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James Stewart: A Biography
A revealing portrait of screen legend James Stewart provides a close-up look at the actor's long-time career in film, his military service during World War II, and his personal life, based on nearly two hundred interviews with friends, colleagues, fellow airmen, and others.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
June 28, 2013
OK. First, I rarely, if ever, quit a book. I got 1/3 of the way through this book before I couldn't take it anymore. I
LOVE
James Stewart. Seriously. This book has little to nothing to do with him. It is a broad-based story of... something. It's more like a term paper one would write in high school or basic college English where you simply copy other people's sources and cite them. Also, I was listening to the audio book, and the reader's voice put me to sleep.
The following are some notes I made while trying to listen to this book. Hopefully they explain why I was not exactly thrilled with this author's work.
~~~
Not only a biography of Jimmy, but a history of Indiana, Pennsylvania, and the Stewart family, trailing back to Ireland.
Most of the first section gives bits while strung through a description of the dedication of the Jimmy Stewart museum. This makes for odd transitions and descriptions.
Then it describes Jimmy's early interests. Then it describes his education, including his prep school and transition to Princeton. Of course, this comes with a mini history on both of those institutions. I suppose this is supposed to lend a background to understand how Jimmy might have felt while there, but I found it boring. Anything relevant to Jimmy's life, like specific rules, could have been mentioned without an outright history.
At times it got so in depth into the surroundings of Jimmy's life, that I forgot it was supposed to be a book about Jimmy Stewart.
~~~
I was going to turn those notes into better sentences for a review, but decided to leave them raw. I saw at least two other Jimmy Stewart bios at my local library the other day. Hopefully one of them will be better than this. Sorry, Mr. Dewey. I just couldn't hang in there with you.
The following are some notes I made while trying to listen to this book. Hopefully they explain why I was not exactly thrilled with this author's work.
~~~
Not only a biography of Jimmy, but a history of Indiana, Pennsylvania, and the Stewart family, trailing back to Ireland.
Most of the first section gives bits while strung through a description of the dedication of the Jimmy Stewart museum. This makes for odd transitions and descriptions.
Then it describes Jimmy's early interests. Then it describes his education, including his prep school and transition to Princeton. Of course, this comes with a mini history on both of those institutions. I suppose this is supposed to lend a background to understand how Jimmy might have felt while there, but I found it boring. Anything relevant to Jimmy's life, like specific rules, could have been mentioned without an outright history.
At times it got so in depth into the surroundings of Jimmy's life, that I forgot it was supposed to be a book about Jimmy Stewart.
~~~
I was going to turn those notes into better sentences for a review, but decided to leave them raw. I saw at least two other Jimmy Stewart bios at my local library the other day. Hopefully one of them will be better than this. Sorry, Mr. Dewey. I just couldn't hang in there with you.
November 25, 2021
On the covers it says “Immaculately detailed.... a wonderful read” I am afraid I have to take issue with that, it is much too detailed which makes it a less than wonderful read. In particular, I feel that the large chunks of resumes and review of films should have been relegated to an appendix, and only the key facts relating to each film left in the main text. It was ok reading about “It’s A Wonderful Life”, “Rear Window” or “Vertigo” but there was much too much about the lesser films in his portfolio. I definitely found out a lot of stuff about him that I did not know and was generally entertained by the book, but it needed to be 300 pages long, not 500.
April 4, 2018
This is another long book. Again, due to the copious amount of driving that I have been doing, I listened to the 18-hour audiobook. But I almost didn't make it past the first 30 minutes. The first hour discusses a Jimmy Stewart museum opening that's sole point is to attract attention to a state that Stewart hadn't lived in in over 50 years. The next couple of hours dealt with Stewart's upbringing and admittance into college and his foray into stage acting.
The book really picks up when Stewart gets his big acting break. From there, it primarily goes movie-by-movie chronologically through his life, occasionally jumping forward a couple of years to help create a more cohesive narrative. The author covers his bachelor life, his unlikely and long friendship with Henry Fonda, his love for western, his patriotism and his dedication to his family.
I definitely learned a lot about Jame Stewart. For the most part, however, he was a pretty stand-up guy. Though he didn't know how to act around black people, he donated money to a housekeeper's church that was damaged. And while he hunted wildlife in Africa when he was younger, he became an advocate for conservation later in life.
If you're a movie buff or a fan of Jimmy Stewart, you should find this book entertaining. I had only seen a handful of his films at the time of reading this--though I still consider some of them my favorite movies--and yet now I have found myself with a list of movies that I plan on watching in the coming months. If you have to, just skip the beginning. That's the only reason this book got a 4/5 from me.
The book really picks up when Stewart gets his big acting break. From there, it primarily goes movie-by-movie chronologically through his life, occasionally jumping forward a couple of years to help create a more cohesive narrative. The author covers his bachelor life, his unlikely and long friendship with Henry Fonda, his love for western, his patriotism and his dedication to his family.
I definitely learned a lot about Jame Stewart. For the most part, however, he was a pretty stand-up guy. Though he didn't know how to act around black people, he donated money to a housekeeper's church that was damaged. And while he hunted wildlife in Africa when he was younger, he became an advocate for conservation later in life.
If you're a movie buff or a fan of Jimmy Stewart, you should find this book entertaining. I had only seen a handful of his films at the time of reading this--though I still consider some of them my favorite movies--and yet now I have found myself with a list of movies that I plan on watching in the coming months. If you have to, just skip the beginning. That's the only reason this book got a 4/5 from me.
April 3, 2020
This is so much longer than it needs to be. But, I appreciated the details on each on each film he covered.
June 19, 2017
It would be rare for me to give up on a book once I had started it but I seriously considered giving up on this one. I persevered and it turned out to be an ok biography of one of my all time favourite actors.
This is not really a review but more of a recommendation. I think the first 56 pages of this 500 page book are completely irrelevant. What you will miss is some of the history on his home town and some of his relatives going back many generations. You will also miss how the James Stewart museum in his home town came about which the actor had little to do with. There is very little of interest actually about James Stewart in the first 10% of the book.
Therefore my 3 stars are for the remaining 90% of this book.
This is not really a review but more of a recommendation. I think the first 56 pages of this 500 page book are completely irrelevant. What you will miss is some of the history on his home town and some of his relatives going back many generations. You will also miss how the James Stewart museum in his home town came about which the actor had little to do with. There is very little of interest actually about James Stewart in the first 10% of the book.
Therefore my 3 stars are for the remaining 90% of this book.
June 26, 2019
The life of Jimmy Stewart is one of those that ranks up with "the inspiring." However, Dewey documents a couple facets of Stewart's life that are less than flattering. It seems that, as a product of his geography and times, Stewart was somewhat a racist - although it seems not to have been a huge part of his makeup. His love of the Air Force was life-long, and a vignette from his dotage indicates it was always on his relatively sharp mind. His early years had him chasing the girls in the acting game, and he had a life-long crush on Maureen O'Sullivan; but that never seemed to get between him and his steadfast wife Gloria. A very interesting man.
January 16, 2008
If you look for a dark side to anybody, you can find it. Overall, however, Stewart led a well-balanced and, in some ways, heroic life, besides making his work look so easy. He was at his best with Hitchcock, that Christmas movie with Clarence--what's that called again?--and the Oscar-winning Philadelphia Story notwithstanding.
March 28, 2016
If you like Jimmy Stewart - this biography goes from before he was born till his death and you'll learn all sorts of stuff about him. It's over 18 hours on audible.
September 17, 2023
Way too long. An accountant’s recounting. Rather than a book of heart. Cut it in half or more, and double the stars.
I didn’t recognize it before this book, but most of what I like about Jimmy Stewart — not personally, but as an actor — has everything to do with that one film. He comes back from the war. He barely is young enough to pull it off. And he does. That sense of love he creates with Donna Reed. The innocence and decency moving to desperation and a sick anxiety. And then the hope!
It’s a wonderful life continues as a life giving message. It turns out it did not come into its own after the war. And it did on tv in 1970s. And those are the times I remember.
I love it. Tho there are many smart and cynical things said about it by others in this book. The author is just being thorough tho.
Oh. And the great Mr Smith Goes to Washington. How remarkable.
Oh! And Shenandoah. I lived right near there. And still had not come to understand the civil war. And this movie was part of making me feel it. In this place close by to the place I watched it.
