Provided by Wikipedia James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908July 2, 1997), also known as Jimmy Stewart,
was an American actor and military officer. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality he portrayed both on and off the screen, Stewart is considered one of the greatest actors of all time, and epitomized the "American ideal" in twentieth-century United States. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors.
Stewart's first postwar role was as George Bailey in Capra's ''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946). Although it earned him an Oscar nomination, the film was not a big success at first. It has increased in popularity since its release, and is considered a Christmas classic and one of Stewart's most famous performances. In the 1950s, Stewart played darker, more morally ambiguous characters in movies directed by Anthony Mann, including ''Winchester '73'' (1950), ''The Glenn Miller Story'' (1954) and ''The Naked Spur'' (1953), and by Alfred Hitchcock in ''Rope'' (1948), ''Rear Window'' (1954), ''The Man Who Knew Too Much'' (1956), and ''Vertigo'' (1958). ''Vertigo'' was ignored by critics upon release, but is now recognized as an American cinematic masterpiece. His other films in the 1950s included the Broadway adaptation ''Harvey'' (1950) and the courtroom drama ''Anatomy of a Murder'' (1959), both of which landed him Academy Award nominations. He was one of the most popular film stars of the decade, with most of his films becoming box office successes.
Stewart remained unmarried until his 40s, and was dubbed "The Great American Bachelor" by the press. In 1949, he married former model Gloria Hatrick McLean. They had twin daughters, and he adopted her two sons from her previous marriage. The marriage lasted until McLean's death in 1994; Stewart died of a pulmonary embolism three years later.