James Stewart - biography

“Jean Harlow - my God, she was beautiful.  She had this low-cut dress on and I had to kiss her.  That just has to be my most memorable screen kiss.”

“I always stayed for the first curtain call and people always said, ‘Who’s that?’ But this got me started in acting.”

“It’s well done if you can do a part and not have the acting show.”

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”

“Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.”

“I was going to be an architect.  I graduated with a degree in architecture and I had a scholarship to go back to Princeton and get my Masters in architecture.  I’d done theatricals in college, but I’d done them because it was fun.”

“I always told Hitch that it would have been better to put seats around the set and sell tickets.”

“I’ve never seen Hitchcock look through a camera - some directors never stop.”

“Frank called me one day and said, ‘I have an idea for a movie, why don’t you come over and I’ll tell you?’ So I went over and we sat down and he said, ‘This picture starts in heaven’.  That shook me.”

“I kept my own Western costume for most of my films.  The hat in particular.  I wore it in every Western until one very sad day it completely disintegrated.”

“I sort of got into Westerns...  It was a sort of desperation move, really.  I had several pictures that didn’t go very well, and I just realised that I would have to try something else.”

“It’s A Wonderful Life is such a pure movie.  It wasn’t taken from a novel or play.  It was developed from one little paragraph.  Simple story, no message, no mob scenes.  When the movies have a story like this they do it better than any medium there is.”

“When I got back from the war in 1945, I refused to make war pictures.”

“It was amazing that a play that seems dated in this world...  A man whose best friend is a six-foot white rabbit...  But it caught on, especially with young people - they surprised me most of all.”

“All our Western lore is exaggerated and distorted.  The gunmen weren’t very good shots.  They were fast but their fights were at such close range they could never miss.  Audiences think they were daring men.  In fact, they were a pretty desperate crowd, not romantic but very cowardly, very dirty and usually very drunk.”

“Behind every successful man you’ll find a woman - who has absolutely nothing to wear.”

“I always watch Dean Martin’s show...  just to see if he falls down.”

“I lasted one night.  They said my playing spoiled people’s appetites.”

“I’d like to do Harvey again.  I did it two years ago with Helen Hayes in New York.  It was a joy.  I was so glad to do it again because I never thought I did it right the first time.”

“I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, and I’m happy, Doctor, I finally won out over it.”

“If I had my career over again?  Maybe I’d say to myself, speed it up a little.”

“One time they traded me for seven horses.  Seven stunt horses.”

“We had an apartment on west side of Central Park.  The rent was very reasonable.  We found out later that it belonged to a gangster called Legs Diamond and it was a front to his headquarters.  It was fine.”

James Stewart has appeared in the following films:
Art Trouble (1934)
The Murder Man (1935)
Rose-Marie (1936)
Next Time We Love (1936)
Wife vs. Secretary (1936)
Important News (1936)
Small Town Girl (1936)
Speed (1936)
The Gorgeous Hussy (1936)
Born to Dance (1936)
After the Thin Man (1936)
Seventh Heaven (1937)
The Last Gangster (1937)
Navy Blue and Gold (1937)
Of Human Hearts (1938)
Vivacious Lady (1938)
The Shopworn Angel (1938)
You Can’t Take It with You (1938)
Made for Each Other (1939)
The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939)
It’s a Wonderful World (1939)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Destry Rides Again (1939)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
The Mortal Storm (1940)
No Time for Comedy (1940)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Come Live with Me (1941)
Pot o’ Gold (1941)
Ziegfeld Girl (1941)
Winning Your Wings (1942)
American Creed (1946)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Magic Town (1947)
Thunderbolt (1947)
Call Northside 777 (1948)
On Our Merry Way (1948)
Rope (1948)
You Gotta Stay Happy (1948)
10,000 Kids and a Cop (1948)
The Stratton Story (1949)
Malaya (1949)
Winchester ’73 (1950)
Broken Arrow (1950)
Harvey (1950)
The Jackpot (1950)
No Highway (1951)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
Bend of the River (1952)
Carbine Williams (1952)
The Naked Spur (1953)
Thunder Bay (1953)
Tomorrow’s Drivers (1954)
The Glenn Miller Story (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
The Far Country (1954)
Strategic Air Command (1955)
The Man from Laramie (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
Night Passage (1957)
Vertigo (1958)
Bell Book and Candle (1958)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The FBI Story (1959)
The Mountain Road (1960)
Two Rode Together (1961)
X-15 (1961)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962)
How the West Was Won (1962)
Take Her, She’s Mine (1963)
Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Dear Brigitte (1965)
Shenandoah (1965)
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
The Rare Breed (1966)
Firecreek (1968)
Bandolero! (1968)
The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)
Fools’ Parade (1971)
The Shootist (1976)
Airport ’77 (1977)
The Big Sleep (1978)
The Magic of Lassie (1978)
Afurika monogatari (1980)
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
Subdivision (2009)