Jimmy Stewart squeaky clean in new biography

‘The purest of actors’
In the decades that followed, Stewart remained a screen favorite in Hitchcock thrillers, comedies, dramas and an abundance of Westerns. Even when the features dwindled in the 1980s, he remained current with TV appearances on the Johnny Carson, Dean Martin and Carol Burnett shows, as well as the repeated TV screenings of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“In the history of American movies, James Stewart was probably the purest of actors,” Eliot said. “One reason was that he was not interested in directing, producing or having a film company. He was basically an actor.

“Because of that — and with the guidance around him — he was able to focus on his character, which he developed and played with variations. I think the character he played was closer to him, more so than any other actors who developed lifelong personas.”

Richard Schickel, film historian and reviewer for Time magazine, has a different view of Stewart.

“This is one angry man,” Schickel said. “Think of ’It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.’ A Stewart performance I admire greatly is in ‘Anatomy of a Murder.’ He’s playing a kind of foxy guy, but when he gets in that courtroom he can really rip and snort.

“Everybody thinks of him as this adorable, aw-shucksy kind of guy. What about the Anthony Mann Westerns; those are really smart, tough performances. I think he was very clever in the conduct of his career in that he set aside the aw-shucksy side of his younger years. As he matured, he became a much tougher figure to be reckoned with.”

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