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greetings and welcome back to the talk

with History Podcast I'm your host Scott

I'm here with my wife and historian Jen

on this podcast we talk about history's

continuing impact on all of us today

as well as our personal journey through

YouTube as we explore record and share

our history Walks With You The Listener

so Jen what are we talking about today

today we are going to talk about

American Film institute's third greatest

actor of all time James Maitland Stewart

or as we would know him Jimmy Stewart

all right so Jimmy Jimmy Stewart so tell

me about well like why are we talking

about Jimmy Stewart today well mostly

because he's from Indiana Pennsylvania

and we lived close enough to go visit

his hometown so where where's Indiana it

is in Western central Pennsylvania it's

a small town of about

thirteen thousand people

close to Pittsburgh I'd say about an

hour outside of Pittsburgh okay

and so what what Drew you to

going what what brought us out there as

the walk with history YouTube channel to

go to India no Scott I'm the host

because if you don't know I'm playing

koi my favorite movie of all time is

It's a Wonderful Life I mean we even

have the movie poster here in our house

I'm looking at it right now it's my

favorite it's not just my favorite

Christmas movie it is my absolute

favorite movie so I watch it every year

and

I wanted to I've always wanted to visit

his hometown because he was born there

he was raised there he came back and

visited there his parents lived there

their entire lives and so it was just

some place he was very connected to

and I just always wanted to go so so

give me give me the the crayon version

of who Jimmy Stewart is where he came

from what he came up and became known

for

so Jimmy Stewart was just a a home a

small town Western Pennsylvania boy he

was born in 1908 in Indiana PA and his

father owned the local hardware store

and he was just a local boy and then he

ended up going to Princeton for school

and it was at Princeton

that he got into the acting troupe and

made friends with people like Henry

Fonda and then made it over to LA to try

acting and just got

I would say lucky or blessed but gotten

some really good movies early on yeah so

what were some of those would people

know some of those earlier sure one of

his first movies was a Philadelphia

Story and that's what he wants his Oscar

is his only Oscar he went two Oscars in

one of his earliest movies in one of his

earliest movies oh wow and he um he won

an honorary Oscar as well but the only

Oscar here everyone for acting was from

a Philadelphia Story you mentioned

Philadelphia's story you've mentioned

It's a Wonderful Life what's in Indiana

that would bring us out there aside from

it just being his hometown

there was a museum dedicated to his life

it opened in 1995 and on his 80th 87th

birthday and so we also wanted to see

the museum and they Indiana he is their

Hometown hero they they do a It's a

Wonderful Life

like celebration every Christmas they

decorate the town like Bedford Falls and

and just for the listener picture bed

for Falls that is what downtown Indiana

Pennsylvania looks like it's it's pretty

incredible even walking around there in

the summertime I thought this looks like

it's a wonderful life yes it it's just a

great small town feel and if you watch

our walk with history YouTube video we

we walk all through the town to kind of

give you a feel of what the town was

like but they opened his Museum in the

public library on the third floor and

right beside the library is the

courthouse and they have a statue out

there of him as well I think in like his

Harvey

attire is what he looked like when he

did the movie Harvey and so we also

toured the museum as well so we not only

walked around his hometown and saw his

like childhood home but we also went to

the museum as well yeah so you mentioned

Harvey is that another I didn't know

that movie until we went to the museum

but apparently that's that was a pretty

big movie of his yeah he made 80 films

like he's a he's a pretty big actor most

people really

like Jimmy Stewart or seeing a movie

with him in it he's done he has range

like a wide range of movies that he has

done he's done a couple movies with

Alfred Hitchcock

John Ford he's done westerns

um and

Harvey is just an interesting about a

imaginary rabbit that he sees and talks

to

and he kind of gets other people to just

kind of

not go along with it but just kind of

let him have his own

idea of Harvey and who yeah so so and I

still haven't seen the movie but if I if

I remember correctly

the premise of the movie is he's he all

of a sudden probably in his 40s has

starts having this imaginary six foot

rabbit friend that no one else can see

and he is he's harmless right his his

family thinks about getting him admitted

but he he's he's completely harmless

he's just a gentle spirit and one of the

things when I was doing this video is I

was looking for Clips I always look for

YouTube clips and I found a clip of him

it's I think it's a pretty famous clip

