The best actor James Stewart ever worked with: “Very, very special”
James Stewart was a proper Hollywood star.
Consistently leading many incredible films, where, whether he was playing a man ready to give up in It’s A Wonderful Life, or a nosey parker who lets his curiosity get the better of him in Rear Window, he mastered a charming persona that served him well.
The actor worked with many big stars and filmmakers throughout his career, but he always returned to Alfred Hitchcock, whom he could trust like no one else. First working with him on the film Rope, released in 1948, Stewart knew that collaborating with the ‘Master of Suspense’ was never going to be easy; for example, Rope required extensive long takes, but he still came back to him for three more films.
The Man Who Knew Too Much saw him assume the role of a family man who becomes involved in an assassination plot against his will, while Vertigo saw him become obsessed with the woman he is instructed to follow. But it was Rear Window that allowed Stewart to work with an actor he found to be the best he’d ever worked with, although in just a few years, she’d packed acting in for good.
Of course, I’m referring to Grace Kelly, who would step down from her role as a Hollywood star when she was just 26 in favour of a life of royalty. Yet, in her short career, she appeared in many classic films, like High Noon, To Catch a Thief, Dial M for Murder, and The Country Girl, for which she won an Oscar. Rear Window was a particularly memorable role for Kelly, though, starring as Lisa, Stewart’s girlfriend, who goes along with his follies when he is convinced that there has been a murder in his neighbour’s home.
“The wonderful thing about Grace was that she was just completely at ease with her lines. The emphasis was always in the right place, and this came from her. I remembered that very vividly, and it was really brought back last night. Absolutely fascinating woman. This was only her fifth picture,” Stewart explained in Jimmy Stewart: A Biography by Marc Eliot.
The actor had a lot of positive things to say about Kelly, who, like her name, was full of grace and poise, which he greatly admired: “I remember her so vividly…she had a warmth and a tenderness about her, and you could see that it wasn’t forced, that it wasn’t her way of acting. It was the woman herself. This…warmth and tenderness combined with the tremendous acting skill she had…she was something very, very special.”
Kelly made her final acting performance in 1956’s High Society, a musical version of The Philadelphia Story, which Stewart, of course, starred in, just two years after the release of Rear Window, choosing to step back from the spotlight when she married Prince Rainier III, making her the Princess of Monaco.
It was a shame that her talents essentially went to waste, but in her short career, she gained enough admiration to make her an icon.
