The Hollywood Arrival of
Jimmy Stewart

Screenwriter Wilbur Morse, Jr. wrote this 1939 magazine profile of Jimmy Stewart (1908 – 1997). When this article first appeared, Stewart had dozens of stage credits and had been working in films for only four years; one year later he would be awarded an Oscar for his performance in The Philadelphia Story:

“Booth Tarkington might have created Jim Stewart. He’s ‘Little Orvie and Billie Baxter’ grown up ‘Penrod’ with a Princeton diploma.”
“The appeal of James Stewart, the shy, inarticulate movie actor, is that he reminds every girl in the audience of the date before the last. He’s not a glamorized Gable, a remote Robert Taylor. He’s ‘Jim’, the lackadaisical, easy-going boy from just around the corner.”

Click here to read a 1952 article about Marilyn Monroe.