The Hollywood icon James Stewart hated working with: “The way she treated him was appalling”
One Christmas tradition that they’ve had over in the US for many decades now, along with trying to outdo their neighbours’ festive lights and electing disastrous presidents, is to sit down with the family and watch It’s a Wonderful Life, the 1946 fantasy film directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart.
The story behind why it became a tradition is quite an interesting one; the film was never actually that popular for a long time. The themes involved in the film, about a down-on-his-luck man played by Stewart contemplating throwing himself off a bridge, weren’t particularly cheery, and on release, it was actually a sizable flop.
But thanks to someone forgetting to renew its copyright some 28 years later, the film fell into the public domain, meaning people could watch it for free, which they did in spades, some channels showing it non-stop during the Christmas period until eventually putting the film on became a seemingly unmissable yuletide event.
Stewart, who played lead character George Bailey in the film, described the movie as his favourite out of more than 80 he made over his award-winning career and by all accounts, his friendly, everyman persona translated into real life too, with those he worked with and the public reporting he was pleasant and generous to those he met.
But It’s a Wonderful Life wasn’t the only film Stewart made that dealt with themes of suicide. Another, far more ill-fated film co-starring Bette Davis was made right at the end of his long career, 1982 in fact, on a TV movie called Right of Way.
Involving a rather depressing-sounding plot that found an elderly couple deciding to end their lives early against the wishes of their daughter, it was hoped by Stewart that it could be viewed in a similar vein to the previous year’s hit, On Golden Pond.
That was a film starring Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn that had been a huge success, winning Oscars for both the ageing leading actors and picking up ten nominations in total. Stewart also apparently wanted to make Right of Way with Davis by way of a tribute to his old friend Fonda, who died in the middle of 1982.
But immediately, issues were apparent on set. Stewart was made to take a physical examination to prove that he was healthy enough to film and wouldn’t “drop dead halfway through production”, which caused him some embarrassment, and apparently, Davis thought the film was solely about her.
According to Stewart’s wife, Gloria, in Michael Munn’s book Jimmy Stewart: The Truth Behind the Legend, Davis “didn’t give Jim a chance”, adding: “The way she treated him was appalling, and I know the director thought so too. There should have been the chemistry that Hank Fonda and Katy Hepburn had in On Golden Pond. But there was no chemistry. She just froze him out, and the film suffered.”
Things got worse during an intimate scene in the film with the elderly pair lying in bed, with Stewart due to kiss Davis on the cheek. But according to Gloria, “When Jim went to kiss her, she turned her head away. Everyone was shocked, especially Jim. So in the next take he just hugged her.”
Right of Way turned out to be one of Stewart’s final appearances on screen after a career that had begun in the 1930s. His final project was voicing a character in the animated movie An American Tail: Fievel Goes West in 1991, and he died aged 89 in 1997.
