spring{fever}

TV

* Instant Star

* Dark Oracle

* renegadepress.com

* 2030 CE

[edit] Movies

* Me and Luke

* The Triumph of Dingus McGraw: Village Idiot

* King of Siam

* Everybody's Doing It

* The Brotherhood III: Young Demons

* Me and Luke

* In God's Country

[edit] Stage

* In Gabriel's Kitchen

Wikipedia

Early life

Thomas was born Jonathan Taylor Weiss in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the son of Claudine Thomas (née Gonsalves), a personal manager and social worker, and Stephen Weiss, an industrial sales manager; the two divorced in 1989.[1][2] Thomas has part Portuguese ancestry.[3] He has a brother named Joel Thomas Weiss, whose middle name he adopted as his pseudonym, in order to avoid confusion with an existing actor named Jonathan Weiss. He was famously known by his initials "JTT". In 1986, Thomas moved with his family to Roseville, California, and was later cast in a Burger King commercial at the age of eight.

[edit] Career

In 1990, Thomas garnered the role of Greg Brady's son Kevin on the short-lived TV show The Bradys, a spin-off of the popular 70s TV show The Brady Bunch. In 1991, at the age of 10, he won the role of Randy Taylor on the popular television show Home Improvement. He remained with Home Improvement well into his teenage years, but left the show in 1998 in order to concentrate more on his academics. He served as guest timekeeper for then WWF's WrestleMania XI in 1995.

By this time, Jonathan had earned a reputation as a teen heartthrob and was a leading cover boy on teen magazines, and his fan base largely consisted of pre-teen and teenage girls. He starred in the Christmas comedy I'll Be Home for Christmas. He also appeared in the movies Man of the House, Tom and Huck, Wild America, Common Ground, Walking Across Egypt and Speedway Junky. He had a guest role on the ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter in early 2004, and appeared in the WB's Smallville in 2002 and 2004. In 2005, he had a guest role in UPN's high school detective drama Veronica Mars, and was also featured on The E! True Hollywood Story's show on Home Improvement.

Wikipedia

Jonathan Sadowski (born November 23, 1979) is an American actor. He played the role of Viola Hasting's friend Paul Antonio in the movie She's The Man and also appeared in Live Free or Die Hard (2007).

Sadowski attended Mount Carmel High School in Chicago Illinois and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theatre.

I fell for him in the movie Rock Star. That's his hottest look ever. I mean, literally, when he has his jacket and no shirt underneath, it's almost safe to say he's the sexiest man alive in that moment.

Wikipedia

Early life and career

James Maitland Stewart was born on 20 May 1908 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth Ruth (née Jackson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store.[1] Stewart's parents were Presbyterian and of Scottish origin.[2][3] His Jackson ancestors served in the American Revolution, War of 1812 and the Civil War.[4] The eldest of three children (he had two younger sisters, Virginia and Mary), he was expected to continue his father's business, which had been in the family for three generations.

His mother was an excellent pianist but his father discouraged Stewart's request for lessons. But when his father accepted a gift of an accordion from a guest, young Stewart quickly learned to play the instrument, which became a fixture off-stage during his acting career. As the family grew, music continued to be an important part of family life.[5]

A shy child, Stewart spent much of his after school time in the basement working on model airplanes, mechanical drawing and chemistry — all with a dream of going into aviation. But he abandoned visions of being a pilot when his father insisted that instead of the Naval Academy he attend Princeton University. Stewart enrolled there in 1928 as a member of the Class of 1932. Earlier, he had graduated from Mercersburg Academy prep school.

At Mercersburg, Stewart was active in a variety of activities. He played on the football team and track team. He was art editor for the KARUX yearbook and member of the choir club, glee club, and John Marshall Literary Society. During his first summer break, Stewart returned to Indiana Pennsylvania to work as a brick loader for a local construction company and on highway and road construction jobs where he painted lines on the roads. Over the following two summers, he took a job as an assistant with a professional magician.[6] He also made his first appearance on the stage at Mercersburg, as Buquet in the play The Wolves.[7]

At Princeton, Stewart excelled at studying architecture, so impressing his professors with his thesis on an airport design that he was awarded a scholarship for graduate studies,[8] but he gradually became attracted to the school's drama and music clubs, including the famous Princeton Triangle Club.[9] He was a member of the Princeton Charter Club as well as a head cheerleader. In his spare time, he enjoyed going to the movies at the time when "talkies" were just displacing silent films.

His acting talents led him to be invited to the University Players, a performing arts club of Ivy League musicians and thespians, with Joshua Logan as the director and Margaret Sullavan as the leading lady. Stewart developed an immediate crush on her, but she soon left the group for her Broadway debut in A Modern Virgin.[10] He performed in bit parts in the Players' productions in Cape Cod during the summer of 1932 after he graduated, when he joined the troupe which included Henry Fonda and Sullavan (who suddenly decided to marry each other). Stewart moved to New York City in the fall to become an actor, with the reluctant approval of his father, where he shared an apartment with Henry Fonda, who had quickly divorced Sullavan, and with Joshua Logan. In November, Stewart was cast in his first major stage production as a chauffeur in the Broadway comedy Goodbye Again, in which he had two lines. The New Yorker noted, "Mr. James Stewart's chauffeur... comes on for three minutes and walks off to a round of spontaneous applause."[11]

The play was a moderate success but times were hard. Many Broadway theaters had been converted to movie houses and the Depression was reaching bottom. "From 1932 through 1934", Stewart later recalled, "I'd only worked three months. Every play I got into folded."[12] By 1934, he got more substantial stage roles, including the hit, Page Miss Glory, and his first dramatic stage role in Sidney Howard's Yellow Jack, which convinced him to continue his acting career. However, Stewart and Fonda, still roommates, were both struggling.

In the fall of 1934, Fonda's success in The Farmer Takes a Wife took him to Hollywood. Finally, Stewart attracted the interest of MGM scout Bill Grady who saw Stewart on the opening night of Divided by Three, a glittering première with many luminaries in attendance including Irving Berlin and Moss Hart and his buddy Fonda who had returned to New York for the show. With Fonda's encouragement, Stewart agreed to take the screen test and signed a contract with MGM in April 1935, as a contract player for up to seven years at $350 a week.[13]

On his arrival by train to Los Angeles, Fonda greeted Stewart at the station and took him to Fonda's studio-supplied lodging, right next door to Greta Garbo. His first job at the studio was as a participant in the screen tests done for newly arrived starlets. At first, he had trouble being cast in Hollywood films due to his gangly looks and shy, humble screen presence. His first film was the poorly received Spencer Tracy vehicle, The Murder Man, but Rose Marie, an adaptation of a popular operetta, was more successful. After mixed success in films, he received his first substantial part in 1936's After the Thin Man.

On the romantic front, soon Fonda was arranging dates for Stewart. In no time, he found himself dating newly divorced Ginger Rogers, whom he had worshipped while a student at Princeton only a few years earlier.[14] The romance soon cooled, however, and by chance Stewart encountered Margaret Sullavan again. Stewart found his footing in Hollywood thanks largely to Sullavan who campaigned for Stewart to be her leading man in the 1936 romantic comedy Next Time We Love. She rehearsed extensively with him, having a noticeable effect on his confidence. She encouraged Stewart to feel comfortable with his unique mannerisms and boyish charm and use them naturally as his own style. In the meantime, roommate Fonda continued to arrange parties with starlets, who found Stewart different from the other young actors and irresistible in his own way. Stewart was enjoying Hollywood life and had no regrets about giving up the stage, as he worked six days-a-week in the MGM factory.[15]In 1936, he acquired big-time agent Leland Hayward, who had just married Margaret Sullavan. Hayward started to chart Stewart's career, deciding the best path for him was through loan-outs to other studios.

[edit] Pre-war success

In 1938, Stewart had a brief, tumultuous, and well-publicized romance with Hollywood queen Norma Shearer whose husband Irving Thalberg, head of production at MGM, had died two years earlier. Stewart began a successful partnership with director Frank Capra in 1938, when he was loaned out to Columbia Pictures to star in You Can't Take It With You. Frank Capra had been impressed by Stewart's minor role in Navy Blue and Gold (1937). The director had recently completed several popular movies including It Happened One Night and was looking for the right type of actor to suit his needs—which other recent actors in his films such as Clark Gable, Ronald Colman and Gary Cooper did not quite fit. Not only was Stewart just what he was looking for, but Capra also found Stewart understood that prototype intuitively and required very little directing. Later Capra commented, "I think he's probably the best actor who's ever hit the screen."[16]

This heart-warming Depression-era film (You Can't Take It With You), starring Capra's "favorite actress", comedienne Jean Arthur, went on to win the 1938 Best Picture Academy Award. The following year saw Stewart team with Capra and Arthur again for the political comedy-drama, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Stewart replaced intended star Gary Cooper in the film about an idealistic man thrown into the political arena. Upon the film's October release, it garnered critical praise and became a box office success. For his performance, Stewart was nominated for the first of five Academy Awards for Best Actor. Even after this great success, Stewart's parents were still trying to talk him into leaving Hollywood and its sinful ways and to return to his home town to lead a decent life. Instead, he took a secret trip to Europe to take a break and returned home just as Germany invaded Poland.[16]

Destry Rides Again, also released that year, became Stewart's first western film, a genre for which he would become famous later in his career. In this Western parody, Stewart is a pacifist lawman and Marlene Dietrich the saloon dancing girl who comes to love him, but doesn't get him. In it she sings her famous song The Boys In the Back Room. Off-screen, Dietrich did get her man, but the romance was short-lived.[17] Made for Each Other (1939) had Stewart sharing the screen with irrepressible Carole Lombard in a melodrama that garnered good reviews for both stars, but did less well with the public. Newsweek wrote that they were "perfectly cast in the leading roles."[18]Between movies, Stewart began a radio career and became a distinctive voice on the "Lux Radio Hour, the Screen Guild Theater" and other radio shows. So well known had his slow drawl become that comedians started to impersonate him, a form of flattery which continued for most of his life.[19]

In 1940, Stewart and Margaret Sullavan teamed again for two films. The first, the Ernst Lubitsch romantic comedy, The Shop Around the Corner, starred Stewart and Sullavan as co-workers unknowingly involved in a pen-pal romance who cannot stand each other in real life (This was later remade into the romantic comedy You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan). It was Stewart's fifth film of the year and that rare film shot in the story's sequence; it was completed in only 27 days.[20] The Mortal Storm, directed by Frank Borzage, was one of the first blatantly anti-Nazi films to be produced in Hollywood and featured the pair as a husband and wife caught in turmoil upon Hitler's rise to power.

