Jimmy Stewart Movies and Life

Natural Actor

One of the cinema's outstanding natural actors, James Stewart generally appears so relaxed and easygoing on the screen that his very real talent is taken for granted. But he is one of the most conscientious and hard working actors.
Steward was born James Maitland Steward was born in 1908 the son of a hardware store owner, and gained his first stage experience while a student at Princeton University, but it was not until he graduated majoring in architecture before following a classmate into show business that he became seriously interested in theater.
Class of 1932 was pretty talented: also in the troop were recently married Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullivan.
He joined University Players, a summer stock company, at Falmouth, Massachusetts, and spent years on Broadway before making his way to Hollywood.

James Stewart

When Universal teamed Jimmy Stewart with Marlene Dietrich, to film Destry Rides Again in 1939, she "took one look at him and wanted hm at once!" according to producer Joseph Pasternack. "He was just a simple guy: he loved flash Gordon comics- that was all he would read. So, as a surprise, she presented him with a doll which she'd had the studio art department make u for him- a life-sized doll of

Flash Gordon, correct in every detail. It started a romance!"
Just a simple guy... when he appeared on England's long- running radio show Desert Island. Stewart's choice of music was typically unpretentious. It is the same with his politics: he always supported the Republican ticket. you always knew where you stood with James Stewart.

Appealing Vulnerability

Easy certainties do not always appeal to the public but Stewart always had a certain vulnerability that did touch the heart of the star for 50 years, he never lost public support.
James Maitland Steward was born May 20, 1908 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the son of a hardware store owner.
Educated at Princeton, he graduated in architecture, before following classmate Joshua Logan to Falmouth, Massachusetts where Logan had formed a troupe called the University Players. Class of 1932 was pretty talented: also in the troop were recently married Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullivan.
Stewart was a beanpole of 6ft 3 1/2in in with a slow, hesitant drawl that would become famous but must then have seemed a handicap. But people took t him. By 1933, he was appearing o Broadway. Then he got a seven-year contract with MGM.

It's A wonderful Life

There were 15 fairly insignificant roles before Stewart made the first of three unforgettable movies with Frank Capra, You can't Take It With You in 1938, with Stweart ironicalaly, playing the republican fundamentalist embodied Capra's liberal humanism. In that adaptation of the Broadway hit-and later in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in 1939 and It's a Wonderful Life in 1946-he epitomized human values over financial interests, and that image has stayed with him.
Having proved his worth with Capra, Stewart worked with many more of Hollywood's top directors:
Ernst Lubitsch, Cukor, King Vidor, Alfred Hitchcock and DeMille.
For Cukor he played his Oscar winning Mike Connor in The Philidelphia Story in 1940 with Cary Grant.

Patriot In Action

In 1942, powered by his high-octane patriotism, Steward led the Hollywood invasion of the armed forces, serving in the USAF and flying 20 bomb-runs over Germany. He ended the war a full colonel. Thereafter he remained in the Reserve, retiring in 1965 as a brigadier-general, the highest rank that has ever been attained by a member of American Equity.
Returning to Hollywood as a freelance, Stewart took various roles and, at 41 he also took a wife. Previously linked with Lana Turner, Ginger Rogers, Olivia de Havilland, he now married a socialite in her 30s. They adopted two sons, and remained happily married for the rest of his life.

Accomplishing something

Middle age did not diminish Stewart's popularity-indeed he remained in the box-office top ten throughout the 1950s and began working for a percentage of the profits. Among the movies adding to his wealth were Harvey in 1950, a tall story he enacted several times on stage, The Glenn Miller Story, Rear Window Vertigo, Anatomy of a murder and Rope.
Still active in television and state, Stewart says "I don't want to retire. I love making movies...It's rewarding and exciting to me.I feel that I'm accomplishing something, as that I'm accomplishing something, as when someone comes up to me and says,"I don't know if it means anything to you,but you have given me and y family a great deal of enjoyment over the years."
In 1993 he had heart surgery and had a pacemaker for the remainder of his life. In 1997, Stewart tripped in his home and was rushed to a hospital to close a gash in his skin It was discovered that he had untreatable skin cancer.
In 1997 an embolism logged in his lung and brought on a heart attack which killed him instantly.He was 89 years old.

Mickey Rooney; Born For Stardom

Star Quality

Young Mickey Rooney

All child stars have to grow up, but Mickey Rooney, the most famous of them all, took the longest. At 5" 3 inces, chunky and well into his twenties, he was still playing Andy Hardy, the all- American small town teenager, and when he made Love Laughs at Andy Hardy in 1946, he was 26 years old and had been a performer for 24 of them.

This non-stop trouping produced a lopsided view of life. A close friend remarked that Rooney knew more about show business and less about women than any man he had ever met. Rooney has survived six divorces, bankruptcy, scandal, and throughout his live maintained bumptious energy.
He was born in September 1920, the son of vaudeville entertainers. At the tender age of two he joined their act, and three years later was touring with song ad dance man Sid Gold. In Chicago he played a midget in a melodrama, Mr Iron Claw, and this led to similar roles in two films, Not To Be Trusted 1926 and Orchids 1927.

