James Stewart Talking Pictures

James Stewart, one of Hollywood's best-loved actors.

He starred in an amazing number of films

that today are considered to be true classics.

He won an Oscar in 1940 for his role in The Philadelphia Story.

His easy manner and warm, relaxed style

endeared him to audiences across the world.

Stewart became a favourite

of some of cinema's most celebrated directors

like Frank Capra, Anthony Mann and, of course, Alfred Hitchcock.

As well as being an international star,

Stewart had a noted military career, reaching the rank

of Brigadier General in the US Air Force Reserve during World War Two.

His first film after the war was one of his best and it opened

the discussion with Joan Bakewell at the National Film Theatre in 1972.

It's A Wonderful Life. I believe it's your favourite movie?

Yes, I think so. Uh...

I don't exactly know why, it just reminded me of...

a time when Frank Capra told me the idea of it.

It's the first picture I did after I got out of the service

and Frank called me one day and he said, "I have an idea for a movie.

"Why don't you come over to the house and I'll tell you it?"

So I came over and we sat down and he said,

"Now, this picture starts in Heaven,"

and that shook me for a moment. LAUGHTER

And he said, "You're in terrible trouble

"and you are about to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge,

"and an angel comes down

"and he tries to save you,

"but he can't swim, so you save him."

And then Frank got a little mixed up

and he said, "This sounds terrible, doesn't it?"

And I said, "Frank, if you want to do a picture that starts in Heaven

"where I have a guardian angel,

"I'm your boy," and that's the way it started.

Let's go back to how it really started for James Stewart,

because your father had a hardware store in Indiana, Pennsylvania,

so it wasn't in the family line of business for you to become an actor.

I understand, in a sense, your parents were never reconciled

to the fact that you were an actor. They never quite approved, did they?

No, my mother approved. My father just...

He didn't accept the idea of being an actor, my being an actor,

and I think that's the reason he kept the hardware store in operation,

because I'm pretty sure that he felt that I was going to be found out

sooner or later and he wanted to have a job for me to come back to.

LAUGHTER

But he, er, he nonetheless was quite pleased when you won an Oscar,

-because didn't he find it of use in his business?

-Yes, the day...

The night that I won the Oscar, he called me very late.

And said that he thought it was fine and that I should send it

back to the hardware store and he'd put it on the knife counter.

LAUGHTER

And that's what I did and it stayed there for, oh, 20 years,

under a cheese bell.

LAUGHTER

You joke about it, but he sounds a fairly formidable parent

and some considerable opposition to your becoming an actor.

In fact, you went to Princeton University

and took a degree in architecture.

And your friend, Henry Fonda,

says that you are really an actor in spite of yourself, that in fact

you were set on an architectural career

and the acting was an accident.

-Can you tell us about that?

-Well, I suppose in a way it was an accident.

I WAS going to be an architect. I...

I graduated with a degree in architecture and I had

a scholarship to go back to Princeton and get my Masters in architecture.

I'd done theatricals in college,

but I had done them because it was fun.

And then I was asked up to a stock company that was run by Josh Logan

and Bretaigne Windust and Myron McCormick

and Margaret Sullavan and Henry Fonda.

I was asked to come up for the summer, not to act,

but to play my accordion.

I played the accordion...

LAUGHTER ..in a tea room next to the theatre.

LAUGHTER

And I lasted one night.

They said my playing spoiled people's appetites,

and then they gave me various jobs as a prop man, and as small parts,

and I was offered a very small part in a play going to New York.

So the time came to go back to college,

and I just felt that having this tiny little part in a play on Broadway,

it just seemed to me to be a lot more exciting than going back to school.

And that's sort of the way it started.

In 1935, you went to Hollywood.

MGM offered you a contract.

What was it like arriving from Broadway,

not really sure that you'd given up architecture, even by this time?

What impression did it make on you?

Oh, it was very exciting right from the start.

You were doing tiny little parts in big pictures

with stars like Myrna Loy and Bill Powell,

and then you would get a big part in a tiny little picture

that they also made.

In the meantime, you were learning your craft by acting,

which I've always thought is the only way you can learn.

In fact, you were often working on several films at the same time?

Yeah, I was working on five at once, one time.

JOAN LAUGHS

-How did you know which you were playing?

-Well, it was pretty hard.

I had to be briefed every once in a while.

In those days, the big studios would trade you

like they trade ball players.

You would be traded to another studio, maybe for another actor,

or you would be traded for a script, or perhaps,

you would be traded and the other studio would be allowed to use

that studio's backlot for a while.

-LAUGHTER

-What did they trade you for?

I don't know. They said, one time, they traded me for seven horses.

Seven stunt horses.

LAUGHTER

You've appeared in several biographical films, of course.

You've played Glenn Miller and you played Lindbergh.

Is it more difficult to be convincing and natural in them?

How do you approach that kind of part?

You have to make a thing believable without using the device of acting.

And I... That doesn't make any sense at all.

But... LAUGHTER

I've sort of, over the years, I've...developed a theory.

I'm getting to believe that in films,

what everybody is striving for is to produce moments.

Not a performance, not a characterisation,

not something that you get into the part and it's...

You produce moments...

..that create a feeling of believability to what you're doing.

Now the moments sometimes don't work. Sometimes it doesn't go...

It... Nothing happens.

William Wyler has always been very famous for taking a lot of takes,

and there's the story that he had had this scene with a bunch of

very competent people, a very important scene in the movie,

and he'd already done it 30 times, and one of them came and said,

"Willy, I want to know what were doing wrong.

"What do you want us to do now? I don't know what..."

And Willy said, "No, you're doing it fine.

"I'm just waiting for something to happen." LAUGHTER

And that's what I mean by creating moments.

Another thing that happened over the years that bears this out

is that people come up to me and say,

"Boy, I like that picture you did."

Now, they won't remember the name of the picture,

they won't remember where they saw it,

they won't remember who was in it, or who directed it, but they say,

"You know that picture, you were in this room..."

LAUGHTER

"..and you were some kind of a lawyer or something,

"and this fellow was over there, and he turned to you and he said...

"And I forget what he said, but you looked at him

"and, boy, that look, that was some look you give them."

LAUGHTER

And a great many times, you remember that moment too.

And you thought it was pretty good. Every once in a while.

I remember, just while I'm on this, in this moment thing,

I was making a picture in British Columbia, a Western,

and we were on the Columbia ice fields.

And it was raining and there was heavy mist around,

and we couldn't shoot, so we were all huddled around a fire.

And suddenly, out of the mist came a man, and he was not a young man.

He had a beard... It wasn't exactly a beard.

He just hadn't shaved for a while. And he was sort of a miner type,

was dressed like a miner.

And he came closer to us and he said,

"Which one of you fellas is Stewart?" And I said, "I am."

And he came over and looked at me and he said, "Oh, yeah, yeah.

"Now I recognise you."

He said, "Well, I heard you was here

"and I thought I'd come up and say hello.

"I've seen a lot of your pictures." Picture shows, he called them.

He said, "But I think the one I like best, you were in this room..."

LAUGHTER

"..and, uh, your girlfriend was in the next room..."

"and, um, there were fireflies outside

"and you recited a piece of poetry to her

"and I thought that was a nice thing for you to do."

And I remembered exactly the moment, and exactly the film.

I remembered who was in it and who directed it.

And I also realised that that picture had been released 20 years before.

And it made a tremendous impression on me, that man.

To think that I had been part of creating a moment

that this man had liked and had remembered for 20 years.

And I'll never forget it. This, uh...

This is what I mean by "the moment".

Magic moments in cinema was a favourite theme of Stewart's,

and he returned to that

in an interview with Mike Parkinson in 1973.

But it was his distinctive way of talking

that got the conversation started.

What about this unmistakable voice of yours?

Because, going back to the screen awards, you got two ovations.

You're the only man I've known

in the history of television who got two ovations.

You got one when you walked on, and you got one when you said, "Well..."

LAUGHTER

I mean, that's extraordinary, but true. Is the voice...?

It's not acquired, it's natural, is it? It's always been with you?

Always. Always been with me.

LAUGHTER

In that form?

Yes, I don't ever remember trying to change it.

Except, perhaps, when I played Lindbergh.

I tried to raise the voice, because he has a very high voice

and he talks very fast.

He talked like that, and he was very definite, you know,

and he doesn't hem and haw the way I do.

LAUGHTER

So I tried to get it. I don't know whether I did or not.

But that's what I tried to do.

LAUGHTER

Did anyone ever suggest, at any time,

that you should have your voice trained?

That you should go to a voice specialist or something?

Well, not exactly the training in the voice, but I remember... Oh, dear!

I remember I was in a play in New York.

I played an Austrian nobleman.

-MICHAEL CHUCKLES

-Sorry!

It should give you a little idea that I needed the work.

LAUGHTER

I felt I did need the work, but it was a play...

Very sad, terrible, sad, tragic play,

with a young girl by the name of Greta Maren,

who the Shuberts had brought over.

But I somehow felt that I should give some suggestion

of an Austrian accent of some kind.

And there was a woman in New York in those days

by the name of Frances Robinson Duff, who taught drama,

who taught voice, who people would go to when they got a part,

and she would coach them sort of mostly in voice

and mostly in projection and so on.

And I went to Miss Duff, and this was tough going, you know.

It was five bucks a throw for the lessons,

but I felt that this was important.

And she said, "Yes, I think we can work out

"some kind of suggestion of an accent."

But after three lessons, she called me in and she said,

"I'm going to have to let you go."

LAUGHTER

She said, "There's no way I can teach you an Austrian accent.

"But any time in the future that you feel that you'd like to learn

"to speak English properly..."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

-Do you remember the first part you played?

-Yeah, Murder Man. It was...

I was taken up to the producer, by a fellow,

a very good friend of mine, the casting director of MGM, Billy Grady,

who was really responsible for getting me out into the movies.

And he said, "Here's the fellow, Stewart.

"I thought maybe he'd be good for the part of Shorty."

TITTERING

And the producer said, "Well, look, the fellow's 12 feet tall.

"How do you want Shorty?" And Bill said,

"Well, maybe, I thought you might change the name."

And the producer said, "Well, now you want to rewrite the script too?"

-So I got the part, but I was still Shorty.

-You were still Shorty.

And if you winked, you missed me, in that one.

It was just a tiny little...

Now, let's have a look at a film that you made in the '30s,

where you are more easily recognisable.

If we can have a look at it now.

It's a film called Born To Dance, which I've no doubt you'll remember.

Let's have a look at it.

You really want to go on the stage?

Well, I hope to.

Well...

success and all that, do you think that'll change you?

Of course not! Why do you ask?

Oh, I don't know.

It just seems that that kind of success

always does something to people.

At least, I've noticed it.

Just recently?

Oh, Nora, the difference between you and girls that...

That amount to something?

-I wish you knew what you amounted to with me.

-Tell me.

# I know too well that I'm just wasting precious time

# Me thinking such a thing could be

# That you could ever care for me

LAUGHTER IN STUDIO

# I'm sure that you'll hate to hear

# That I adore you, dear

# But grant me, just the same

# I'm not entirely to blame

# For you'd be so easy to love

# So easy to idolise all others above... #

APPLAUSE

That's, uh... That's pretty bad, wasn't it?

LAUGHTER

You know, I... I, uh... I had a terrible experience with that.

That's a hard song. It became a big hit, you know, Easy To Love.

-Beautiful song.

-Beautiful song.

But the range in it is frightening.

And I was a little worried about it.

I recorded the song, but then, when I went to the preview of the picture,

I was sort of interested in what I would sound like singing.

And when I started to sing, it wasn't me. It was somebody else.

It turned out to be a fellow by the name of Art Jarrett,

who sang with the orchestra that they'd put in because... Yeah.

LAUGHTER

But at the end, they... After the picture was...

The picture was quite successful, and at the end,

they decided to leave my voice in because they said,

"You just can't hurt that tune, that Cole Porter tune,

"and so, leave his voice in."

It sounded, in fact, as if your voice hadn't broken.

You know, it was like a boy soprano, wasn't it?

Well, it's so high! Gee!

I asked Cole Porter, I said,

"Couldn't you cut it down a note or two?"

And he didn't like that at all.

LAUGHTER

But the range, you know, the range...

And besides, I can't sing!

LAUGHTER

What about yourself in that period? Because you're thin now, aren't you?

You must have been very skinny then.

Did they ever try and build you up into some kind of virile sex symbol?

You know, muscles and everything?

Well, they had the fellow at MGM by the name of Don Loomis,

who was a weightlifter, and I went up for a part to somebody

and they said, "Go down to Don Loomis and put on 20 pounds."

Well, I hadn't put on 20 pounds for 20 years.

But I went down to Don Loomis, and he looked and he said,

"Well, we'll have to start from scratch here with you, James."

But I got hooked on this.

I got hooked on this weightlifting thing,

and he had all the health foods, blackstrap molasses,

and I did all this, I did all the weightlifting,

and I found myself for the first time in my life in the morning

doing this, and the muscle came up, and I'm looking...

And all this. And I couldn't wear my shirts any more.

I had to get new shirts, and I got bigger around here.

I had to get another suit, and all this. And I did it for over a year.

Uh... I didn't get the part, but I got stronger.

But finally, one day, when I'd gotten to lift really heavy weights,

really heavy, and got really good, I finally put it down and I said,

"I can't do this any more.

"This is a mechanical thing. There's something wrong.

"I can't do this any more."

And in three weeks, I was back to 130 pounds,

and I had to get new shirts and change all the things.

-So that idea of sort of changing my build didn't work.

-No.

So, pursued by the ladies, were you, in the early days?

Well, uh...

LAUGHTER

You speak freely on this programme!

LAUGHTER

Well, I, uh...

I... I...

It was fun being a bachelor.

You had, in fact, a very distinguished war record.

You went right the way through the war as an active serving officer.

But what kind of welcome did you get when you got back home, Jimmy?

Well, it was fine. Very quiet.

The first thing I saw, someone had written,

"Welcome home, Jim," on a sheet

and put it up on the courthouse,

and I could see it from my home in Indiana.

And there were a lot of people came to see me,

and I went down to the hardware store

and walked up Main Street and said hello to a lot of people.

There was a man, a photographer from Life Magazine,

by the name of Peter Stackpole,

and he was there taking pictures, and somebody said,

"Now, is there anything else you would do, that you would want to do?

"Would you go fishing?" And, uh...

..I said, "Yes," but I must've said it in a way that gave them

the impression that I'd missed fishing all these four years,

that I kept receiving the magazine Field And Stream all through it.

And I really wasn't that much of a fisherman,

but I found myself in a boat with Woody Woodward,

who worked for my father, and Peter Stackpole,

and we were plug casting for bass, in a little lake outside of town.

And I hadn't done it for a long time, and I kept getting backlashes,

and Peter was trying to get a picture of me, at least getting a cast off.

In the meantime, Woody pulled in a couple of bass.

I still was getting backlashes.

And Peter said, "Well, I think we have enough. Let's go home.

"It's all right. I have enough." And I said, "No, one more time.

"I've got it all right." And I hooked it on something, and I looked...

I'd hooked Peter Stackpole.

LAUGHTER

And he said, "Let's go home. Let's go."

So we went home and then there were people for dinner,

and it was a full day. It was a full day.

But after everybody went home,

and after my sisters and my mother went upstairs, my father sat down

in his favourite chair in the living room and he said, "Now, sit down.

"Now, tell me, tell me, what was it like?"

And I said, "Well, I, uh...

"I flew my crew down to South America,

"and then I went over to Dakar,

"and then getting up to England,

"I had to wait in Marrakesh for a while because of weather,

"and then we finally got..."

And I looked, and he was fast asleep.

-And he never asked me very much about it any more.

-A real hero's welcome!

What about getting back into movies?

Because you started with a bang, didn't you,

with a marvellous movie made by Frank Capra? It's A Wonderful Life.

I mean, did you want to get back into the movies?

Oh, I certainly did. But I...

It was sort of a nebulous period in my career,

because I didn't exactly know whether the type of thing

that I had done before, whether that would be accepted.

And it turned out that it wasn't very accepted.

-It's A Wonderful Life didn't do very well.

-Didn't it?

And the next picture didn't do very well,

and it was sort of falling back

on that sort of thing that I'd gotten into,

the romantic comedy, and people didn't want that.

But, before you go on then, Jimmy,

can we have a look at this scene, then, from Wonderful Life?

I didn't realise, in fact, that it wasn't a commercial success.

-It's a nice little movie, isn't it?

-But it...it's amazing.

It's my favourite picture, and Frank Capra's favourite picture.

VOICES SING A JOLLY TUNE

Oh, Merry Christmas! Glad you've come!

How about some of that good spaghetti?

LIVELY SINGING CONTINUES

(Oh, God.

(Oh, God.

(Dear Father in Heaven...

(..I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me,

(show me the way.

(I'm at the end of my rope. I...

(Show me the way. Oh, God.)

Are you all right, George? Want somebody to take you home?

Why you drink so much, my friend? Please go home, Mr Bailey.

-This is Christmas Eve.

-Bailey?

-Which Bailey?

-This is Mr George Bailey.

CUSTOMERS SCREAM

Next time you talk to my wife like that, you'll get worse!

She cried for an hour!

It isn't enough she slaves teaching your stupid kids

how to read and write, you had to bawl her out!

Get out of here, Mr Welsh!

Now, wait! I want to pay for my drink!

Never mind, you get out of here quick! You hit my best friend!

Get out!

You all right, George?

-Who was that?

-He gone. No worry.

-His name is Welsh. He no come into my place no more.

-Oh, Welsh.

-That's what you get for praying.

-Last time he come in here.

You hear that, Nick?

-You bet.

-Where's my insurance policy?

-Oh, here it is.

-Oh, no, please no go this way, Mr Bailey.

-No, no, you no feel good! Sit down and rest.

-I'm all right.

Please, no go away! Please!

TYRES SCREECH

APPLAUSE

-You said, Jimmy, that that was your favourite movie of all.

-Mmm.

-Of all the movies you've made, that's still...

-Yeah.

-Why is that?

I don't know. A lot of reasons. I just noticed that scene there.

That scene, I remember when I first read the first draft of the script,

that scene, the little prayer, affected me when I read it.

When I did it in the movie it did, and it did the same to me right now.

-Mmm.

-Uh...

And this is a theory that I've always had, that...

..creating moments in movies, this, I think, is the important thing.

-Mm.

-Nobody knows exactly how it happens.

But...what you should do is

to prepare yourself as best you can to make these moments happen.

Because, in a movie, it's really not so much the performance.

It's really not. There are moments. Moments, just like there, I think.

And, in fact, coming up now, let's have a look at it now.

We've got one of those magic moments, actually.

It's the moment in the movie, The Glenn Miller Story,

Miller discovers the sound, puts the clarinet in the front section,

and gets the sound he's been looking for. Let's have a look at it now.

