James Stewart
Legacy

Stewart is remembered for portraying idealist "everyman" characters in his films. His heroism on screen and devotion to his family made him relatable and representative of the American ideal, leading Stewart to be considered one of the best-loved figures in twentieth-century American popular culture. According to film scholar Dennis Bingham, "his ability to 'play'—even symbolize—honesty and 'American ideals' made him an icon into whose mold later male stars tried to pour themselves". Similarly, film scholar James Naremore has called Stewart "the most successful actor of the 'common man' in the history of movies" and "the most intensely-emotional leading man to emerge from the studio system", who could cry on screen without losing his masculinity. David Thomson has explained Stewart's appeal by stating that "we wanted to be him, and we wanted to be liked by him", while Roger Ebert has stated that "whether he played everyman, or everyman's hidden psyche, Stewart was an innately likable man whose face, loping gait and distinctive drawl became famous all over the world". Among Stewart's most recognizable qualities was his manner of speaking with a hesitant drawl. According to film scholar Tim Palmer, "Stewart's legacy rests on his roles as the nervous idealist standing trial for, and gaining stature from, the sincerity of his beliefs, while his emotive convictions are put to the test." Film critic David Ansen wrote about Stewart's appeal as a person in addition to his appeal as an actor. Ansen retold a story in which Jack Warner, upon being told about Ronald Reagan's presidential ambitions, said, "No. Jimmy Stewart for president, Ronald Reagan for best friend." Ansen further explained that Stewart was the ultimate trustworthy movie star.

In contrast to his popularly remembered "all-American" screen persona, film critics and scholars have tended to emphasize that his performances also showed a "dark side". According to film scholar Murray Pomerance, "the other Jimmy Stewart... was a different type altogether, a repressed and neurotic man buried beneath an apparently calm facade, but ready at any moment to explode with vengeful anxiety and anger, or else with deeply twisted and constrained passions that could never match up with cheery personality of the alter ego." Bingham has described him as having "two coequal personas; the earnest idealist, the nostalgic figure of the homespun boy next door; and the risk-taking actor who probably performed in films for more canonical auteurs than any other American star". According to him, it is this complexity and his ambiguous masculinity and sexuality with which he approached his roles that characterized his persona. Naremore has stated that there was a "troubled, cranky, slightly-repressed feeling in behavior", and Thomson has written that it was his dark side that produced "great cinema".

Stewart was one of the most sought-after actors in 1950s Hollywood, proving that independent actors could be successful in the film industry, which led more actors in Hollywood to forego studio contracts. According to Bingham, Stewart marked "the transition between the studio period...and the era of free-lance actors, independent production, and powerful talent agents that made possible the "new kind of star" of the late 1960s". Although Stewart was not the first big-name freelance actor, his "mythic sweetness and idealism were combined with eccentric physical equipment and capacity as an actor to enact emotion, anxiety, and pain" enabled him to succeed in both the studio system, which emphasized the star as a real person, and the skeptical post-studio era.

A number of Stewart's films have become classics of American cinema, with twelve of his films having been inducted into the United States National Film Registry as of 2019, and five— Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Rear Window (1954), and Vertigo (1958)—being featured on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time. Stewart and Robert De Niro share the title for the most films represented on the AFI list. Stewart is also the most represented leading actor on the "100 Greatest Movies of All Time" list presented by Entertainment Weekly. Two of his characters—Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)—made AFI's list of the one hundred greatest heroes and villains, and Harvey (1950) and The Philadelphia Story (1940) were included in their list of Greatest American Comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Stewart third on its list of the greatest American male actors.
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