Those, and JS’s childhood and parents, and his service in WWII. Something he was wise and humble about not allowing a cross over even into his memories after the war and in films. He has a clause he could walk from any film that tried to make something of his service.
He increased morale. He was deemed a “lucky pilot” and CO, he made full colonel. And there was a moral change with his real work moving up in command.
I’d like to go back and see the early part of his war service.
Anyway, most the the late 40s movies are meh. Then I’m the 50s he comes into hos own. But o do t care for the film Harvey. And that might be the best of them.
What else? He was a good step father. A good husband. A good American. And he did not testify at HUWAC. His friendship with Fonda is kinda beautiful. The way they sale bigger and bigger kites. And make airplanes. And do all they can it seems to forget the war. And remain a good man (Stewart. Dunno about Fonda details).
I’d see him as an old man. And my own Pa when he came to town said he was sad to see their hero’s dying. I relate. I don’t wanna know. Especially since my grandmother and grandfather loved him.
Turns out I didn’t know too much about him. I just loved the one character.
I miss him nonetheless.
***
There’s a memorable moment in the Epilogue. I won’t reproduce it here. But missing the America that produced men like Stewart, that Stewart and his generation generated. May they have long since been welcomed home.
Really, the epilogue is quite wonderful. And I gave it an additional star for it.
I didn’t recognize it before this book, but most of what I like about Jimmy Stewart — not personally, but as an actor — has everything to do with that one film. He comes back from the war. He barely is young enough to pull it off. And he does. That sense of love he creates with Donna Reed. The innocence and decency moving to desperation and a sick anxiety. And then the hope!
It’s a wonderful life continues as a life giving message. It turns out it did not come into its own after the war. And it did on tv in 1970s. And those are the times I remember.
I love it. Tho there are many smart and cynical things said about it by others in this book. The author is just being thorough tho.
Oh. And the great Mr Smith Goes to Washington. How remarkable.
Oh! And Shenandoah. I lived right near there. And still had not come to understand the civil war. And this movie was part of making me feel it. In this place close by to the place I watched it.
Those, and JS’s childhood and parents, and his service in WWII. Something he was wise and humble about not allowing a cross over even into his memories after the war and in films. He has a clause he could walk from any film that tried to make something of his service.
He increased morale. He was deemed a “lucky pilot” and CO, he made full colonel. And there was a moral change with his real work moving up in command.
I’d like to go back and see the early part of his war service.
Anyway, most the the late 40s movies are meh. Then I’m the 50s he comes into hos own. But o do t care for the film Harvey. And that might be the best of them.
What else? He was a good step father. A good husband. A good American. And he did not testify at HUWAC. His friendship with Fonda is kinda beautiful. The way they sale bigger and bigger kites. And make airplanes. And do all they can it seems to forget the war. And remain a good man (Stewart. Dunno about Fonda details).
I’d see him as an old man. And my own Pa when he came to town said he was sad to see their hero’s dying. I relate. I don’t wanna know. Especially since my grandmother and grandfather loved him.
Turns out I didn’t know too much about him. I just loved the one character.
I miss him nonetheless.
***
There’s a memorable moment in the Epilogue. I won’t reproduce it here. But missing the America that produced men like Stewart, that Stewart and his generation generated. May they have long since been welcomed home.
Really, the epilogue is quite wonderful. And I gave it an additional star for it.
May 21, 2024
This is the kind of book I've been hunting for in regard to classical Hollywood acting for a long time -- deeply analytical of Stewart's work on a technical and emotional level, and much more concerned about that (methodically, film by film) than about his personal life, which is nevertheless dutifully covered, and which left me unimpressed as I expected it would... total stick-in-the-mud bore and actively racist (though seemingly not homophobic!) and a total jingoistic warmongerer, which didn't disappoint me because I already knew all that. (I don't doubt that his rural upbringing and apparently volatile wartime experience damaged him a fair bit.) What this did teach me was how the building blocks of such a brilliant and multifaceted performer might look, and there's plenty of food for thought in that regard for anyone who admires Stewart's acting as much as I do, and I imagine as most people who enjoy classic films do. Some of Dewey's opinions on individual films are in stark opposition to mine -- he aligns with the then-conventional wisdom on Rope as a failure, just before the IMDB era when its reputation started to improve; and he doesn't see the oblique beauty in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance that I do, for two examples -- but that only serves to prove how tough-minded the book is, including about the man's dubious politics. (I do find sort of amusing the confluence of coincidences required for this man who was adamantly against student protests and the anti-war movement to have been Jane Fonda's godfather.)
March 19, 2024
Incredibly detailed in all the wrong parts. I also can not sanction when a writer uses a medium like this to put out their opinions about movies. So, yeah you get Dewey's opinions on nearly every James Stewart film ever made. Dewey also seems more interested in writing about old Hollywood in general and about Stewart's hometown. You hardly get any insight into the mind of Stewart, his thoughts, ideals, approach to acting, nothing you would want from such a dense book.
It honestly didn't even make me want to revisit any of his films. Dewey just gives you a short wiki about the plot of the movie and then tells you how disappointing it was. Why did this dude even write this book and why did I waste so much time reading it? I'm only getting angrier writing about it. Dewey was just low key talking shit about Stewarts career the entire read time.
Minus another star for the glaring omission of Mr. Kruger's Christmas, a terribly underrated short from Stewart's late filmography.
Gods this was terrible.
It honestly didn't even make me want to revisit any of his films. Dewey just gives you a short wiki about the plot of the movie and then tells you how disappointing it was. Why did this dude even write this book and why did I waste so much time reading it? I'm only getting angrier writing about it. Dewey was just low key talking shit about Stewarts career the entire read time.
Minus another star for the glaring omission of Mr. Kruger's Christmas, a terribly underrated short from Stewart's late filmography.
Gods this was terrible.
June 10, 2023
Whilst Dewey’s style of dissecting all of Stewart’s films as he meanders through the actors personal life will definitely not be to everyone’s taste I really enjoyed the journey. Especially all the comments and interviews with colleagues, friends or those who knew him in the business attesting to just how great of an actor Stewart was, and what a genuinely nice man too. As Henry Fonda said, Stewart is “maybe the single most underrated actor we’ve ever had”, and this exploration of over 75 roles he played through his long career certainly shows the love he had for his craft and his job. Loved it.
January 3, 2019
I LOVE Jimmy Stewart...I mean I LOVE Jimmy Stewart! I jokingly call him my "ye olde crush" when I talk about him to people. After I'd heard rumors about him and Marlene Dietrich during the filming of DESTRY RIDES AGAIN, I thought, I gotta read about this man.
This book has NO JUICY TIDBITS...like, at all, I don't know if there is a "tell-all" book about Jimmy Stewart, but if there is, this isn't it.
It talks about his life, and has a tendency to run off on tangents about things that touch his life. It reviews just about every movie he did, and uh, yeah...so...
This book has NO JUICY TIDBITS...like, at all, I don't know if there is a "tell-all" book about Jimmy Stewart, but if there is, this isn't it.
It talks about his life, and has a tendency to run off on tangents about things that touch his life. It reviews just about every movie he did, and uh, yeah...so...
January 9, 2025
3-1/2 stars
Wondering if a different book would have been better for me. The one on my TBR list wasn't on audio service I use, so I listened to this one. Good beginning. About thirty minutes in, there was nearly an hour of history that may not have been needed. Then there was more of what was expected---actual biographical information. There are some pretty detailed stories about Stewart's films in the second half of the book. An interesting listen, for certain.
Wondering if a different book would have been better for me. The one on my TBR list wasn't on audio service I use, so I listened to this one. Good beginning. About thirty minutes in, there was nearly an hour of history that may not have been needed. Then there was more of what was expected---actual biographical information. There are some pretty detailed stories about Stewart's films in the second half of the book. An interesting listen, for certain.
October 11, 2022
Even though I'm way too young to have seen any of his movies in the theater, I am a huge fan of Jimmy Stewart. The biography was a little bit of slog. The majority of it is structured as a chronological description of his movies. We just go movie to movie with small interludes of personal information. Jimmy gets 5 stars, the book gets 3.
February 26, 2023
Far too much detail about the town he grew up in and his heritage. Very boring from the start. I thought that if I could just finally get through the 28 page Introduction, I would find some interesting reading. Not the case. I choose not to spend more of my time on this book. Have returned it and will watch a few of his movies instead.
August 10, 2019
Not that interesting. It was less of a biography and more of a in depth movie review of each of Stewart’s movies. Boring! I don’t feel like I know anything more about James Stewart than I did before I started this audiobook. The best part was the narrator.
June 29, 2024
Found myself frustrated by the style - included full synopsis of Stewart’s movies…which didn’t interest me. Book could have been 1/3 shorted without it. I may have enjoyed the rest more if I hadn’t been pulled from his life stories to hear about a movie plot. Just my preferences
May 15, 2016
My audio book for the last week has been a bio of James Stewart who was the ubiquitous actor of my childhood and early adulthood. Stewart made dozens of films or “pictures” as they called them in those days. Truth be told, his biography isn’t all that interesting except for the fact that he was the major motion picture star of the fifties. I can still recall scenes from “Broken Arrow” (with Jeff Chandler as Cochise). Playing cowboys and Indians around age 8 or 9 I was always Cochise. I recall saying to a friend that my name was Cochise because my arrows were a little bit yellow. Can’t recall if I was serious or making a bad play on a pun.
I felt I had things in common with Mr. Stewart. We were both tall and very skinny. And, I can attest that when, at a later date, I found myself in the same room with him, an event I will get to, I noted that he was the narrowest human I had ever seen. That is, looking at him straight on, he was not very wide. “Thin” doesn’t really describe it.
Stewart came from Indiana, Pennsylvania where his dad ran the local hardware store and was a pillar of the Presbyterian church. That’s something else we had in common—fathers who took a life long interest in influencing our lives and who found church going to be of the utmost importance. James Stewart as a personality is what one might expect of a boy from the midwest. He was a staunch Republican, exempt from McCarthyism, and best friends with Ronald Reagan. He wore a toupee, something I didn’t know and had a hearing problem from middle age on.
He was a hero of WWII. Not a fake hero but the real deal. A bomber pilot who rose from private to Lt. Colonel during the course of the war who was continually promoted to more responsible command positions. He continued as a reservist and eventually achieved a star although his promotion to general was opposed by Senator Margaret Chase Smith on the grounds that there were more deserving officers.
He became a family man at forty, marrying a divorcee with a couple of boys. Before that he had affairs with lots of actresses most notably Marlene Dietrich.
With the exception of the time out for WWII his biography is pretty much a recounting of picture after picture. I’ve seen a lot of them and this week took time to watch “Winchester 73” and “Call Northside 777”. Jimmy Stewart is a very effective and very watchable actor. The only contemporary actor who might have played all the Jimmy Stewart roles is Tom Hanks. There was an edginess to Stewart the actor, however, that Hanks doesn’t have.
When I was a kid living in Vancouver, Washington we learned that they were filming a Jimmy Stewart movie called Bend in the River up near Mt. Hood. We jumped in the car on a Sunday and headed up toward the mountain and were rewarded with a distant view of a wagon train circled in a clearing down below the hiway.
I got closer to Stewart, in his role as General Stewart, in 1967. I was at a base in NE Thailand when the Secretary of the Air Force with his entourage dropped in. I was an intelligence officer for the Air Commando Wing stationed there and, as was always the case with intelligence shops, worked in a windowless building. It was an inadequate facility with small briefing rooms connected by a long hallway. The main briefing room was full of pilots so the Secretary’s entourage couldn’t squeeze in. The Secretary, Harold Brown, who later became Secretary of Defense under President Carter, stood in the doorway and his followers trailed down the hall. I was just inside the door describing what was going on in a whisper to Secretary Brown who whispered the info to the next guy and so on down the line like “Pershing at the Front“.
The briefing over, the pilots made their way out squeezing past the Secretary and his posse who then circled through the briefing room glancing at maps and charts, then exiting. The last guy was General Stewart wearing tan 1505s, a short sleeved khaki outfit. It was just me and General Jimmy. He picked up a map of Laos and studied it a bit then turned to me as if to ask a question. I was waiting for his characteristic stutter, looking forward to answering. But he changed his mind and put the chart back on the easel, nodded and left the room. It would have been a violation of military courtesy to ask for an autograph.
It’s hard to know exactly what impact James Stewart’s films had on me. Watching his old pictures I have a sense he was a strong role model. I know for certain that his film “Strategic Air Command” was not the movie that tipped me in the direction of the Air Force. That distinction belongs to “A Gathering of Eagles” with Rock Hudson and Rod Taylor (1963). In a demonstration of shallowness, I was overwhelmed with the idea of how good I would look in the Air Force’s tan Class A uniform. I joined the next year, the same year the Air Force dumped the tan for a blue uniform that looked like something a bus driver would wear. Things don’t always work out the way you want them to.
I don’t usually read or listen to show biz bios. But I’m glad I spent some more time with Jimmy Stewart. I didn’t get to know him very well on our first encounter.
I felt I had things in common with Mr. Stewart. We were both tall and very skinny. And, I can attest that when, at a later date, I found myself in the same room with him, an event I will get to, I noted that he was the narrowest human I had ever seen. That is, looking at him straight on, he was not very wide. “Thin” doesn’t really describe it.
Stewart came from Indiana, Pennsylvania where his dad ran the local hardware store and was a pillar of the Presbyterian church. That’s something else we had in common—fathers who took a life long interest in influencing our lives and who found church going to be of the utmost importance. James Stewart as a personality is what one might expect of a boy from the midwest. He was a staunch Republican, exempt from McCarthyism, and best friends with Ronald Reagan. He wore a toupee, something I didn’t know and had a hearing problem from middle age on.
He was a hero of WWII. Not a fake hero but the real deal. A bomber pilot who rose from private to Lt. Colonel during the course of the war who was continually promoted to more responsible command positions. He continued as a reservist and eventually achieved a star although his promotion to general was opposed by Senator Margaret Chase Smith on the grounds that there were more deserving officers.
He became a family man at forty, marrying a divorcee with a couple of boys. Before that he had affairs with lots of actresses most notably Marlene Dietrich.
With the exception of the time out for WWII his biography is pretty much a recounting of picture after picture. I’ve seen a lot of them and this week took time to watch “Winchester 73” and “Call Northside 777”. Jimmy Stewart is a very effective and very watchable actor. The only contemporary actor who might have played all the Jimmy Stewart roles is Tom Hanks. There was an edginess to Stewart the actor, however, that Hanks doesn’t have.
When I was a kid living in Vancouver, Washington we learned that they were filming a Jimmy Stewart movie called Bend in the River up near Mt. Hood. We jumped in the car on a Sunday and headed up toward the mountain and were rewarded with a distant view of a wagon train circled in a clearing down below the hiway.
I got closer to Stewart, in his role as General Stewart, in 1967. I was at a base in NE Thailand when the Secretary of the Air Force with his entourage dropped in. I was an intelligence officer for the Air Commando Wing stationed there and, as was always the case with intelligence shops, worked in a windowless building. It was an inadequate facility with small briefing rooms connected by a long hallway. The main briefing room was full of pilots so the Secretary’s entourage couldn’t squeeze in. The Secretary, Harold Brown, who later became Secretary of Defense under President Carter, stood in the doorway and his followers trailed down the hall. I was just inside the door describing what was going on in a whisper to Secretary Brown who whispered the info to the next guy and so on down the line like “Pershing at the Front“.
The briefing over, the pilots made their way out squeezing past the Secretary and his posse who then circled through the briefing room glancing at maps and charts, then exiting. The last guy was General Stewart wearing tan 1505s, a short sleeved khaki outfit. It was just me and General Jimmy. He picked up a map of Laos and studied it a bit then turned to me as if to ask a question. I was waiting for his characteristic stutter, looking forward to answering. But he changed his mind and put the chart back on the easel, nodded and left the room. It would have been a violation of military courtesy to ask for an autograph.
It’s hard to know exactly what impact James Stewart’s films had on me. Watching his old pictures I have a sense he was a strong role model. I know for certain that his film “Strategic Air Command” was not the movie that tipped me in the direction of the Air Force. That distinction belongs to “A Gathering of Eagles” with Rock Hudson and Rod Taylor (1963). In a demonstration of shallowness, I was overwhelmed with the idea of how good I would look in the Air Force’s tan Class A uniform. I joined the next year, the same year the Air Force dumped the tan for a blue uniform that looked like something a bus driver would wear. Things don’t always work out the way you want them to.
I don’t usually read or listen to show biz bios. But I’m glad I spent some more time with Jimmy Stewart. I didn’t get to know him very well on our first encounter.
July 31, 2019
Boreing, hard to read too much waffle.
July 27, 2020
Fascinating book if you love Jimmy Stewart like me.
November 26, 2022
I loved this book! I had no idea about his life and loved learning more about the studio system, his family and his life. Very good writing. I will read more of this author.
March 11, 2023
I should probably never read a biography of someone in the movie business again. not for me
July 25, 2024
Excellent!!!
September 3, 2024
Dewey makes biography interesting and engaging. Pulling from many resources, including local and national historical events, friend & family anecdotes, etc., Jimmy Stewart comes to life.
March 7, 2018
3.5 stars. It wasn't bad and while at times it could've been less detailed about irrelevant things, it's still a biography and those more often than not leave much to be desired.
January 1, 2011
Donald Dewey's James Stewart: A Biography (Turner Publishing, $24.95, 512 pages) transcends the ho hum regurgitation of facts common to most film biographies in a remarkably frank, highly objective and brilliantly executed book, which neither relies on hearsay nor deifies a man who, for many, epitomizes the American ideal.
Although the 88 year old actor has remained in seclusion since his wife's death in 1994, the author was able to research his book with the assistance of Stewart's three children and a host of others. Dewey, an award winning writer, earlier published a well received biography of Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni.
Dewey tackles the general presumption that Jimmy Stewart was just being Jimmy Stewart on the screen, a premise enhanced by the frequent display of his trademark stammering, aw shucks persona on television. In fact, Dewey's biography rests on another presumption that "no other U.S. screen performer has shown as much range or delved into as many emotional nooks and crannies." He proves his contention as he traces Stewart's life from his roots in Indiana, Penn., to Princeton and Broadway and, finally, Beverly Hills. Dewey discovers that Stewart was far from the "natural actor" he seemed but more of an ever evolving craftsman motivated by a lifelong commitment to the acting trade, a dedication to hard work and the use of his imagination.
The actor's name is synonymous with the upright Jefferson Smith fighting corruption in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the dejected George Bailey wanting to end his life in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) or any number of comedies churned out in the 1930s and 1940s. However, Stewart's most commercially successful decade was the 1950s, during which he made no comedies. This period fittingly started with his role as drunken Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey (1950) and ended with that of shrewd lawyer Paul Biegler in Anatomy of a Murder (1959). In the interim, he took on embittered and psychologically complicated character roles in five westerns directed by Anthony Mann, which set a new criterion for graphic violence, and three more films by Alfred Hitchcock, including the now-classic Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958), the latter of which will be released in a digitally restored form in October. Most of his more than 75 movies, even those that are forgettable, are discussed in detail.
As the author painstakingly examines Stewart's heroics in World War II, his lifelong friendship with Henry Fonda, his conservative stance and his relations with his wife and family, he reveals something of the reserved private citizen. In the Jimmy Stewart story, it comes as no surprise that the man who went to Hollywood really did have a wonderful life.
Although the 88 year old actor has remained in seclusion since his wife's death in 1994, the author was able to research his book with the assistance of Stewart's three children and a host of others. Dewey, an award winning writer, earlier published a well received biography of Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni.
Dewey tackles the general presumption that Jimmy Stewart was just being Jimmy Stewart on the screen, a premise enhanced by the frequent display of his trademark stammering, aw shucks persona on television. In fact, Dewey's biography rests on another presumption that "no other U.S. screen performer has shown as much range or delved into as many emotional nooks and crannies." He proves his contention as he traces Stewart's life from his roots in Indiana, Penn., to Princeton and Broadway and, finally, Beverly Hills. Dewey discovers that Stewart was far from the "natural actor" he seemed but more of an ever evolving craftsman motivated by a lifelong commitment to the acting trade, a dedication to hard work and the use of his imagination.
The actor's name is synonymous with the upright Jefferson Smith fighting corruption in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the dejected George Bailey wanting to end his life in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) or any number of comedies churned out in the 1930s and 1940s. However, Stewart's most commercially successful decade was the 1950s, during which he made no comedies. This period fittingly started with his role as drunken Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey (1950) and ended with that of shrewd lawyer Paul Biegler in Anatomy of a Murder (1959). In the interim, he took on embittered and psychologically complicated character roles in five westerns directed by Anthony Mann, which set a new criterion for graphic violence, and three more films by Alfred Hitchcock, including the now-classic Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958), the latter of which will be released in a digitally restored form in October. Most of his more than 75 movies, even those that are forgettable, are discussed in detail.
As the author painstakingly examines Stewart's heroics in World War II, his lifelong friendship with Henry Fonda, his conservative stance and his relations with his wife and family, he reveals something of the reserved private citizen. In the Jimmy Stewart story, it comes as no surprise that the man who went to Hollywood really did have a wonderful life.
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February 5, 2021He was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania. His dad ran a hardware store. Once Alex Stewart provided some hardware supplies for a traveling circus. They couldn't afford to pay him, so he took an accordion in trade. He took it home and gave it to his son Jimmy. It was the accordion that would turn out to be Jimmy Stewart's entree into show business.
When he graduated from Princeton in the depths of the depression with a degree in architecture, there weren't a lot of new buildings going up. But he could make a little money playing for shows and dinner theater. Musical interludes led to a bit part in summer stock, which led to a bit part on Broadway, which led to being hired by MGM, which led to being one of the most beloved movie stars ever. (Starting out by being best friends with Henry Fonda didn't hurt, either.)
This biography delves into many subjects: Stewart's strengths as an actor (His professionalism was under-appreciated because he was viewed as a "natural," someone who was just being himself onscreen, although he actually performed a great range of characters and emotions.), his war service, his love affairs with actresses as a young man, his later marriage, his political conservatism, and the losses of aging, but the meat of the book is filmography.
Stewart's life is told movie by movie. There is a synopsis of each plot, descriptions of the events related to filming, and analysis of the critical reception. I thought this was both fitting and fascinating. In a sense, the movies he made were the life he lived. There are lots of great anecdotes. Plus a more complete picture emerges of a more complex man than most people remember.
Stewart is thought of today mostly as a naive bumbler, but he played a great many other roles, some of them dark and violent. And being a professional, he always knew his lines, and he always gave his best, even if the movie as a whole was stupid (and some of them were). It may not always have been a wonderful life, but it was certainly pretty good.
When he graduated from Princeton in the depths of the depression with a degree in architecture, there weren't a lot of new buildings going up. But he could make a little money playing for shows and dinner theater. Musical interludes led to a bit part in summer stock, which led to a bit part on Broadway, which led to being hired by MGM, which led to being one of the most beloved movie stars ever. (Starting out by being best friends with Henry Fonda didn't hurt, either.)
This biography delves into many subjects: Stewart's strengths as an actor (His professionalism was under-appreciated because he was viewed as a "natural," someone who was just being himself onscreen, although he actually performed a great range of characters and emotions.), his war service, his love affairs with actresses as a young man, his later marriage, his political conservatism, and the losses of aging, but the meat of the book is filmography.
Stewart's life is told movie by movie. There is a synopsis of each plot, descriptions of the events related to filming, and analysis of the critical reception. I thought this was both fitting and fascinating. In a sense, the movies he made were the life he lived. There are lots of great anecdotes. Plus a more complete picture emerges of a more complex man than most people remember.
Stewart is thought of today mostly as a naive bumbler, but he played a great many other roles, some of them dark and violent. And being a professional, he always knew his lines, and he always gave his best, even if the movie as a whole was stupid (and some of them were). It may not always have been a wonderful life, but it was certainly pretty good.
September 6, 2013
I would have loved to read about the life of James Stewart but the read was too long winded. Starting the book about how no one in stewarts home town really was a fan and was just using him to further themself just put a sour note on the whole start of the book. While I don't doubt that truth behind the authors explanitation of things I really was looking for a simple read about an american film actor.
November 29, 2008
This is one of my favourite biographies, about one of my favourite actors of all-time. A great book - easy to read and full of tales and anecdotes. What an absolutely top bloke he was.
I would've been tempted to award 5 stars just for Mr Smith goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life... but the book itself is easily worth 5 stars.
I would've been tempted to award 5 stars just for Mr Smith goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life... but the book itself is easily worth 5 stars.
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