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Show Monday, March 9, 1987 Special honors Jimmy Stewart By JERRY BUCK AP Television Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) Johnny Carson is host of a PBS tribute to James Stewart, who in film after film, beginning in 1935, was the personification of the values of decency and hard work. was awful nice of Johnny to do that," the Stewart says in that familiar, slow drawl. In 78 movies, two TV movies, one miniser-ies- , and two regular series, only once did Stewart ever play a bad guy. He was the killer in "After the Thin Man." More typical were his roles as the smalltown businessman in "It's a Wonderful Life," the defense attorney in "Anatomy of a Murder," the trapper in "How the West Was Won," the frontier doctor in "The Shootist," the naive young senator battling entrenched power in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," role as the and his Academy Award-winnin- g lovelorn reporter in "The Philadelphia Story." PBS will broadcast "James Stewart: A Wonderful Life" on Friday as part of its "Great Performances' series. It airs on KUED Channel 7 at 8 p.m. In addition to cast includes Katharine Carson, the from "The PhilaHepburn, Stewart's delphia Story," ?,nd Lee Remick from "Anatomy of a Murder." Stewart says that during the filming of the PBS production, he and Carson walked around the back lot at Universal Studios. "We went past several sets I'd worked on. " he including the house we used in Harvey, I MGM made more says. "1 guess next to films at Universal than anywhere else. "I came here in 1935 as a contract player at MGM. It was a seven-yea- r contract, but you had to read the fine print to see it. I thought it because that's the way was we got paid. They had the option to renew it. My contract ran out when I was in the war." Stewart served as a bomber pilot and group commander in World War II and at the end of the war he didn't return to MGM. "1 was grateful to MGM and I was ready to go back," he says. "But my agent, Leland Hayward. advised me not to sign again. He said I should Stewart thinks the big studio system of Jimmy Stewart is being honored in a PBS special on Channel 7 Friday at 8 p.m. those days was responsible for getting the motion picture industry into the big time. "It was great for an actor, too," he adds, "because you learned your craft by working at it, not by studying or reading about it. "I had little parts in big pictures and big pulley. The newspaper office was across the horse Stewart rode in all of his Western films got a bulletin I except "Broken Arrow." parts in little pictures. You got to work at 8:30 street and every time they "I was doing 'Winchester 73' and Stevie moved the plane closer to Paris. I talked my in the morning and you left at 6. You worked six days a week, including Saturday. If you Dad into keeping the lights on and people stood Meyers brought the horse around," he says. "It was named Pie and he was a little frisky weren't in a picture you were doing tests with out in front all night." in "The and hurt a couple of people. I'd een around Lindbergh Stewart of played or Later, working signing girls they were thinking horses as a kid because I'd cleaned my out in the gym or on the road plugging a Spirit of St. Louis.' Stewart was drafted into the Army before father's stable. If you're afraid, a horse can picture." Stewart grew up in the small town of Pearl Harbor, and because he was already Hea tell. It can absolutely detect any fear. Pie was school. a sorrel with a white blaze down his forehead. Indiana, Pa., where his father ran a hardware qualified pilot he got into flying and bomber a as to quickly Half quarter horse and half Arabian. I rode went pilot England store. He played the accordion, ran the projector at the movie theater, cleaned out the stable became a squadron commander. He won the him for 20 years. "When we did 'Cheyenne Social Club' we behind his house, was captain of the light- Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf a raid on were in high country out of Santa Fe and the commander as during Clusters in club and wing the football team, sang glee weight aircraft factories at Brunswick, Germany. moment 1 got on him 1 realized 1 couldn't ride eventually went off to Princeton University. Later he was promoted to colonel and made a him anymore. I put a tombstone on his grave He also acquired a lifelong love of flying. "When Charles Lindbergh flew across the group commander. He is now a retired gener- after he died." Stewart's last American feature film was Atlantic I rigged up a display in the window of were Fonda late the "The and Stewart Henry Magic of Lassie" in 1978, although since my father's hardware store." he says, then he has appeared on television, including a made a replica of the Woolworth Building in longtime pals. During their appearance togethan movie with Bette Davis and the miniseries New York and the Eiffel Tower in Paris and I er in "The Cheyenne Social Club," Fonda, of the "North and South." had a model of the Spirit of St. Louis on a accomplished artist, painted a picture Can NBC salvage xStory'? 'it all-st- co-st- j month-to-mont- J free-lance- ." 'i J By JERRY BUCK AP Television Writer - LOS ANGELES (AP) Detective Dennis Farina has just been handed his toughest assignment: solve The Case of the Missing Ratings for NBC's "Crime Sto- ry." deFarina, a former real-lif- e tective who stars as Lt. Mike Torello, and five other actors from the rookie police show are on a five-cit- y promotional tour in search of more viewers. The gritty 1960s crime drama, produced by Michael Mann, ranks near the bottom of the ratings for the season. Last fall, it was shot down by ABC's "Moonlighting" on Tuesday nights. NBC moved "Crime Story" to Fridays to follow Mann's other series, "Miami Vice," and the ratings have improved, though it still loses out to CBS' "Falcon Crest." NBC is pulling "Crime Story" off the schedule temporarily as of March 13. It will return later in reruns, but no decision has been made as to whether the show will return next season. Meanwhile, Farina and his fellow actors are plugging the show in San Francisco, Atlanta, Baltimore, New York and Boston. "Crime Story" was conceived as a miniseries, following a police officer, a prosecutor and a hood developing in their respective careers. But it was expanded into a series. The show was by Chuck Adamson, who had been Farina's supervisor when he was a Chicago police detective. "Crime Story" was originally in Chicago, where Farina still lives, then moved to Las Vegas as part of the story. Bad guy Ray Luca, played by Anthony Denison, has bought a casino and is being stalked by Torello and prosecutor David Abrams, played by Stephen Lang, who have become federal agents. set Farina, one of seven children and father of three sons, resigned only two years ago after 18 years in police work. He began acting on the side when Mann cast him as a killer in the 1981 movie "Thief." He was an FBI agent in Mann's feature film of last year, "Manhunter." |
