Lessons in Manliness: Jimmy Stewart

joelmcmullen 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Twitter

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jmstater 3 months ago on Twitter

Quote from http://bit.ly/3unSCm

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rules_unbornson 3 months ago on Twitter

Great post on Jimmy Stewart at @artofmanliness http://bit.ly/3unSCm

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Navy Vet 3 months ago on Wordpress

Bret,

I humbly apologize for jumping to a wrong conclusion. Your post does not go after Reagan, and I was a little too hair-triggered to find insult to one of my favorite Presidents.

I owe you a beer next time you are in town, and I will tell you stories about how the Navy is the manliest branch. Just got done with a retirement ceremony so I am feeling a little froggy.

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JDProuty 3 months ago on Twitter

@rodwaynick Yep. TY! And thanks for the tip. Interesting! Loved: Lessons in Manliness: Jimmy Stewart http://artofmanliness.com/E31c :)

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Mike Anderson 3 months ago on Wordpress

Brett,

My name is Gunnery Sergeant Mike Anderson. I have greatly enjoyed reading the Art Of Manliness for about a year, I receive your articles through RSS feed at my official USMC email address.

Can I add a bit of second hand knowledge to this article? For 6 years, while I was stationed in Yuma Arizona at the Marine Corps Air Station there, I went to church with a retired Air Force navigator, TSgt Bill Rogers. Since I love aviation history, I loved listening to Bill’s stories and talking with him about his “glory days”

Bill flew many missions with General Stewart during his continuing career in the US Air Force Reserves. Mr. Bill always spoke highly of the General, saying that when he came aboard for a mission, he was neither a General, nor the famous Hollywood actor…just Jimmy.

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He always joined the crew in all tasks, worked just as hard as everyone else, and took the mission very seriously. He never looked for special accomodations due his rank or star status but joined them, staying in the BOQ’s and eating in the messing facilities with them and above all, he always took care of his men,ensuring their well being whenever he flew with them.

Jimmy Stuart is a great role model, and an understated hero. But, his best quality, as your article pointed out is that he was never above being just “one of the guys.” TSgt Rogers was another man cut from the same cloth, by the way. It is an honor to call him a friend.

Semper Fidelis,

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Preston 3 months ago on Wordpress

Wow. Great article. Quite a man!

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Etihad 3 months ago on Wordpress

The examples that Stewart set in his life and his work showcase that being the loudest or the biggest aren’t required to be the best. My favorite Stewart westerns are the ones he made in the 1950s, often directed by Anthony Mann. In these westerns, Stewart played characters, both simple and complex, that held at their core a quiet and humble professionalism, much like the article stated.

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James F. 3 months ago on Wordpress

No need to try to defend Wayne, Brett. Your point was well made. John Wayne “acted” like a man in movies but he had nothing off-screen to show for it. He never served in the military, never was a real cowboy, never did anything really “tough.” People mix up the man with the roles he played. The reason Wayne did not enlist is because he worried that serving would put his newly blossoming career in jeopardy. A true coward. ... See all content Hide content

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hayley_cox 3 months ago on Twitter

http://bit.ly/4b6vps Reading: Lessons in Manliness: Jimmy Stewart - my moms all time favorite actor

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Stormbringer 3 months ago on Wordpress

Brett, I do have to take issue with what I consider an unwarranted and unnecessary shot at John Wayne. It had no place, and there were other factors that (as you imply) he milked an old injury. He was granted his deferments for family reasons as well, but I will not belabor the point.

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Ben 3 months ago on Wordpress

Thanks for the post. Stewart sounds like a real man.

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Craig 3 months ago on Wordpress

I grew up around the corner from Mr. Stewart. Not only was he an incredible man, but also he was always gracious and warm to both strangers and those who were barely familiar to him. For example, he always had a warm smile and a sincere “good day!” whenever we passed while he was walking his beloved dog.

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john book 3 months ago on Wordpress

I just now quit reading the other blogs on this site…..about half-way through… So much sweat over his sex life and military career… I wish he could be canonized but he never mentioned nor behaved like a saint…but was quite while married. His military career speaks for itself. Why look for the worse in a person? Jimmy was a real guy. I never knew him, wish I had, but I had some shirt-tail relatives who did… they always said how much they respected him for the honest way he lived. I’ll leave it at that. ... See all content Hide content

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jjmink 3 months ago on Twitter

Reading | Lessons in Manliness: Jimmy Stewart http://bit.ly/4FTJxO

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Brett McKay 3 months ago on Wordpress

Navy Vet- Yep. I was referring to John Wayne. Don’t get me wrong. I love John Wayne and John Wayne movies, but the fact is he didn’t enlist in WW2 when a lot of other movie stars (like Jimmy Stewart) did. He said he would get around to enlisting after the war, but he never did.

Those close to Wayne said he always felt guilty for not serving in the military and it was a sore subject for him. A lot of soldiers held it against him that he only *played* soldier in movies and never actually signed up. Some biographers explain Wayne’s uber-patriotism as a way to make up for not serving in the military. ... See all content Hide content

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Don 3 months ago on Wordpress

Sorry, my mistake above. I guess Gary Cooper was in York. I always thought it was Jimmy Stewart. I failed that one. Sorry about that.