MUSIC: PARED DOWN VERSION OF "Moonlight Serenade"

HE PLAYS NOTES ON PIANO

HE PLAYS MORE NOTES

HE PLAYS A CHORD

BAND PLAYS "Moonlight Serenade"

CLARINET SOLO

CLARINET SOLO CONTINUES

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

He looks like he's got it, maybe! Listen to those kids!

There's no maybe about it, Mr Schribman. That's it.

That's the sound.

APPLAUSE

-It's a marvellous moment, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's a good movie, that.

I mean, the music's superb. I could listen to that all night.

I remember in the preview of the movie, they used stereophonic sound

for the first time, but they held it and didn't turn it on until...

-The ballroom, with the band.

-Yeah, yeah. Very effective.

Can you define for us, Jimmy, the character

that you've come to be associated with through all your movies?

I mean, we've all got our very definite ideas

of what Jimmy Stewart's like on screen,

the kind of characters he portrays,

but have you ever thought about it yourself?

I really haven't analysed it very much.

I imagine that the sort of overall look at it would be I'm the plodder.

I'm the inarticulate man that tries,

that I'm a pretty good example

of...true human frailty.

LAUGHTER

I don't really have all the answers. I have very few of the answers.

But for some reason, somehow, I make it.

-Yeah.

-I get... I get through.

I'm at the head of the wagon train.

For some reason, we get across the Rockies.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

For some reason...

Four years later, Stewart was back at Parkinson.

Now aged 69, his big-screen appearances were increasingly rare.

But people still loved to hear him talking about his life,

his work, and his adventures in Hollywood.

These are the great days in Hollywood, weren't they?

The '30s, when the film industry WAS Hollywood.

What do you remember, when you think back, Jimmy,

over the many, many years that you've been there

and been a star there?

You mean...

Well, what was it like in the '30s, when you were there, for instance?

I mean, the studio system was going, wasn't it?

Well, the whole thing was so exciting, and the whole idea...

They say there was a certain magic about it. Well, I agree with that.

The idea of being...

I was a contract player at MGM when I came from the New York stage,

and the idea of being on the lot where pictures were being made

with Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow and Lionel Barrymore

and Myrna Loy and William Powell and Wallace Beery,

and all these people that you'd see every once in a while...

Everything... Everything was excitement.

It was like a family, and it seemed that the whole town,

everybody would gather at a wonderful nightclub, the Trocadero,

and we worked six days a week then, and Saturday night,

we'd all collect at the Trocadero, and it was an all-night affair.

And everybody performed.

I remember one night, a little girl got up and said...

Her mother was with her, with pigtails and bobby socks on,

and the little girl got up and said,

"Here's a little girl that MGM has just signed,

"and her mother brought her down, and she wants to sing a song."

She started to sing, and she sang for an hour. She was 14, I think.

13, 14, 15. Judy Garland. First time anybody... And it was magic.

-Did she have the magic THEN?

-Then, absolutely. Absolutely.

You mentioned a name there, of course,

of one of the greatest sex symbols of all time, Jean Harlow.

Now, you worked with her, didn't you?

Yes, I was in a picture with her called Wife Versus Secretary.

I had a very small part, but I was sort of the boy next door,

and we had been through high school together and everything,

but then Gable was also in the picture, so you know the sort of...

But we had one scene... LAUGHTER

..one scene in the car, and it was sort of the goodbye scene.

She was interested in...other things, and sort of saying goodbye to me.

And I had most of the dialogue, because I was trying to

tell her my story and plead with her to stay with me and everything.

And, of course, I had had months to learn it,

so I knew it very well, and I did it,

and the scene ended with a kiss.

Now this was at night.

We worked at night and at all times,

and she was actually on another scene in the picture,

and I was on another picture at night,

and we met and were going to do this scene.

Clarence Brown was directing, and he said, "Well, let's just rehearse it."

And I went through it and everything, and it ended with a kiss.

This is a rehearsal.

