DATE: Sunday, July 6, 1997                  TAG: 9707060089
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Paul South 

                                            LENGTH:   61 lines

JIMMY STEWART REACHED OUT, TOUCHED OUR HEARTS ONE LAST TIME

Sometimes the passing of people known only to us through their movies or their words or their athletic prowess tugs hard at our hearts.

We grieve for them the way we would for a long-unseen relative of whom we carry a fond memory. It's not the heartbreak marking the loss of a parent or grandparent or child or old friend. But still, it bruises the soul.

So it was with Jimmy Stewart, who died last week at 89.

We knew him as the Virginia farmer who saw his family ripped apart by the Civil War in ``Shenandoah.'' We knew him as the honest congressman, Mr. Smith, who went to Washington. We knew him as Harvey's pal, the friend of an invisible rabbit. And we knew him as George Bailey, the earnest everyman from Bedford Falls.

Some would call him a movie star. And indeed he was. But for some reason, the title seemed to hang on Stewart like an oversized sweater. For those of us who gripped our seats as we watched ``Rear Window'' or dabbed at our eyes during the cemetery scene in ``Shenandoah,'' Jimmy Stewart seemed neighborly, a guy who would let your dad borrow the hedge clippers, or produce a pocketful of quarters to buy some ice cream for the neighborhood kids.

Movie stars ride in limos. Jimmy Stewart looked like the Ford type.

Some, like Marilyn Monroe or Cary Grant, seemed almost untouchable, unreal, too good-looking, too smooth, too urbane.

But in his films, Jimmy Stewart was us. He made mistakes. He knew frustration. Sometimes, as in ``The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,'' he got a lesson in toughness from John Wayne. Who among us couldn't stand a little tutelage from the Duke?

When he knew he was right, he spoke until his voice gave out. When he was heartbroken, he wept. Maybe that's why we knew Jimmy Stewart's characters better, and perhaps why he is missed so today: In his roles, he walked in our sometimes sorrowful, sometimes joyful shoes.

There is comfort in the knowledge that we will always have Jimmy Stewart's films to remind us of things that are timeless gems, untarnished by the passing of months and years.

Chances are that long after the movies of Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme are competition for pre-dawn infomercials, Jimmy Stewart's work will still clutch our hearts, bringing joy and sadness and intrigue and laughter for our children and grandchildren.

But aside from the loss of the man, there is something else to mourn. Jimmy Stewart believed you didn't need four-letter words to tell a good story on film. He believed black-and-white movies should stay that way, and ignored those who called for colorization. And he believed in the value of hard work.

And through the years of movies, Jimmy Stewart helped us hold on to the belief that our elected leaders could be honest, that good would always win over evil, and that it was all right to believe in 6-foot rabbits.

In the movie ``It's a Wonderful Life,'' Clarence the Angel takes a good, hard look at the countenance of George Bailey, the face of Jimmy Stewart.

``It's a good face,'' Clarence says.

That face, and that man, will be missed. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS/File

George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) comforts his ill daughter in a scene

from ``It's a Wonderful Life.''

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu