Jimmy Stewart is arguably the only prewar American actor of superstar magnitude to have served in a sustained combat role during World War II, and the only one to have served in a position of command. He was also one of only a handful of men to progress from private to full colonel in less than five years.
James Maitland Stewart was a native of Indiana, Pennsylvania, where his father ran a hardware store, which makes him a true product of Main Street America. Indiana is far different from Philadelphia or even nearby Pittsburgh. Located in western Pennsylvania, it lies in a region with close ties to the American frontier of the early 1800s. Like many other Americans of his age, Stewart came from a family with military service in its background. Both of his grandfathers were Civil War veterans, and his father had fought in the Spanish-American War. As a boy, Stewart actually wanted to pursue a career in the military but was dissuaded by his father. A shy and reclusive youth, he spent much of his time building model airplanes, a hobby he continued into adulthood.
Stewart took his first airplane ride right after World War I when a barnstorming pilot stopped outside the town for a few days. Jimmy was around 10 or 12 years old at the time. His father’s successful business provided the family with wealth and political connections. Jimmy’s father enrolled him in Mercersburg Academy, a prestigious college preparatory school in southern Pennsylvania, at age 16. He was home with an illness when Charles Lindbergh made his historic transatlantic flight in an airplane that had been designed by Mercersburg alumnus Benjamin Franklin Mahoney.
