Word: sullavan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Which Jimmy Stewart do you mean? The hometown boy of romantic comedy, goshing and gollying his way into Margaret Sullavan's heart in The Shop Around the Corner? Or the tortured Capra hero whose trust in American values was tested past all endurance, till he tumbled close to madness? Or the pixilated Elwood P. Dowd of Harvey, his best friend an invisible rabbit? Or the vengeful loner of the Anthony Mann westerns of the '50s--taut epics like Bend of the River and The Man from Laramie--in which Stewart often played a bitter Moses leading settlers...
...neurotic as the Stewart character could be, it was for the most part anti-erotic. Smart city gals (Hepburn, Sullavan, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, nearly the whole fabulous constellation of '30s star actresses) would toy with this bumpkin, only to find he had magically restored their emotional virginity. In his private life--which he kept private--Stewart was a responsible grownup, a bachelor until 1949, when he married Gloria McLean. She had two sons from a previous marriage; they had twin daughters...
...hard to imagine Stewart's innocence as dangerous. The magic moments I treasure most are when his throaty hesitations are melted in a murmur of tenderness--the defensive and rigid store clerk of The Shop Around the Corner confessing his love for Margaret Sullavan, the small-time banker whispering "Mary" over and over while Donna Reed is on the telephone with another...