The actor who single-handedly made James Stewart a star: “It was so obvious”
It’s difficult to imagine the golden age of Hollywood without James Stewart.
He might not have had the charisma of Cary Grant or the sex appeal of Clark Gable, but he had a brand of disarming, everyman charm that really breaks down the defences. Few other actors could have pulled off his level of earnestness without evoking eye-rolls from the audience, and it’s likely that, had anyone else been the stars, movies like Mr Smith Goes to Washington, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Harvey would not be remembered all these years later.
That guilelessness wasn’t just an act. In real life, Stewart was just as folksy and sincere as he often was on screen, which is an attitude that might make you a popular shop owner in a small town but which isn’t particularly conducive to Hollywood success. Luckily for Stewart, he met the right person at just the right time, and she helped turn him into one of the industry’s most sought-after leading men.
The actor first met Margaret Sullavan far from Hollywood when they were doing summer stock theatre in New York in the early 1930s. She was already finding success on the stage and had turned down multiple offers from the film industry.
When she finally accepted her fate and became a Hollywood star, Stewart appeared to be going in the opposite direction. Even when he managed to secure a film contract with MGM, he was left to languish in minuscule roles that few critics noticed.
It was Sullavan who went to bat for him when, in 1935, she was cast in the romantic comedy Next Time We Love, and while it was a bad script, she thought that one of the characters was perfect for her old friend Stewart, and by leveraging her power as a star, she strong-armed Universal into hiring him. It wasn’t easy; she had to threaten to go on strike to make it happen, and everyone thought she was out of her mind.
Given his complete lack of experience in front of the camera, Stewart’s performance left much to be desired at first. Director Edward H Griffith was pretty sure that his leading lady had guaranteed the film’s failure due to her choice of co-star, but she was determined to show the world what she saw in her former theatre buddy. She rehearsed with Stewart constantly, finding ways to incorporate his natural mannerisms into the role and become comfortable in front of the camera.
“It was Margaret Sullavan who made James Stewart a star,” Griffith later said. “And she did, too…” Their chemistry on screen was palpable, and critics and audiences finally took notice of the lanky newcomer, with the co-stars appearing in three other films together – The Shopworn Angel in 1938, The Shop Around the Corner in 1940, and The Mortal Storm the same year.
By all accounts, Stewart was utterly smitten with Sullavan for more than a decade, and their Shopworn Angel co-star Walter Pigeon noted that the actor came alive whenever she was in the room. “It was so obvious that he was in love with her,” he said, but sadly, as Stewart’s career began to ascend to ever-dizzying heights, Sullavan’s fell apart, and she eventually died of a prescription drug overdose in 1960 at the age of 50.
