Jimmy Stewart's
10 Greatest Films
In the realm of male movie stars, there have always been two categories: romantic leading men, and what we’ll call everymen.
Leading men get the ladies, and in fact, often have to fight them off. They represent a fantasy of who we’d like to be — or at least resemble. Most of these actors are forced to play to their pre-defined image, and the challenge is to make that sameness appear fresh and interesting with every picture. Think George Clooney, Paul Newman, or Cary Grant.
Everymen stars may also get the ladies, but they usually have to work harder at it. They reflect us more as we actually are — uncertain, awkward, caught in the maelstrom of life and not always winning without a fight. They tend to be allowed a bit more more range in their portrayals. Think Tom Hanks, Jack Lemmon, or James Stewart.
Jimmy Stewart was the ultimate everyman, I think. A Princeton graduate, he bore no resemblance to the romantic, upper crust Scott Fitzgerald prototype. Quite simply, he came off as a regular guy. A right-wing super-patriot throughout his life, he was never too vocal to cause a stir. (When he and his left-leaning friend Henry Fonda got into fisticuffs over a political argument in the forties, on making up they vowed never to talk politics again.)
Though he was a decorated pilot in World War II who flew bombing missions over Germany, this tall, gangly actor did not look much like a hero, and he rarely spoke about the war. A supporter of the Vietnam conflict and a Brigadier General in the Reserve forces until the late sixties, he visited Indochina but wanted no publicity attached to it. He viewed all this as a separate and private part of his life.
His characters on-screen combined humanity with a homespun, quintessentially American quality, and in most of his best roles, he played fundamentally decent men who find themselves either at a disadvantage, transformed by tragedy, or just facing big trouble.
Stewart’s innate capacity to project a sympathetic, universal vulnerability, and when called upon, the strength of ordinary men doing extraordinary things, made him an actor we could all hold to our hearts — and did.
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