Shortly afterwards, he changed his name from Joe Yule to Mickey McGuire, the comic strip character, and played in over 40 RKO shorts between 1927-1933. When the series ended, he changed his name again and for the last time to Mickey Rooney.
The cocky youngster caught the eye of MGM's Louis B. Mayer, who hired him on a wee to week basis to play Clark Gable as a boy in Manhattan Melodrama in 1934. In 1935, MGM put Rooney under contract. He was 15 and, and a veteran of 20 features and dozens of serials and shorts.
The studio cleverly cast him as a streetwise urchin opposite priggish child star Freddie Bartholomew in Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Devil is a Sissy. He also had a good tough kid part in Boy's Town with Spencer Tracy.
By now Rooney had graduated from being the best scene stealer in the business to stardom in his own right. There were many subsequent Andy Hardy films, cunningly crafted and immensely popular celebrations of Louis B. Mayer's sentimental notions of family and small town life. Watching Rooney in his Andy Hardy series today, I must say he had tremendous star quality and charisma. He is exactly what every parent would like to see in their teenage son, and everything a teenager wishes they were. He is confident, compassionate, and quick on his feet.
A regular co-star in the series was Judy Garland. They made eight films together, Rooney mischievous and brash, Garland wistful and appealing.
By the time they were paired in the musical Babes in Arms in 1939 Rooney was number 1 in the Motion Picture Herald's ratings. In 1938 along with Deanna Durbin, he received a miniature Oscar.

In the early 1940s Rooney wrote a song, prophetically entitled, I Can't Afford t Fall in Love. He met his first wife, 19 year old starlet Ava Gardner, on the set of Babes on Broadway in 1942. They were married on January 10, 1941 and eight months later they were separated. After the divorce Gardner said that Rooney had been wonderful but behaved like a child.
It was the first of eight marriages, an expensive habit which 10 years and four divorces later had cost Rooney a cool $1 million in alimony.
His last MGM film was the hugely successful National Velvet, but when he returned to Hollywood to make Love Laughs at Andy Hardy. he was too old for the part and the lighthearted pre war fantasy of the series was out of step with the spirit of the changing times.

The Treadmill Years

The skids were under him, and in the next four years he made only four films. After The Big Wheel, he went freelance. Now there was no longer an indulgent studio to ply him with gifts, pay him a vast salary and cater to his every whim. He was 29, but looked like an elderly 18 year old, and his manic energy had transformed into embittered truculence.
With characteristic dynamism he set about rebuilding his career, taking his act in to night clubs and to television. He made a great many terrible films, including the Haunted House in 1956, and a few good ones scattered throughout the 50's. He got good notices for The Bold and the Brave and then scored a success in the title of Baby Face Nelson. Rooney has some memorable parts in The Twilight Zone, and Requiem for a Heavyweight, in which he proved his versatility as a serious actor.

But financial and marital problems continued to plague him. In June 1962 he filed a petition for bankruptcy, listing assets of $500 and debts of over 12 million.
In February 1966, he discovered the body of his fifth wife Barbara Ann in their bedroom alongside the corpse of her Yugoslavian lover Milos Milosevic, who had shot her and then turned the gun on himself.
In 1970 it was reported that when MGM ran into difficulties, he offered to take over the ailing studio with a plan to make 20 films for $20 million dollars. At the end of the decade 1979 he was on Broadway co- starring with veteran dancer Ann Miller in a smash hit musical Sugar Babies. Given a strong director and some imaginative casting, "the oldest has- been in the business" undoubtedly still had a few tricks left up his sleeve.
in 1978 Rooney married Jan Chamberlin and the marriage is a successful one.


In September 2010 Mickey Rooney celebrated his 90th birthday. Among the honorable guests were Donald Trump, and Tony Bennett.



 

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart was a turn-of -the-century Christmas present for upper middle class parents, and Boggie often joed that he got jipped out of a good birthday present. He entered the world on December 25, 1899 but, in fact, he had more cause for complaint than that. His father, a Manhattan surgeon, and his bossy, artist mother were both critical and cold, and Bogart responded by setting up a veil of insolence to protect himself from them.

In long term that anti-authoritatian veneer became his screen stock in trade but it did not impress his parents. He continued to disappoint them, failing to pass the entrance examination for Yale University.
To escape their rage he joined the US Navy, where a scuffle with a prisoner he was escorting resulted in a wound to his upper lip that left him with the lopsided smile and inimitable lisp that even now, decades after his death, contribute to the charm of one of the world's most popular actors.
After an honorable discharge in 1918 and a spell as a runner for a Wall Street broker, Bogart took to the boards in a play called Drifting in 1922. The critics were not impressed, but his first line, "Tennis anyone?" set the tone for his early stage career as an upper crust, sophisticated juvenile lead.
To Bogart this establishment image was an anathema and he set about counteracting it with long drinks and short marriages. He formed a life-long bond with Scotch whisky which he drank heavily, and at times excessively, without ever letting it affect his work. "I don't trust any bastard who doesn't drink," was one of his creeds, and he repeated it often.
As for women, he found them at work. The first was Helen Menken, a former child star whom he met in Drifting and married when he was 25. As she was a sophisticated, intelligent woman of the theatrical world while he was a bit player. The marriage lasted less than one year, and approximately one year after the divorce he married another woman, Mary Philips. This time the marriage would last from 1928-1937.
Less than one year after his divorce from Mary he married Mayo Methot, and their marriage lasted from 1938-1945.

Bogart experienced some level of success on Broadway during the late 20s and this inspired him to take a crack at Hollywood. He failed to click in his first dozen films before getting his big break in 1935 when he played a gangster in The Petrified Forest.
He was given a contract at Warner Brothers and began giving James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and George Raft a run for their money.
In te 1940s through perseverence and good luck, he began to get larger patrs, better scripts and good directors. He was seen in They Drive By Night, Maltese Falcon and High Sierra during this period and was now in the high ranks of Hollywood actors.
In 1943 Boggie played in Casablanca and received an Osar nomination. In 1944 he met Lauren bacall They were paired in To Have And Have Not and The Big Sleep. Bogie was in love and mrried Lauren, and went on to make the Sierra Madre and Key Largo, again with Bacall. He was still at the height of his career when he died in 1957.

Gloria Swanson, Joseph Kennedy and Hollywood

Gloria Swanson worked hard in comedies before being recognized by Cecil B. DeMille as a serious actress. By the early 20s Gloria was an international star. Teh Great Moment,directed by Sam Wood who handled her next nine films, at Paramount, was the first in which her name appeared above the title. In 1922 she was with Valentino in Beyond the Rocks, and the following year negotiated a new contract with Paramount which gave her a say in the choice of roles. She insisted on Zaza, directed by Allan Dwan,playing a gamine-like Parisienne soubrette, and racing through an an outlandish parade of costumes. Careful to keep her fans guessing, she played a gum-chewing shop girl in Dwan's Manhandled and then made a Ruritian romance, Her Love Story, wearing a bridal outfit which was said to have cost $100,000. At the end of 1924 she made Madame Sans-Gene in Paris. She returned in triumph with a new husband, the Marquis de la Falaise de la Coudraye. At the New York premiere of Madame Sans-Gene, a gigantic Stars and Strips and Tricolour flew over the Rivoli Theater, while the entire facade was filled with Swanson's name in lights. making a royal progress across America, she wired ahead to Paramount, "Am arriving Monday with Marquis. Arrange ovation." It was proof, if proof was needed, of her early vow that, "when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment the star.Everyone from the studio gate man to the highest executive will know it."

In 1926 Paramount offered to renew Swanson's contract at a fabulous $18,000 per week, But the star wanted to produce her own pictures and, funded by her then lover, Joseph Kennedy, she went to United Artists at $20,000 per week. She indulged her passion for extravagance in her first independent production, The Loves of Sunya in 1927, but then met her match in Erich Von Stroheim, who directed the ill-fated Queen Kelly. Von Stroheim spent $600,000on this baroque pean to sado-masochism before Swanson pulled the plug. Undaunted she made Sadie Thompson in 1j928, and then The Trespasser, her fist talkie.

Kennedy Affair, Gloria Swanson and Joe

Hollywood Pin up Girl, Rita Hayworth's Makeover

 Although Rita Hayworth was a natural beauty who arrived in Hollywood to enhancer her dancing career, Hollywood had some pretty strict standards for its would be stars. She was immediately given parts that displayed her talents as a dancer which branched into some minor acting roles. Rita was beautiful but looked chubby and lacked sculpt and definition on camera. The studio went to work to find ways of improving her appearance. She was ordered to go on a diet and quickly lost 20 pounds. Her hairline was her biggest flaw.

Rita Hayworth with "the streak"

Her hairline was rather low and made her whole face appear short and round. Rita braced herself for electrolysis treatments to permanently change her hairline. The whole procedure took over one year before it was complete. Because she would be going through a transition while doing parts and sitting for photo shoots, her black hair was streaked blond in the front to draw attention away from the stark, uneven, black hairline that was now ever changing. Movie fans admired and copied Rita's look and nicknamed it, "the streak." But after Rita's electrolysis was completed, her hairline was so stunning that the studio gave her a beautiful and dynamic new color that she would become famous for.

Her other flaw was her slightly lower right eye. The studio drew attention away from her uneven eyes by adding a few extra eyelashes that were extra long and flared upward, to the corner of her left eye. Her flaw was never noticed.

Plastic Surgery in the 1950s and Today,Rita Hayworth Before and After