He was also recognized with a Special Oscar in 1985 "for his fifty years of memorable performances, for his high ideals both on and off the screen, with respect and affection of his colleagues."

5. Stewart made multiple films with some of Hollywood's greatest directors. He starred in four Alfred Hitchcock movies: Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and the classics Rear Window and Vertigo. He acted in three Frank Capra films: You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life. However, his most frequent director was Anthony Mann, with whom he worked eight times. He and Mann helped redefine the Western genre in the 1950s with five outstanding Westerns that started with Winchester '73 (1950).

In The Jimmy Stewart Show.

6. James Stewart starred in two television series, though neither one was successful. In The Jimmy Stewart Show (1971), he played an anthropology professor at a small-town university, whose life is disrupted when his son and family move in. Julie Adams, who played his wife, told us in a 2013 interview: "My idea of heaven was going to work with Jimmy Stewart every day for six months." His second series Hawkins (1973-74) was actually comprised of seven 90-minute made-for-TV movies in which Stewart starred as a canny, country-raised lawyer. It was part of an umbrella series that also included the Shaft TV series and CBS television movies.

7. In the biography James Stewart: Behind the Scenes of a Wonderful Life, Hitchcock states of Stewart: "He was a very responsive actor, with an intuitive grasp of what I was after, what was required of a scene. He has a great natural gift...I have always been surprised by what Jim Stewart can dredge up out of his own inner feelings for a scene."