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dave 3 months ago on Wordpress

Whatever it may or may not say aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, it remains a fact of history that that gentleman did not serve a day in the military outside the continental United States. Insofar as he had a ‘military career’, it was entirely concerned with the production of training films. Nothing wrong with that, he had bad eyes and was unqualified for combat service. There is no point getting het up and trying to pretend different, because it just ain’t so. ... See all content Hide content

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peregrine 3 months ago on Twitter

Jimmy Stewart was a good man. http://bit.ly/3unSCm

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Cowboy Bob 3 months ago on Wordpress

For a long time, I thought of him as a doddering wimp. “Clarence! I want to live!” Then I saw some of the pictures he played in. He was great as a cowboy, and showed fire that I did not know existed. Now I know that he was an excellent actor.

As for the affairs, “John Wayne — American” mentioned that women were disappointed, including Marlene Dietrich (she was described as being such a tramp that she was “as passionate as a cash register”); she was unable to get his knickers down, either.

Bravo, Mr. Stewart! ... See all content Hide content

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Éamonn 3 months ago on Wordpress

“To this end he refused to talk to reporters about his war experiences” isn’t 100% true. He did appear as a participant in Episode 12 of The World at War, a documentary series about World War II. It was made by Thames TV (in the UK) and shown in 1973. It was a serious documentary, however not an entertainment movie. It shows every interviewee in the rank/position they held at the time, so the tagline on his interview is “James Stewart, Squadron Commander”. ... See all content Hide content

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odajay 3 months ago on Twitter

Lessons in Manliness: Jimmy Stewart:

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“His type is as normally average as the hot dog and pop at Coney Is.. http://bit.ly/3mOzrZ

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Johnladd 3 months ago on Twitter

Great profile on Jimmy Stewart as a 'Lesson in Manliness' http://bit.ly/4vTHpj

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Tweets that mention Lessons in Manliness: Jimmy Stewart | The Art of Manliness -- Topsy.com 3 months ago on Wordpress

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Colin Wright, Andrew McDonald, RitualMensGroom, digx2z, Tom Meitner and others. Tom Meitner said: Lessons in Manliness: Jimmy Stewart http://ow.ly/zntf [...]

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Brett McKay 3 months ago on Wordpress

There is not a shred of proof that Stewart had affairs when he was married. The only biography that mentions even the rumor of it is Peter Bogdanovich’s which claims-based entirely on hearsay-that he had an affair with Kim Novak during the filming of Bed, Book, and Candle. Other biographers have found no proof of that baseless claim. Marc Eliot, for instance, spent 3 years researching his life and his resulting biography his full of every piece of dirt (which isn’t many) that he could dig up on Stewart. But he could not find any proof of his having an affair.

The rumor was that Stewart only agreed to appear in the weak “Bed, Book, and Candle” because he had started an affair with Novak while making Vertigo and wanted to remain in close contact with her. But Stewart and Novak had agreed to make that movie before they made Vertigo, before they even met.

Eliot asked Novak directly about the affair and to quote:

“She denied it with a laugh that suggested the utter absurdity of such a thought: ‘First of all, at the time I made Vertigo, Jimmy was twice my age, married, and I was in love with another man, Richard Quine…Richard would direct both Jimmy and me in Bell Book and Candle. Yes, I found Jimmy attractive and he had a crush on me, I think, but I didn’t have one on him. I liked him in the way high school kids like each other. What he saw in me was the same thing I saw in him, that I was not in any way a ‘Hollywood’ person….I can remember whenever we were together, and had to do a kissing scene, he would blush beet red…”

She then goes on to say that once they were sitting on the couch between scenes and they had their feet touching and that was the only non-filmed physical contact they ever had. And then she says:

“..people have thought we might have had an affair. This is categorically untrue. I won’t deny that I had a number of relationships in my day, I have never denied any of them, but in this instance it just isn’t true.”

No one is confusing Stewart’s movie roles with the actual man. The profile above is based on the reading of three different biographies and is an accurate picture of who he was as a man. Stewart was not a perfect man off-screen but he was stellar in many ways. ... See all content Hide content

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Martin Schwartz 3 months ago on Wordpress

Rumors of his affairs are mentioned in at least one biography. I admire his acting and his real life bravery. I admire aggressive moves to salvage his career by going back to the stage in the late ’40’s and making a success of his westerns when lesser actors would have retreated into 1950’s television. I admire the wonderful roles he took on in the ’50’s with Hitchcock and his 2nd tv series, where he played a lawyer much like the one in Anatomy of a Murder. But I don’t confuse him with his roles just as I don’t confuse Eddie Albert with Brother Rat or Louis Hayward with the son of Monte Cristo or John Wayne with any role he played. ... See all content Hide content

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B. Minich 3 months ago on Wordpress

Jimmy Stewart is still one of my favorite actors – he pulls off roles that nobody else in Hollywood has ever been able to.

I’m also a native son of Indiana, PA, and they love him there to this day. After he left for Hollywood, he kept in touch with his father throughout his life. In fact, at least one of his Oscars made its permanent residence at Stewart’s Hardware Store .

Sadly, the store doesn’t exist anymore – in fact, the building that housed it was torn down years ago – definitely before I can remember, possibly before I was born. But there is still a small marker there, and you can still see his boyhood home on Vinegar Hill. You can’t tour it, though – its still a residence to this day. You have to go to the museum set up for him to see anything related to Stewart.

I do find his military story interesting, and can’t help but think his rejection by the Army really helped him in his role in Its a Wonderful Life. ... See all content Hide content

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