James Maitland Stewart was an American actor, singer and military officer. His film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. Stewart died of a pulmonary embolism three years after his wife Gloria Hatrick McLean died in 1994.
About James Stewart in brief
James Maitland Stewart was an American actor, singer and military officer. His film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. He won his only Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in the screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. Stewart died of a pulmonary embolism three years after his wife Gloria Hatrick McLean died in 1994. He was of Scottish and Ulster-Scot ancestry and was a devout church-goer for much of his life. He remained unmarried until his 40s, and was dubbed \”The Great American Bachelor\” by the press. Stewart’s later Westerns included The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Cheyenne Autumn, both directed by John Ford. He received many honorary awards, including an Academy Honorary Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, both in 1985. He had two younger sisters, Mary and Virginia. He was the eldest child and only son born to Elizabeth Ruth and Alexander Maitlands Stewart. He attended the Wilson Model School for primary school and junior high school and began attending Mercersburg Academy after attending Princeton University. His father ran the family business, the J. M. Stewart and Company Hardware Store, which he hoped Stewart would take over as an adult. Stewart was a pianist and music was an important part of family life. His accordion became a fixture with the help of a local barber to pay his bill, and he learned to play the instrument offstage during his acting career.
He played darker, more morally ambiguous characters in movies directed by Anthony Mann, including Winchester ’73, The Glenn Miller Story and The Naked Spur, and by Alfred Hitchcock in Rope, Rear Window, The Man who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo. In the 1950s, Stewart appeared in many popular family comedies during the 1960s. He appeared in the Broadway adaptation Harvey and the courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder, both of which landed him Academy Award nominations. In 1949, he married former model Gloria Hatricks McLean. They had twin daughters, and Stewart adopted her two sons from her previous marriage. He died in 1991 after a brief venture into television acting, Stewart semi-retired by the 1980s. His last role was as George Bailey in Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Although it earned him an Oscar nomination, the film was not a big success at first. It has increased in popularity since its release, and is now recognized as a Christmas classic and one of Stewart’s most famous performances. Stewart played the morally ambiguous character in Vertigo, which was ignored by critics upon release, but is nowrecognized as an American cinematic masterpiece. He also appeared in a number of Westerns, including the John Ford Westerns. Stewart spent much of the time of his time as a child playing the piano and working on model airplanes, mechanical drawings, and chemistry—all with a dream of going into aviation.
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