I had never been kissed like that ever in my life!

LAUGHTER

I was born in Pennsylvania.

LAUGHTER

And Clarence Brown, the director, said, "Well, that seemed all right.

"Let's go for a take." So we went for a take, and the same thing.

And at the last kiss, this one was a real barn-burner.

LAUGHTER

And I, uh...

This took me back a little.

I didn't know exactly how to take it,

but Clarence Brown saw what a good time I was having, and he said,

"Why don't we do a couple more takes, just to make sure?"

LAUGHTER

And I spoiled the thing, I started blowing my lines.

And he said, "OK, we'll print that first one."

Is it difficult for you now to find parts?

I mean, you must get offered an awful lot of rubbish, mustn't you?

I, uh... I don't get offered much of anything.

LAUGHTER

They, the parts, they're just not writing the parts, you know,

great big parts for people that I have been around as long as I have.

You know, I'm old! And the parts just aren't coming like they used to.

-You're still a great star, though.

-Ah! I just...

You're a bigger star than

any of these people coming through today, that's for sure.

The whole thing has been a wonderful life.

I've been tremendously fortunate.

I've loved every minute of it, and I have a wonderful marriage,

and I'm a happy man, and I consider every day gravy.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

We end with a classic example of why audiences love James Stewart.

Here he is on the Wogan show in 1988,

wearing his heart on his sleeve, sharing a poem he'd written

about his favourite pet dog, who'd recently died, whose name was Beau.

I just made up my mind that I'd write about my friend, Beau,

and try to make it rhyme.

And it came out like this.

He never came to me when I would call

Unless I had a tennis ball,

Or he felt like it,

But mostly he didn't come at all.

When he was young

He never learned to heel Or sit or stay,

He did things his way.

Discipline was not his bag

But when you were with him things sure didn't drag.

He'd dig up a rose bush just to spite me,

And when I'd grab him, he'd turn and bite me.

He bit lots of folks from day to day,

The delivery boy was his favourite prey.

The gasman wouldn't read our meter,

He said we owned a real man-eater.

LAUGHTER

He set the house on fire but the story is too long to tell.

Suffice to say that he survived and the house survived as well.

And on evening walks, and Mom took him,

He was always first out the door.

The old one and I brought up the rear Because our bones were sore.

And he would charge up the street with Mom hanging on,

What a beautiful sight they were!

And if it was still light and the tourists were out,

They created a bit of a stir.

But every once in a while, he'd stop in his tracks

And with a frown on his face turn around.

It was just to make sure that the old one was there

To follow him where he was bound.

We're early-to-bedders in our house -

I guess I'm the first to retire.

As I leave the room he'd look up at me

And get up from his place by the fire.

He knew where the tennis balls were upstairs,

And I'd give him one for a while,

And he'd shove it under the bed with his nose

And I'd dig it out with a smile.

But before very long He'd tire of the ball

And be asleep in his corner In no time at all.

And there were nights when I would feel him

Climb upon our bed

And lie between us And I'd pat his head.

And there were nights when I'd feel this stare

And I'd wake up and he'd be sitting there

And I'd reach out my hand to stroke his hair

And sometimes I'd feel him sigh

And I'd think, "I know the reason why."

He'd wake up at night And he would have this fear

Of the dark, of life, of lots of things,

And he'd be glad to have me near.

And now he's dead.

HIS VOICE CRACKS

And there are nights when I think I feel him

Climb upon our bed and lie between us,

And I pat his head.

And there are nights when I think I feel that stare

And I reach out my hand to stroke his hair,

But he's not there.

VOICE BREAKING Oh, how I wish that wasn't so,

I'll always love a dog named Beau.

APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH

In January 1997, James Stewart died at home, aged 89.

In tributes, he was called an American national treasure,

and the embodiment of decency and moral courage.

But his friend, Doris Day, possibly put it best, saying simply,

"Jimmy Stewart had a wonderful life."

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd