He would’ve been 102 today. I’m celebrating his birthday because he’s a fellow accordion player, and like me, he’s played the accordion to make ends meet. When he graduated from Princeton with a degree in architecture during the great depression, there wasn’t any work in his field. He took a job playing accordion with a summer stock troupe in Cape Code, where he met Henry Fonda, got a role on Broadway and eventually ended up in film.
For more on Jimmy Stewart, see his entries in Finding Dulcinea and Wikipedia.