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An unassuming genius

Peter Hoskin

Wednesday, 7th May 2008

Pete Hoskin on the Hollywood actor James Stewart, who was born 100 years ago

After Mr Smith Goes to Washington, the plaudits came gushing in — Stewart was a somebody. And he became an even bigger somebody a year later, when he won an Academy Award for his performance as Macaulay Conner — a fast-talking gossip writer — in The Philadelphia Story (1940). Not one for all the hype, Stewart allowed the Oscar to be displayed in the window of his father’s store for the next 25 years.

Then came the second world war, during which Stewart matched even Jefferson Smith for patriotic fervour and heroism. Despite being under regulation weight, he talked his way into the Air Force some nine months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; he took part in dozens of bombing missions; and he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Croix de Guerre, among other honours. By the end of the war, Stewart had risen to be a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve — the highest rank ever achieved by an actor (with the exception of Ronald Reagan’s eventual status as Commander-in-Chief) — and he’d won an even greater slice of the American public’s admiration.

After the war, as Stewart’s hair greyed, he morphed from the child-in-a-man’s-body to every cinéaste’s favourite uncle. Who better to regale us with tales of the good ol’ days? Who better to lead America through the existential briar patch of the postwar years? His acting skills matured as well, as he developed a steelier on-screen persona in a series of westerns that I consider his best work.

That Stewart should find his natural home in the western seems counterintuitive. Hollywood’s American Frontier called for brawn and ruggedness — John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Randolph Scott — rather than a 150-pound reed who spoke in gollies and goshes. But intuition be damned. You only need to watch a few seconds of any of the five westerns that Stewart made with director Anthony Mann to see that he’s more than comfortable in the saddle. The five are: Winchester ’73 (1950), Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), The Far Country (1954), and The Man from Laramie (1955).