Source: Good News Network
On this day 110 years ago, the beloved actor Jimmy Stewart was born. Any number of his movies are included among the greatest American films of all time, particularly Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; It’s a Wonderful Life; Harvey; and the Hitchcock-directed Rear Window, and Vertigo.
Known for his distinctive drawl and down-to-earth persona, he often portrayed middle-class men struggling in crisis.
Equally at home in Westerns, thrillers, biographies, and family films, he also had keen comedic timing, as seen in The Philadelphia Story, for which he won his only Oscar among five nominations. Married for 45 years, he also won honors in war—as a World War II pilot and Vietnam War veteran—rising to the rank of Brigadier General in the Air Force. WATCH a tribute, and see his personality shine during his 1980 acceptance speech… (1908)He sacrificed 5 years in the prime of his acting career to serve his country. Not only that, he was offered a safe post, as all celebrities were (because their death would be a huge blow to the nations’s moral), but he refused and instead flew more than a dozen dangerous bombing missions.
MORE Good News on this Day:
- Levi Strauss received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets (1873)
- Amelia Earhart began the world’s first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, taking off in Newfoundland and landing the next day in a pasture in Ireland (1932)
- Romania conducted its first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections (1990)
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