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Returning to movie screens after serving in World War II, actor Jimmy Stewart was anxious to appear in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” – a film now recognized as one of his best.
In his biography of the director, “Frank Capra: A Life” (published by Harper), Hollywood historian Sam Wasson writes about how Capra helped shepherd Stewart back into the public limelight in a role well suited to Stewart’s talents – and in the process created a timeless classic.
Read the section below – and don’t miss Lee Cowan’s report on Jimmy Stewart’s post-World War II experience on “CBS Sunday Morning” November 1!
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Unlike Capra, Stewart refused to promote a return to Hollywood. His contract with Liberty said he was not to be asked to talk about his heroism. “In all advertising and publicity matters by the corporation, or under its control, the relevant clause said, “the corporation shall not mention or cause to be mentioned the part taken by the artist in World War II as an officer in the US Army.”
By then, Stewart had read the script that Capra had given him. George Bailey, the hero of the picture they called It’s a Wonderful Lifehe was the heaviest man in his life. Still, he was afraid. This was his first film in almost five years. Did he lose his audience? Had they forgotten about it? Leaving a department store in Beverly Hills, he was mistaken by a gaggle of bobby-soxers for MGM’s new heartthrob Van Johnson. But more than movie star tastes had changed since Stewart went to war. At the Lux Radio Theater show of Destry Rides Againthe script he was holding so tightly shook that they could see it from the control room.
“It’s no use running away,” Stewart told his friends one night at Chasen’s. “The truth is I’m scared as hell.”
Fear, and also fried emotionally. “I don’t think I’ll ever get on a plane again,” he admitted. “I rolled two thousand times abroad, and that will make me right.” There was, one journalist observed in 1946, “a trace of fatigue” about him now. To another, Stewart said, “It got pretty rough overseas sometimes.”
What Capra wouldn’t have told Stewart was hethe director, the more afraid the two were. That [Robert] Riskin, it was the most chaotic script move of his career – a career that has never been more vulnerable. The script he gave Stewart was still changing, and where it could have turned [Jo] Swerling or Myles Connolly or Sidney Buchman to go in for a polish or, at least, to talk a story, friend to friend, none of them were available to him. Capra’s loneliness was, for him, unique, impossible to explain.
The night before his first day of filming, April 15, 1946, Stewart’s anxiety grew. He studied the scene, as if it was perfect in a word – Capra’s set would not be needed (indeed, a disadvantage) – saving him from disaster.
The first day of It’s a Wonderful Life it was also William Wyler’s first day The best years of our liveswhich would be his last picture with Goldwyn before going to Liberty. “The last one is a rotten egg,” Wyler told Capra. With hundreds of extra party items, that first day scene – the first of several on location at Beverly Hills High School, where George and Mary fall into the swimming pool under the gymnasium floor while dancing – would open Capra’s production on a happy note. Using his independence for the sale, Capra would go to the trouble and expense of firing It’s a Wonderful Lifeas best he can, in order, as he prefers, but in his role as social director of a new filmmaking community, he realized that the best way to break the ice was with a bang – three days at a high school dance in Bedford Falls.
Unfortunately, he also knew that this was the setting for George and Mary’s first adult meeting.
Instead of Jane Arthur, who would have added an unnecessary touch of sophistication to Mary Hatch, Capra cast midwestern beauty Donna Reed, who he first saw opposite John Wayne in John Ford’s 1945. They were inevitable. It was a lucky break for the director who rarely needed luck when casting. One look at Reed smiling with unguarded devotion at the man she loves, and any audience could see why Bailey, blind for so long, could see her face in the right light, at the right time, and open his eyes to life.
It was also true of Jimmy Stewart that the first time he saw Donna Reed that day was in the Beverly Hills High gym, “I fell in love with her right off the bat. She seemed like everything. …
“Jimmy,” Capra said, doing a little acting himself, “I meant to call you last night to tell you that our first scene starts on page 31, not 33. Ready?”
Capra, directing without direction, certainly had no intention of contacting Stewart the night before. But he got the actor exactly where Capra wanted him: off guard, a little nervous, that is, to go to Donna Reed as Mary Hatch, because Stewart was meeting the two for the first time, nervous enough to put down his answer to her question – not in the script or the finished film, but thrown in just a few minutes before they shot, by Capra – “Are you going to walk home tonight?”
Stewart didn’t have to play the scene. He just did it, perfectly, crying, “N – n – no.”
“That’s it,” Capra said. “Cut!” He smiled at Stewart. One catch was all they needed.
From “Frank Capra: A Life” by Sam Wasson. Copyright © 2026 by Sam Wasson. Published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted with permission.
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