• Frank's Lesson's Contest

    We want to see your skills! Post a video between now and November 1st showing what you've learned from Frank's lessons and 3 people will be selected to win a free shirt. Good luck everyone!

    Create a channel Learn more
  • Having trouble using the site?

    Contact support

Jimmy Stewart.

Maggot

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood"
Supporter
Full Member
Minuteman
Supporter
  • Jul 27, 2007
    26,103
    29,830
    Virginia
    Retired a Brig. General.

    DID YOU KNOW......
    For all the fans of “It’s A Wonderful Life” and Jimmy Stewart . . .
    Just months after winning his 1941 Academy Award for best actor in “The Philadelphia Story,” Jimmy Stewart, one of the best-known actors of the day, left Hollywood and joined the US Army. He was the first big-name movie star to enlist in World War II.
    An accomplished private pilot, the 33-year-old Hollywood icon became a US Army Air Force aviator, earning his 2nd Lieutenant commission in early 1942. With his celebrity status and huge popularity with the American public, he was assigned to starring in recruiting films, attending rallies, and training younger pilots.
    Stewart, however, wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to fly combat missions in Europe, not spend time in a stateside training command. By 1944, frustrated and feeling the war was passing him by, he asked his commanding officer to transfer him to a unit deploying to Europe. His request was reluctantly granted.
    Stewart, now a Captain, was sent to England, where he spent the next 18 months flying B-24 Liberator bombers over Germany. Throughout his time overseas, the US Army Air Corps' top brass had tried to keep the popular movie star from flying over enemy territory. But Stewart would hear nothing of it.
    Determined to lead by example, he bucked the system, assigning himself to every combat mission he could. By the end of the war he was one of the most respected and decorated pilots in his unit.
    But his wartime service came at a high personal price.
    In the final months of WWII he was grounded
    for being “flak happy,” today called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When he returned to the US in August 1945, Stewart was a changed man. He had lost so much weight that he looked sickly. He rarely slept, and when he did he had nightmares of planes exploding and men falling through the air screaming (in one mission alone his unit had lost 13 planes and 130 men, most of whom he knew personally).
    He was depressed, couldn’t focus, and refused to talk to anyone about his war experiences. His acting career was all but over. As one of Stewart's biographers put it,
    “Every decision he made [during the war] was going to preserve life or cost lives. He took back to Hollywood all the stress that he had built up.”
    In 1946 he got his break. He took the role of George Bailey, the suicidal father in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ The rest is history.
    Actors and crew of the set realized that in many of the disturbing scenes of George Bailey unraveling in front of his family, Stewart wasn’t acting. His PTSD was being captured on filmed for potentially millions to see. But despite Stewart's inner turmoil, making the movie was therapeutic for the combat veteran. He would go on to become one of the most accomplished and loved actors in American history.
    When asked in 1941 why he wanted to leave his acting career to fly combat missions over Nazi Germany, he said,
    “This country's conscience is bigger than all the studios in Hollywood put together, and the time will come when we'll have to fight.”
    This Christmas season, as many of us watch the classic Christmas film, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ it’s also a fitting time to remember the sacrifices of Jimmy Stewart and all the men who gave up so much to serve their country during wartime. We will always remember you!
    Postscript:
    While fighting in Europe, Stewart's Oscar statue was proudly displayed in his father’s Pennsylvania hardware store. Throughout his life, the beloved actor always said his father, a World War I veteran, was the person who had made the biggest impact on him.
    Jimmy Stewart was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 and died in 1997 at the age of 89.
     
    20 February 1966: Brigadier General James M. Stewart, United States Air Force Reserve, flew the last combat mission of his military career, a 12 hour, 50 minute “Arc Light” bombing mission over Vietnam, aboard Boeing B-52 Stratofortress of the 736th Bombardment Squadron, 454th Bombardment Wing.

    i think he flew this because his son was killed in Vietnam…….
     
    20 February 1966: Brigadier General James M. Stewart, United States Air Force Reserve, flew the last combat mission of his military career, a 12 hour, 50 minute “Arc Light” bombing mission over Vietnam, aboard Boeing B-52 Stratofortress of the 736th Bombardment Squadron, 454th Bombardment Wing.

    i think he flew this because his son was killed in Vietnam…….
    I didnt know about his son. Mr. Stewart, like many of his fellow actors, Gable, Borgnine, Marvin, the list is too long, were true patriots and hero's in my book. RIP, though I know if theyre watching whats been done with their sacrifice, they cant.
     
    Many fought and were wounded including Lee Marvin who was on Saipan. Charles Durning (Pappy O'Daniel) was in the first wave with the Big Red 1 on Omaha and later wounded returned to duty and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Eddie Albert also served with distinction at Tarawa.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: FCS and lash
    'It's a Wonderfiul Life" is one of my favorite movies and it is my favorite Christmas movie. I have it on DVD in black and white, the only way for me to watch it. I did not like it when Ted Turner colorized it.

    I knew about his service but not his personal problems.

    As Mel Gibson said when talking about his role in "The Man Without a Face," "We all have some kind of damage."

    Much respect for James Stewart. And Donna Reed. She played such a great housewife who went out in a blizzard to garner help for her husband and disregarding whatever loss of respect she might suffer. Only to find that all the folks they helped were more than ready to help in return.
     
    And one of my favorite scenes is in the alternate Nick's Bar.

    "Look, we serve hard drinks in here to men who want to get drunk fast. And we don't need you two giving the place "atmosphere.""
     
    • Like
    Reactions: lash and JoeZ
    Gene Hackman was in the Army along time before leaving. He got into acting in his 40s.

    Adam Driver is a Marine (you are never not a Marine.) And he has started an actor's group for exiting vets who want to learn that skill.
     
    We’ve also had a handful of College and NFL players who stepped up…

    As did Ted Williams.

    And don’t forget Elvis… who could have weaseled out of Army service… and while he was not sent into combat… did his part before returning to his movie and singing career.

    There are still great kids out there who love their country!!!

    Sirhr
     
    We’ve also had a handful of College and NFL players who stepped up…

    As did Ted Williams.

    And don’t forget Elvis… who could have weaseled out of Army service… and while he was not sent into combat… did his part before returning to his movie and singing career.

    There are still great kids out there who love their country!!!

    Sirhr
    George Gobel was a B-26 instructor in Oklahoma during the war. His self-deprecating joke was, "If you think about it, not one Japanese aircraft ever got past Tulsa......and we didn't even have guns on our airplanes."
     
    Audie Murphy 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
    Audie Murphy became a star after the war. He grew up in Texas so dirt poor that the poor kids made fun of how poor he was.

    He was so skinny that they rejected him repeatedly from military service saying he was too small and frail (mainly from malnutrition) to ever be an effective soldier.

    IIRC he remains still America’s most decorated soldier. But the only thing he gave up to join the Army was certain starvation!

    He became a movie star after the war and had horrible PTSD.

    Sirhr
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Expert684
    Yes,

    We could send Diddy and friends over to enemy territory to clap their cheeks. Enemy defeat might look a little different.

    “Surrender now or we send Diddy after your goats! He has 2,000 gallons of lube pre-deployed on Diego Garcia!”

    Poor Haji’s wouldn’t stand a chance!

    Sirhr
     
    Last edited: