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Actor Jimmy Stewart, returning to the big screen after his service in World War II, was nervous about starring in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” now considered one of his best films.
In the director’s biography, “Frank Capra: A Life” (published by Harper), Hollywood historian Sam Wasson writes about how Capra helped catapult Stewart into the public spotlight in a role perfectly suited to his talents, creating a timeless classic in the process.
Read the excerpt below – and don’t miss Lee Cowan’s “CBS Sunday Morning” Nov. 1 report on Jimmy Stewart’s post-World War II experience!
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Unlike Capra, Stewart refused to support his return to Hollywood. His contract with Liberty stipulated that he would not be forced to discuss his heroism. In the relevant article, “In all advertising and promotional matters by or under the control of the Company, the artist’s role as an officer in the US Army in World War II shall not be mentioned or caused to be mentioned.”
By then, Stewart had read the script Capra had given him. George Bailey is the hero of the picture they say It’s a Wonderful LifeHe was the most loyal to his own life. Still, he was very scared. It would be his first film in almost five years. Had he lost the audience? Had they forgotten about him? As he was leaving a store in Beverly Hills, he was mistaken for MGM’s new heartthrob, Van Johnson, by a group of bobby-soxers. But movie stars’ tastes have changed a lot since Stewart entered the war. Lux in Radio Theater performance Destry Strikes AgainThe script he was holding was shaking so hard it could be seen from the control room.
“There’s no point in running away,” Stewart told friends one night at Chasen’s. “The truth is, I’m terribly scared.”
Scared and emotionally flushed at the same time. “I don’t think I’ll ever get on a plane again,” he admitted. “I’ve spent two thousand hours wandering abroad, and this is almost going to finish me off.” As one journalist observed in 1946, there was now “a trace of fatigue” in him. To another, Stewart said: “Things have gotten pretty tough overseas at times.”
What Capra wouldn’t tell Stewart was this: HEthe director was the more fearful of the two. Without [Robert] It had been the most chaotic pregnancy scenario of Riskin’s career; a career that has never been more vulnerable. The script he gave Stewart was still evolving, and once there was no place he could turn to [Jo] Swerling or Myles Connolly or Sidney Buchman would talk from friend to friend for a polish, or at least a story; None of these were available to him. Capra’s loneliness was something unprecedented and indescribable for him.
Stewart’s anxiety intensified the night before the first day of shooting, April 15, 1946. He surveyed the scene as if being literally perfect (never a requirement on the Capra set (in fact, it’s a disadvantage)) would save him from disaster.
first day It’s a Wonderful Life It was also William Wyler’s first day The Best Years of Our LivesThis would be her last photo with Goldwyn before joining Liberty. “The last one in is a bad egg,” Wyler cabled Capra. That scene on the first day, with hundreds of party extras—the first of several scenes at Beverly Hills High School in which George and Mary dance and fall into the swimming pool beneath the gymnasium floor—would happily open Capra’s production. Capra, who used his independence to the fullest, would bear the trouble and expense of shooting. It’s a Wonderful Lifein turns of his own choosing, as his talent allowed, but in his capacity as social director of a new filmmaking troupe, he realized the best way to break the ice was with a bang—three days at a high school dance in Bedford Falls.
He also knew that this was the location of George and Mary’s first adult date.
Instead of Jean Arthur, who would have added unnecessary know-how to Mary Hatch, Capra played Donna Reed, a fresh-faced midwestern beauty whom she first saw opposite John Wayne in John Ford’s 1945 film. They Were Expendable. This was a lucky break for the director, who rarely needs luck when casting actors. One look at Reed grinning with unguarded devotion towards the man he loves, and any viewer will understand why Bailey, blind for so long, was able to see his face in the right light, at the right time, and open his eyes to life.
It was true for Jimmy Stewart, too, when he first saw Donna Reed that day in the Beverly Hills High School gym and said: “I fell in love with her right away. She seemed like everything. … Everything seemed to come out of her.”
“Jimmy,” said Capra, acting a bit like himself, “I wanted to call you last night and tell you that our first scene starts on page 31, not page 33. Are you ready?”
Surely Capra, who was directing without directing, had never thought to call Stewart the night before. But this got the actress exactly where Capra wanted her: caught off guard, a little nervous, namely to approach Donna Reed as Mary Hatch; Because Stewart was meeting both of them for the first time, he was too nervous to fumble with his answer to the question—not in the script or the finished film but posed by Capra just before shooting: “Are you going to give me a ride home tonight?”
Stewart did not need to act the scene. He did it perfectly, swallowing, “N- n- no.”
“That’s it,” Capra said. “To cut!” He smiled at Stewart. All they needed was one take.
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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