Review
Title: Jimmy Stewart Goes To Hollywood
Author: Mahonri Stewart
Publisher: Prospero Arts and Media
https://prosperoarts.weebly.com/theatredramatic-publishing.html
Genre: Biography written as a play
Year Published: 2019
Number of Pages: 164
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9781072267997
Price: $12.00
Reviewed by Trudy Thompson for the Association for Mormon Letters
I admit I have never been in a play or even read a script for a play. I am a lifelong Jimmy Stewart fan though, and so were my parents. I never could have imagined reading a script for a play that would have me enthralled from the start. Mahonri Stewart’s gift as a playwright certainly shines through in this entertaining book.
The play is set in the 1930’s and 1940’s. The opening scene is in the living room f the Stewart home in Pennsylvania where Jimmy is playing his accordion, his mother is at the piano, and Jimmy’s two sisters are trying to talk their father in joining them in singing.
We learn early on that Jimmy’s father, Alexander, strongly disapproves of Jimmy’s hobby of building airplane models, his accordion playing, his lack of interest in sports, and Jimmy’s desire to become a pilot. His father insists that Jimmy attend Princeton University. After Princeton, Alexander plans on Jimmy returning home to run the family hardware store that had been in the family for three generations.
Jimmy begins attending Princeton, where he is soon asked to audition for an accordion solo for an upcoming play. He gets the part but tells his new friends that he has no interest in going into show business, and that he plans on becoming an architect.
His friends at Princeton encourage him as he becomes popular in the plays there, but memories of his father and mother’s admonition to stay away from “show biz” people haunt him, along with his low self esteem regarding his tall, lanky appearance and his stuttering.
When the Harvard Dramatic Society sends Margaret Sullivan to Princeton to be in one of their plays. Jimmy is instantly infatuated with her and agrees to stay on and do the part he was asked to do.
Over the course of time at Princeton, Jimmy and Margaret find themselves in a complicated but beautiful relationship, where Margaret believes in his talent, the goodness of his soul, and that the sky was the limit for him in acting and performing.
After graduation, Jimmy is encouraged to go to a theater in Cape Cod to perform. He learns that Margaret has been performing there. It is at Cape Cod that Jimmy meets Henry Fonda. All three then go on to perform on Broadway for summer stock productions.
Margaret is the first to leave for Hollywood when Universal Pictures signs her on, and after Jimmy, his old college chum Josh, and Henry Fonda move in together, Margaret insists on Jimmy having a part in a movie she was starring in called,” The Next Time We Love.” This is Jimmy’s introduction to Hollywood, its corrupt studio system, the naysayers, the manipulators, the handlers and doubters. But it is Margaret Sullivan’s faith in him that gives him the courage to undertake the uphill battle for this starry eyed, lanky, stuttering young man from Pennsylvania. One performance leads to another move, and another, and soon the studios are fighting over him.
One of the most fascinating things about this book is how Jimmy Stewart is mingling with the likes of Margaret Sullivan (who is married to Henry Fonda for a short period of time,) and Lucille Ball, Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and well known directors like Frank Capra from very early on in his career. It was destiny that took him to Hollywood and made him the charming and unforgettable star that he became.
Where would we be without the films Jimmy Stewart made through out his life? Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Rear Window, The Philadelphia Story, and the Christmas favorite-“It’s a Wonderful Life”-among many others.
Permit me to add some facts that are not included in this book about this amazing actor, war hero, and humanitarian. Jimmy Stewart was an established actor in Hollywood when WW II started in Europe. Early in 1941, he tried to join the Army, but he was rejected because he did not weigh enough. He started eating high fat foods and tried again. This time he was accepted and because he already knew how to fly a plane, he was put him in the Army Air Corps. As an enlisted man, he took extension courses in order to attain his commission, and got his lieutenant bars a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He then went to Europe as commander of an Air Force bomber group. He flew more than twenty combat missions in a B 24, leading as many as one thousand planes at a time over Germany.
After the war, Stewart remained in the United States Air Force Reserve and was promoted to Brigadier General on July 23, 1959, becoming the highest ranking actor in American military history. In 1966, he requested combat duty, and took part in a bombing strike over Vietnam.
My father was employed at Lockheed Aircraft factory during WW II. He worked up from being in an assembly line, to being the supervisor over the installation of the radio equipment, to working on the development of the P38 Lightning, and acting as a test pilot. During the war years, many Hollywood actors, actresses and singers came to the plant for a tour. My Father was assigned to take the visiting dignitaries on tours of the factory.
They knew Dad could be trusted to not become starry eyed and awe struck, and they observed early on that he never asked for an autograph. ( How I wish he had!) On more than one occasion, Jimmy Stewart came in for a tour and to talk with the workers and their supervisors. Dad especially loved to tell us about his visits. They could talk “shop” as they both enjoyed being pilots. Dad always said that Jimmy Stewart, despite his status as a Hollywood star, was one of the most down to earth, friendliest, knowledgeable persons that he had the privilege to meet there. And yes, he really did have that well known and endearing trait of stammering and stuttering.
What a wonderful legacy Jimmy Stewart has left for our country and the world, through his stellar career as an actor and his service to our country. A true hero.-never to be forgotten. And Mahonri Stewart’s play will enable others to fully appreciate this wonderful man.