Stewart also starred opposite Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in George Cukor's classic The Philadelphia Story (1940). His performance as an intrusive, fast-talking reporter earned him his only Academy Award in a competitive category (Best Actor, 1941) and he beat out his good friend Henry Fonda (The Grapes of Wrath). Stewart thought his performance "entertaining and slick and smooth" but lacking the "guts" of "Mr. Smith".[21] Stewart gave the Oscar statuette to his father, who displayed it in a case just inside the front door of his hardware store for many years, alongside other family awards and military medals.

During the months before he began military service, Stewart went on to appear in a series of screwball comedies with varying levels of success. He followed the mediocre No Time for Comedy (1940) and Come Live with Me (1941) with the Judy Garland musical Ziegfeld Girl and the George Marshall romantic comedy Pot o' Gold. Stewart was drafted in late 1940 and it coincided with the lapse in his MGM contract, marking a turning point in Stewart's career, with 28 movies to his credit so far.[22]

[edit] Military service

Brig. Gen. James Maitland Stewart

United States Air Force

20 May 1908(1908-05-20) – 2 July 1997 (aged 89)

Col. James M. Stewart

Place of birth Indiana, Pennsylvania

Place of death Los Angeles, California

Allegiance Flag of the United States United States of America

Service/branch United States Air Force Reserve

United States Army Air Corps

Years of service 1941–1968

Rank Brigadier General (advanced in rank in 1959)

Battles/wars World War II

Vietnam War

Awards Distinguished Service Medal

French Croix de Guerre with Palm

Distinguished Flying Cross (2)

Air Medal (4)

Army Commendation Medal

Armed Forces Reserve Medal

The Stewart family had deep military roots as both grandfathers had fought in the Civil War, and his father had served during both the Spanish-American War and World War I. Since Stewart considered his father to be the biggest influence on his life, it was not surprising that when another war eventually came, he too served. Unlike his family's previous infantry service, Stewart chose to become a military flyer.[23]

An early interest in flying led Stewart to gain his Private Pilot License in 1935 and Commercial Pilot Licence in 1938. He often flew cross country to visit his parents in Pennsylvania, navigating by the railroad tracks.[24] Nearly two years before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Stewart had accumulated over 400 hours of flying time.[25]

Considered a highly proficient pilot, he even entered a cross-country race as a co-pilot in 1939.[26] Along with musician/composer Hoagy Carmichael, seeing the need for trained war pilots, Stewart teamed with other Hollywood moguls and put their own money into creating a flying school in Glendale, Arizona, which they named Thunderbird Field. This airfield trained more than 200,000 pilots during the War, became the origin of the Flying Thunderbirds, and is now the home of Thunderbird School of Global Management.[27]

Later in 1940, Stewart was drafted into the Army Air Corps but was rejected due to a weight problem. The USAAC had strict height and weight requirements for new recruits and Stewart was five pounds under the standard. To get up to 148 pounds he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's muscle man, Don Loomis, who was legendary for his ability to add or subtract pounds in his studio gymnasium. Stewart subsequently attempted to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps but still came in under the weight requirement although he persuaded the AAF enlistment officer to run new tests, this time passing the weigh-in,[28] with the result that Stewart successfully enlisted in the Army in March 1941. He became the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II.

Since the United States had not entered the conflict and due to the Army's unwillingness to put celebrities on the front, Stewart was initially held back from combat duty, although he enlisted as a private, he earned a commission as a Second Lieutenant and completed pilot training. During training, his previous experience was down played as he was concerned that his expertise would relegate him to instructor duties "behind the lines."[29] His fears were confirmed when he was subsequently stationed in Albuquerque, NM, becoming an instructor pilot for the B-17 Flying Fortress.

The only public appearances after he went into flight school were limited engagements scheduled by the Air Corps. "Stewart appeared several times on network radio with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, he performed with Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Huston and Lionel Barrymore in an all-network radio program called We Hold These Truths, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. But mostly, Stewart's days and nights were spent preparing for his upcoming flight tests, ground school and academic examinations for his commission."[30]

"Still, the war was moving on. For the 36-year-old Stewart, combat duty seemed far away and unreachable and he had no clear plans for the future. But then a rumor that Stewart would be taken off flying status and assigned to making training films or selling bonds called for his immediate and decisive action, because what he dreaded most was the hope-shattering spectre of a dead end."[31] So he appealed to his commander, a pre-war aviator, who understood the situation and reassigned him to a unit going overseas.

Col. Stewart being awarded the Croix de guerre with palm by Lt. Gen. Henri Valin, Chief of Staff of the French Air Force, for his role in the liberation of France. USAF photo.

Col. Stewart being awarded the Croix de guerre with palm by Lt. Gen. Henri Valin, Chief of Staff of the French Air Force, for his role in the liberation of France. USAF photo.

In August 1943 he was finally assigned to the 445th Bombardment Group in Sioux City, Iowa, first as Operations Officer of the 703rd Bombardment Squadron and then its commander. In December, the 445th Bombardment Group flew its B-24 Liberator bombers to RAF Tibenham, England and immediately began combat operations. While flying missions over Germany, Stewart was promoted to Major. In March 1944, he was transferred as group operations officer to the 453rd Bombardment Group, a new B-24 unit that had been experiencing difficulties. As a means to inspire his new group, Stewart flew as command pilot in the lead B-24 on numerous missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. These missions went uncounted at Stewart's orders. His "official" total is listed as 20 and is limited to those with the 445th. In 1944, he twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions in combat and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He also received the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. In July 1944, after flying 20 combat missions, Stewart was made Chief of Staff of the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing of the Eighth Air Force. Before the war ended, he was promoted to colonel, one of only a few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.

At the beginning of June 1945, Stewart was the presiding officer of the Court-Martial of a pilot and navigator who were charged with dereliction of duty when they accidentally bombed the Swiss city of Zurich the previous March – the first instance of U.S. personnel being tried over an attack on a neutral country. The Court acquitted the accused.[32]

Stewart continued to play an active role in the United States Air Force Reserve after the war, achieving the rank of Brigadier General on 23 July 1959.[33] Stewart did not often talk of his wartime service, perhaps due to his desire to be seen as a regular soldier doing his duty instead of as a celebrity. He did appear on the TV series, The World At War to discuss the 14 October 1943, bombing mission to Schweinfurt, which was the center of the German ball bearing manufacturing industry. This mission is known in USAF history as Black Thursday due to the incredibly high casualties it sustained; in total, 60 aircraft were lost out of 291 dispatched, as the raid consisting entirely of B-17s was unescorted all the way to Schweinfurt and back due to the current escort aircraft available lacking the range. Fittingly, he was identified only as "James Stewart, Squadron Commander" in the documentary.

In 1966, Brigadier General James Stewart flew as a non duty observer in a B-52 on a bombing mission during the Vietnam conflict. At the time of his B-52 flight, he refused the release of any publicity regarding his participation as he did not want it treated as a stunt, but as part of his job as an officer in the Air Force Reserve. He served as Air Force Reserve commander of Dobbins Air Reserve Base in the early 1950s and after 27 years of service, Stewart retired from the Air Force on 31 May 1968.[34]

[edit] Postwar success

Right after the war, Stewart took some time to reassess his career. He was an early investor in Southwest Airways, started by Leland Hayward, and he considered going into the aviation industry if his re-started film career didn't pan out.[35]Upon Stewart's return to Hollywood in fall 1945, he decided not to renew his MGM contract. He signed with an MCA talent agency. His former agent Leland Hayward got out of the talent business in 1944 after selling his A-list of stars, including Stewart, to MCA. The move made Stewart one of the first independently contracted actors, and gave him more freedom to choose the roles he wished to play. For the remainder of his career, Stewart was able to work without limits to director and studio availability.

For his first film in five years, Stewart appeared in his third and final Frank Capra production, It's a Wonderful Life.[36] Capra paid RKO the rights for the story and formed his own production company. The female lead went to Donna Reed, after Capra's perennial first choice, Jean Arthur was unavailable, and after turn downs by Ginger Rogers, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Dvorak and Martha Scott. Stewart appeared as George Bailey, a small-town man and upstanding citizen, who becomes increasingly frustrated by his ordinary existence and financial troubles. Driven to suicide on Christmas Eve, he is led to reassess his life by Clarence Odbody AS2,[37] an "angel, second class", played by Henry Travers.

After viewing It's a Wonderful Life, President Harry S. Truman concluded, "If Bess and I had a son, we'd want him to be just like Jimmy Stewart."[38]

Although the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Stewart's third Best Actor nomination, it received mixed reviews and only moderate success at the box office, possibly due to its dark nature. However, in the decades since the film's release, it grew to define Stewart's film persona and is widely considered as a sentimental Christmas film classic and, according to the American Film Institute, one of the best movies ever made.

In the aftermath of the film, Capra's production company went into bankruptcy and it effectively ended his movie career. Stewart started to have doubts about his ability to act after his military hiatus. His father kept insisting he come home and marry a local girl. Meanwhile in Hollywood, his generation of actors were fading and a new wave of actors would soon remake the town, including Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and James Dean.[39]

After a poorly received Magic Town (1947) and after the completion of the shooting of Rope, Stewart decided to return to the stage for the Mary Chase-penned comedy, Harvey, which had opened to nearly universal praise in November 1944. Elwood P. Dowd, the protagonist and Stewart's character, is a wealthy eccentric, whose best friend is an invisible rabbit, living with his sister and niece. His eccentricity, especially the friendship with the rabbit, is ruining the niece's hopes of finding a husband. While trying to have Dowd committed to a sanatorium, his sister is committed herself while the play follows Dowd on an ordinary day in his not-so-ordinary life. Stewart took over the role from Frank Fay and gained an increased Broadway following in the unconventional play. The play, which ran for nearly three years with Stewart as its star, was successfully adapted into a 1950 film, directed by Henry Koster, with Stewart playing Dowd and Josephine Hull as his sister, Veta. Bing Crosby was the first choice for the movie but he declined.[40].For his performance in the film, Stewart received his fourth Best Actor nomination.

After Harvey, the comedic adventure film Malaya with Spencer Tracy and the conventional but highly successful biographical film The Stratton Story in 1949, his first pairing with "on-screen wife" June Allyson, Stewart entered what many critics cite as his "golden era" as an actor. During the 1950s, he took on more challenging roles and expanded into the western and suspense genres, thanks largely to collaborations with directors Anthony Mann and Alfred Hitchcock.

Other notable performances by Stewart during this time include the critically acclaimed 1950 Delmer Daves western Broken Arrow, which featured Stewart as an ex-soldier making peace with the Apache; a troubled clown in the 1952 Best Picture The Greatest Show on Earth; and Stewart's role as Charles Lindbergh in Billy Wilder's 1957 film The Spirit of St. Louis. He also starred in the Western radio show The Six Shooter for its one season run from 1953-1954.

[edit] Collaborations with Hitchcock and Mann

James Stewart's collaborations with director Anthony Mann expanded Stewart's popularity and expanded his career into the realm of the western. Stewart's first appearance in a film helmed by Mann came with the 1950 western classic, Winchester '73. In choosing Mann (after first choice Fritz Lang declined), Stewart cemented a powerful partnership. The film, which became a massive box office hit upon its release, set the pattern for their future collaborations. In it, Stewart is a tough, revengeful sharpshooter, the winner of a prized rifle which is stolen and then passes through many hands, until the showdown between Stewart and his brother (Stephen McNally).

Other Stewart-Mann westerns, such as Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), The Far Country (1954) and The Man from Laramie (1955) were perennial favorites among young audiences entranced by the American West. Frequently, the films featured Stewart as a troubled cowboy seeking redemption, while facing corrupt cattlemen, ranchers and outlaws—a man who knows violence first hand and struggles to control it. Their collaborations laid the foundation for many of the westerns of the 1950s and remain popular today for their grittier, more realistic depiction of the classic movie genre.

Stewart and Mann also collaborated on other films outside the western genre. 1953's The Glenn Miller Story was critically acclaimed, garnering Stewart a BAFTA Award nomination, and (together with The Spirit of St. Louis) cemented the popularity of Stewart's portrayals of "American heroes." Thunder Bay, released the same year, transplanted the plot arch of their western collaborations in the present day, with Stewart as a Louisiana oil-driller facing corruption. Strategic Air Command, released in 1955, allowed Stewart to use his experiences in the United States Air Force on film.

Stewart's starring role in Winchester '73 was also a turning point in Hollywood. Universal Studios, who wanted Stewart to appear in both that film and Harvey, balked at his $200,000 asking price. Stewart's agent, Lew Wasserman, brokered an alternate deal, in which Stewart would appear in both films for no pay, in exchange for a percentage of the profits and cast and director approval. It wasn't the first such deal at Universal; Abbott and Costello also had a profit participation contract, but they were no longer top-flight moneymakers by 1950. Stewart ended up earning about $600,000 for Winchester '73 alone. Hollywood's other stars quickly capitalized on this new way of doing business, which further undermined the decaying "studio system."

The second collaboration to define Stewart's career in the 1950s was with acclaimed mystery and suspense director Alfred Hitchcock. Like Mann, Hitchcock uncovered new depths to Stewart's acting, showing a protagonist confronting his fears and his repressed desires. Stewart's first movie with Hitchcock was the technologically innovative 1948 film Rope, shot in long "real time" takes.

The two collaborated for the second of four times on the 1954 hit Rear Window, one of Hitchcock's masterpieces. Stewart portrays photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries, loosely based on Life photographer Robert Capa, who projects his fantasies and fears onto the people he observes out his apartment window while on hiatus due to a broken leg. Jeffries gets into more than he can handle, however, when he believes he has witnessed a salesman (Raymond Burr) commit a murder, and when his glamorous girlfriend (Grace Kelly), at first disdainful of his voyeurism and skeptical about any crime, eventually is drawn in and tries to help solve the mystery. Limited by his wheelchair, Stewart is masterfully forced by Hitchcock to react to what his character sees with mostly facial responses. It was a landmark year for Stewart, becoming the highest grossing actor of 1954 and the most popular Hollywood star in the world, displacing John Wayne.[41]

After starring in Hitchcock's remake of the director's own production, The Man Who Knew Too Much, with co-star Doris Day, Stewart starred in what many consider Hitchcock's most personal film, Vertigo. The film starred Stewart as "Scottie", a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman he is shadowing. Scottie's obsession inevitably leads to the destruction of everything he once had and believed in. Though the film is widely considered a classic today, and the pairing with Kim Novak, one of the screen's most perfect, Vertigo met with negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and marked the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. Stewart was also disappointed. The director blamed the film's failure on Stewart looking too old to still attract audiences, and cast Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest (1959), a role Stewart had very much wanted. In reality, Grant was actually four years older than Stewart.

[edit] Career in the 1960s and 1970s

In 1960, James Stewart was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and received his fifth and final Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, for his role in the 1959 Otto Preminger film Anatomy of a Murder. The early courtroom drama starred Stewart as Paul Biegler, the lawyer of a hot-tempered soldier Ben Gazzara who claims temporary insanity after murdering a tavern owner who raped his sexy wife Lee Remick. The film featured a career-making performance by George C. Scott as the prosecutor. The film was sexually frank for its time (some thought it sordid), and its provocative promotional campaign helped gain it box office success, though Ben-Hur outgrossed all movies by a huge margin and swept the Academy Awards that year.[42]Stewart's nomination was one of seven for the film (Charlton Heston was the winner), and saw his transition into the final decades of his career.

On 1 January 1960 Stewart received the devastating news that Margaret Sullavan had committed suicide, most likely over despondency from her loss of hearing and its impact on her stage career. As a friend, mentor, and focus of his early romantic urges, she had a unique impact on Stewart's life.

In the early 1960s Stewart took leading roles in three John Ford films, his first work with the acclaimed director. The first, Two Rode Together, paired him with Richard Widmark in a Western with thematic echoes of Ford's The Searchers. The next, 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (with John Wayne), is a classic "psychological" western, with Stewart featured as an Eastern attorney who goes against his non-violent principles when he is forced to confront a psychopathic outlaw (played by Lee Marvin) in a small frontier town. At story's end, Stewart's character — now a rising political figure — faces a difficult ethical choice as he attempts to reconcile his actions with his personal integrity. The film's billing is unusual in that Stewart was given top billing over Wayne in the trailers and on the posters but Wayne had top billing in the film itself, a system later repeated by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men. The film garnered so-so reviews (Stewart was seen as being far too old for the young character he played) and fared poorly at the box office, but is now considered a late Ford classic.

How the West Was Won (which Ford co-directed, though without directing Stewart's scenes) and Cheyenne Autumn were western epics released in 1962 and 1964 respectively. While the Cinerama production How the West Was Won went on to win three Oscars and reaped massive box office figures, Cheyenne Autumn, in which a white-suited Stewart played Wyatt Earp in a long sequence in the middle of the movie, failed domestically and was quickly forgotten. It was Ford's final Western and Stewart's last feature film with Ford.

Having played his last romantic lead in 1958's Bell, Book and Candle, and silver-haired (although not all was his – he had begun wearing a hairpiece in the early 1950s), Stewart transitioned into more family-related films in the 1960s when he signed a multi-movie deal with 20th Century Fox. These included the successful Henry Koster outing Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), and the less memorable films Take Her, She's Mine (1963) and Dear Brigitte (1965), which featured French model Brigitte Bardot as the object of Stewart's son's mash notes. The Civil War period film Shenandoah (1965) and the western family film The Rare Breed fared better at the box office; the Civil War movie was a smash hit in the South.

As an aviator, Stewart was particularly interested in aviation films and had pushed to appear in several in the 1950s. He continued in this vein in the 1960s, most notably in a role as a hard-bitten pilot in Flight of the Phoenix (1965). Subbing for Stewart, famed stunt pilot and air racer Paul Mantz was killed when he crashed the "Tallmantz Phoenix P-1", the specially-made, single-engine movie model, in an abortive "touch-and-go". It's little known, but Stewart was the narrator in the X-15 film (1961).[43]

After a progression of lesser western films in the late '60s and early '70s, James Stewart transitioned from cinema to television. In the 1950s he had made guest appearances on the Jack Benny Program (Benny was his real life neighbor and good friend). Stewart first starred in the NBC comedy The Jimmy Stewart Show, which featured Stewart as a college professor. He followed it with the CBS mystery Hawkins, in which he played a small town lawyer investigating his cases. The series garnered Stewart a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Dramatic TV Series, but failed to gain a wide audience and was cancelled after one season. (Andy Griffith fared much better later in Matlock, based on a similar formula.) During this time, Stewart periodically appeared on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, sharing poems he had written at different times in his life. His poems were later compiled into a short collection titled Jimmy Stewart and His Poems (1989).

Stewart returned to films after an absence of five years with a major role in John Wayne's final film, The Shootist (1976) where Stewart played a doctor giving Wayne's gunfighter a terminal cancer diagnosis. At one point, both Wayne and Stewart were flubbing their lines repeatedly and Stewart turned to director Don Siegel and said, "You'd better get two better actors." Stewart also appeared in supporting roles in Airport '77, the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep with Robert Mitchum and The Magic of Lassie (1978). The latter film received poor reviews and flopped at the box office. Some critics expressed their dismay at seeing the 70-year-old veteran singing as the grandfather. Stewart responded it was the only script he had been offered without any sex, profanity and graphic violence.

Stewart had been interested in acting in On Golden Pond, which he believed would be a fine way to finish his career, but Jane Fonda bought the film rights before he could.[citation needed]

[edit] Later career and death

Stewart was presented an Academy Honorary Award in 1985, "for his fifty years of memorable performances, for his high ideals both on and off the screen, with respect and affection of his colleagues."

Stewart's best friend Henry Fonda died in 1982 and his long-time friend Grace Kelly, his favorite female co-star, died shortly afterwards. A few months later, Stewart starred with Bette Davis in Right of Way, which had the distinction of being the first made-for-cable movie. After filming several television movies in the 1980s, including Mr. Krueger's Christmas, James Stewart, still receiving considerable offers to play "grandfather" roles, retired from acting to spend time with his family. He made frequent visits to the Reagan White House and traveled on the lecture circuit. The re-release of his Hitchcock films gained Stewart renewed recognition. Rear Window and Vertigo were particularly praised by film critics, which helped bring these films to the attention of younger movie-goers.

Stewart became a real life "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" in 1988, when he made an impassioned plea in Congressional hearings, along with ageing superstars Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn, and film purist Martin Scorsese, against Ted Turner's decision to "colorize" classic black and white films, including It's a Wonderful Life. Stewart stated, "the coloring of black-and-white films is wrong. It's morally and artistically wrong and these profiteers should leave our film industry alone".[44]The traditionalists eventually prevailed.

One of Hollywood's most shrewd businessmen, Stewart had diversified investments including real estate, oil wells, a charter-plane company and membership on major corporate boards. He became a multimillionaire. In the 1980s and 1990s, he did voiceovers for commercials for Campbell's Soups.[38]

In 1989, Stewart joined Peter F. Paul in founding the American Spirit Foundation to apply entertainment industry resources to developing innovative approaches to public education and to assist the emerging democracy movements in the former Iron Curtain countries and Russia. Paul arranged for Stewart, through the offices of President Boris Yeltsin, to send a special print of It's a Wonderful Life, translated by Moscow University, to Russia as the first American program ever to be broadcast on Russian television.[citation needed] On 5 January 1992, coinciding with the first day of the existence of the democratic Commonwealth of Independent States and Russia, and the first free Russian Orthodox Christmas Day, Russian TV Channel 2 broadcast It's a Wonderful Life to 200 million Russians who celebrated an American holiday tradition with the American people for the first time in Russian history.[citation needed]

In association with politicians and celebrities that included President Ronald Reagan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, California Governor George Deukmejian, Bob Hope and Charlton Heston, Stewart worked from 1987 to 1993 on projects that enhanced the public appreciation and understanding of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.[citation needed]

In 1991, James Stewart voiced the character of Sheriff Wylie Burp in the movie "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West", which was his final role in a film before his death.

Stewart died at the age of 89 on 2 July 1997, at his home in Beverly Hills, of cardiac arrest and a pulmonary embolism following a long illness from respiratory problems. He had also suffered from Alzheimer's disease. His death came just one day after fellow screen legend and The Big Sleep co-star Robert Mitchum had died of lung cancer and emphysema. Stewart is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

"America lost a national treasure today," President Bill Clinton said on the day Stewart died. "Jimmy Stewart was a great actor, a gentleman and a patriot."[38]

Wikipedia

Career

[edit] Early work

Brando used his Stanislavski System skills for his first summer-stock roles in Sayville, New York on Long Island. His behavior got him kicked out of the cast of the New School's production in Sayville, but he was discovered in a locally produced play there and then made it to Broadway in the bittersweet drama I Remember Mama in 1944. Critics voted him "Broadway's Most Promising Actor" for his role as an anguished veteran in Truckline Café, although the play was a commercial failure. In 1946 he appeared on Broadway as the young hero in the political drama A Flag Is Born, refusing to accept wages above the Actor's Equity rate because of his commitment to the cause of Israeli independence. [5] [6] Brando achieved stardom, however, as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. Brando sought out that role, driving out to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Williams was spending the summer, to audition for the part. Williams recalled that he opened the screen door and knew, instantly, that he had his Stanley Kowalski. Brando's performance revolutionized acting technique and set the model for the American form of method acting. This approach to a role was never seen before and all similar roles mirror Brando's.

Afterward, Brando was asked to do a screen test for Warner Brothers studio for the film Rebel Without A Cause,[7] which James Dean was later cast in. The screen test appears as an extra in the 2006 DVD release of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Brando's first screen role was as the bitter paraplegic veteran in The Men in 1950. True to his method, Brando spent a month in bed at a veterans' hospital to prepare for the role.

[edit] Rising to the top

He made a strong impression in 1951 when he brought his performance as Stanley Kowalski to the screen in Kazan's adaptation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for that role, and again in each of the next three years for his roles in Viva Zapata! in 1952, Julius Caesar in 1953 as Mark Antony, and On the Waterfront in 1954. These first five films of his career established Brando as perhaps the premier acting talent in the world, as evidenced in his winning the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role three consecutive years, 1951 to 1953.

Brando as Emiliano Zapata in a trailer for the 1952 film Viva Zapata!

Brando as Emiliano Zapata in a trailer for the 1952 film Viva Zapata!

In 1953, he also starred in Lee Falk's play Arms and the Man. Falk was proud to tell people that Marlon Brando turned down an offer of $10,000 per week on Broadway, in favor of working on Falk's play in Boston. His Boston contract was less than $500 per week. It would be the last time he ever acted in a stage play.

Brando became a hero for the younger generation by playing motorcycle rebel Johnny Strabler in 1953's The Wild One. He created the rebel image for the rock-and-roll era[citation needed]. Brando's explosive screen presence exuded a raw sexuality that drew repeat ticket purchases among female theater goers of all ages. Theater managers related accounts of sold out weekday matiness where small children ran up and down the aisle making motorcycle noises while their mothers sat transfixed.

Director Nick Ray took the gang image from the movie The Wild One and brought it to his movie, Rebel Without A Cause, and thus emphasized Brando's effect on youth.

Aspects of the rebel culture that included motorcycles, leather jackets, jeans and the rebel image, which inspired generations of rebels, came thanks to that film and Brando's own unique image and character. The sales of motorcycle related paraphernalia, leather jackets, jeans, boots and t-shirts skyrocketed throughout the country.[8] The film had a similar effect on overseas audiences. Local authorities and religious figures lamented the effect it was having on the youth of their respective countries.

Under Kazan's direction, and with a talented ensemble around him, Brando won the Oscar for his role of Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. For the famous I coulda' been a contender scene, Brando convinced Kazan that the scripted scene was unrealistic, and with Rod Steiger, improvised the final product.

Brando followed that triumph by a variety of roles in the 1950s that defied expectations: as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, where he managed to carry off a singing role; as Sakini, a Japanese interpreter for the U.S. Army in postwar Japan in The Teahouse of the August Moon; as an Air Force officer in Sayonara, and a Nazi officer in The Young Lions. Although he won an Oscar nomination for his acting in Sayonara, his acting had lost much of its energy and direction by the end of the 1950s.

In the 1960s Brando starred in films such as Mutiny on the Bounty (1962); One-Eyed Jacks (1961), a western that would be the only film Brando would ever direct; a star-studded but unsuccessful potboiler The Chase (1966), in which he played an uncorrupted Texas sheriff; Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), portraying a repressed gay army officer, and Burn! (1969), which Brando would later claim as his personal favorite, although it was a commercial failure. Nonetheless, his career had gone into almost complete eclipse by the end of the decade, some say[who?], thanks to his reputation as a difficult star and his record in overbudget or marginal movies.

However, in truth, his reputation as a "difficult star", no matter how justifiably earned, was not the real reason for the downslide in his career. The fact is, as noted progressive writer Dave Zirin points out, Hollywood created what became known as the "Brando Blacklist" that shut him out of many big time roles. The reason for that blacklist was his growing activism, and his financial and moral support of the Black Panthers, Native American Rights groups and other progressive causes. [9]

His performance as Vito Corleone in 1972's The Godfather was a mid-career turning point. Director Francis Ford Coppola convinced Brando to submit to a "make-up" test, in which Brando did his own makeup (he used cotton balls to simulate the puffed-cheek look). Coppola was electrified by Brando's characterization as the head of a crime family, but had to fight the studio in order to cast the temperamental Brando, whose reputation for difficult behavior and demands was the stuff of backlot legend. However, Paramount studio heads wanted to give the role to Danny Thomas in the hope that Thomas would have his own production company throw in its lot with Paramount. Thomas declined the role and actually urged the studio to cast Brando at the behest of Coppola and others who had witnessed the screen test.

Eventually, Charles Bludhorn, the president of Paramount parent Gulf + Western, was won over to letting Brando have the role; when he saw the screen test, he asked in amazement, "What are we watching? Who is this old guinea?"

Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but turned it down, becoming the second actor to refuse a Best Actor award (the first being George C. Scott for Patton). Brando boycotted the award ceremony, sending Native American Rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to state his reasons, which were based on his objections to the depiction of Native Americans by Hollywood and television.

The actor followed with one of his greatest performances in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1973 film, Last Tango in Paris, but the performance was overshadowed by an uproar over the erotic nature of the film. Despite the controversies which attended both the film and the man, the Academy once again nominated Brando for the Best Actor.

His career afterward was uneven. He was paid one million dollars a week to play the iconic Colonel Kurtz in 1979's Apocalypse Now. He was supposed to show up slim, fit, and to have read the book Heart of Darkness. He showed up weighing around 220 pounds and hadn't read Heart of Darkness. This is why his character was shot mostly in the shadows and most of his dialogue was improvised. After his week was over, director Francis Ford Coppola asked him to stay an extra hour so that he could shoot a close up of Brando saying, "The horror, the horror." Brando agreed for an extra $75,000. After this film his weight began to limit the roles he could play.

In his autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me, Brando describes his participation in Apocalypse Now very differently. According to Brando, the script had deviated from the book and made Kurtz a much more visible character. To restore the character's mystery (and to cut down on the amount of work he'd be required to do), Brando suggested to Coppola that Kurtz be returned in the movie to the mythological figure he was in the book. Coppola agreed to allow Brando to rewrite the script, which he did over the course of ten days. Brando also shaved his head without telling Coppola, and worked with the crew to devise lighting techniques which would emphasize his bald pate and deep set eyes, to evoke a sense of palpable danger in the character. Coppola approved all of Brando's changes, which gave the film the focus and narrative continuity it had previously lacked.

[edit] Later career

Brando then portrayed Superman's father Jor-El in the 1978 Superman: The Movie. He agreed to the role only on assurance that he was paid a large sum for what amounted to a small part, that he did not have to read the script beforehand and his lines would be displayed somewhere off-camera. It was revealed in a documentary contained in the 2001 DVD release of Superman (film), that he was paid $3.7 million for just two weeks of work.

Brando also filmed scenes for the movie's sequel, Superman II, but after producers refused to pay him the same percentage he received for the first movie, he denied them permission to use the footage. However, after Brando's death the footage was re-incorporated into the 2006 re-cut of the film, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut.

Two years after his death, he "reprised" the role of Jor-El in the 2006 "loose sequel" Superman Returns, in which both used and unused archive footage of Brando as Jor-El from the first two Superman films was remastered for a scene in the Fortress of Solitude, as well as Brando's voice-overs being used throughout the film.

Some later performances, such as The Island of Dr Moreau, earned him some of the most uncomplimentary reviews of his career. Despite announcing his retirement from acting in 1980, he subsequently gave interesting supporting performances in movies such as A Dry White Season (for which he was again nominated for an Oscar in 1989), The Freshman in 1990 and Don Juan DeMarco in 1995. In his last film, The Score (2001), he starred with fellow method actor Robert De Niro.

Brando conceived the idea of a novel called Fan-Tan with director Donald Cammell in 1979, which was not released until 2005.[10] Cammell dated and eventually married actor China Kong, the daughter of Anita Loo, with whom Brando had an affair.[11]

omgosh... thanks guys... <3

And that miu miu ad is like GORGEOUS!