yeah of him talking about how he met

Harvey

and again as someone who hasn't seen the

movie but I've enjoyed Jimmy Stewart

movies I was floored at how good that

one scene was and really all it was was

Jimmy Stewart sitting in an Alleyway

talking to two people talking about how

he met this imaginary invisible six foot

rabbit it was I was absolutely floored

at how good the acting was so that was a

pretty big movie for him it was people

love Harvey it's it's a movie that's

resonated with Jimmy Stewart fans and if

you go in the museum they have tons of

artifacts related to that movie as well

as other movies but Harvey is a big one

so so tell us a little bit more for

someone who has no idea what the museum

is or what they could see there if let's

say they live in Pennsylvania or not

that far away and they wanted to go see

it what's at the Museum the museum is is

great we have a whole video dedicated to

the museum but it goes through his

childhood his family only

tree his connection to Indiana and then

his military career Jimmy Stewart was a

pilot in World War II

and he flew over 20 combat missions

he did publicity films for

the military as well during World War II

and he does the reserves in the Air

Force afterwards and makes the rank of

Brigadier General and then Reagan

actually gives him the rank of Major

General so he's actually the highest

ranking actor of all time yeah and and I

mean he wasn't just in the military like

just kind of for show he was in it yeah

he did it he flew those missions he's a

pilot and so then it goes through his

movie career with a lot of artifacts

from the different movies and then they

also have a theater there and they they

play movies I think weekly or bi-weekly

they change movies and all of his movies

so it's really great when you buy your

ticket not only do you get admission to

the museum but you get admission to the

movie yeah I mean it took us three hours

or so to drive out there yes and it was

completely worth it yes it was amazing

like his uh like I said his Oscar's

there from time to time they have the

Oscar from a Philadelphia Story on loan

but they always have the honorary Oscar

there

and they have a recreation of his desk

and a recreation of his childhood

bedroom

and I think they have the booth for one

of his favorite favorite restaurants in

La where him and his wife would go to

all the time and uh it was a really

great experience I have a really great

gift shop too we bought some stuff from

there

um and it was one of our first museums

that we had ever done and so

we had posted it online and the museum

director had contacted me because she

was like you showed so much of the

museum so if you watch the video you'll

see a lot of the museum and she was

concerned that we had showed

too much that people wouldn't want to

come and visit but I assured her in my

Graduate Studies for Museum studies that

we had learned that a lot of museums are

doing these virtual tours now and they

do them not because people won't come

visit because people want to be in the

actual spaces no matter how many

pictures you get of the Mona Lisa or how

many times you see pictures of the

Sistine Chapel people want to be in the

space and so I assured her that even if

people do see the museum via YouTube

there if they want to go they're going

to go what a virtual tour does whatever

what a a video on YouTube does is just

open it up to a whole other audience

that probably is not ever going to visit

so someone oversees or someone who maybe

physically can't make the trip yeah and

it opens them up to see what is in the

museum plus it also opens them up to the

gift shop opportunity so then she was

she felt pretty

well assured after that but we also

noticed too that sometimes museum videos

can get kind of long yeah so we've

decided now when we do museums we'll

we'll Center on a couple great artifacts

and then leave the rest up to the viewer

if they want to come and see it yeah and

and that one that was our second or

third or fourth video I don't remember

which one which one it was but it was

our was our first Museum video and I I

spent

way too many hours

kind of tweaking and doing all this fun

little stuff because I showed pop-ups of

the war movies and and his kind of

promotions for the Air Force and and the

different and all this stuff and it

actually turned out really well did but

then you were learning a lot I was I was

learning I was learning a lot about how

to do that and it's but it turned it up

to like a 30 minute video so and we do

show a lot of the video but we had we

had to ask the workers there we did we'd

always ask for permission yeah so we

asked him like hey do you mind if we

film and they said no go ahead and so we

did that then made the video and posted

it and shared it and then all of a

sudden for us we're kind of shocked got

this little shock to the system we got

the email from the museum director

saying hey please take that down that's

too much and then you kind of went back

and said hey no there's actually been

these studies that these kinds of things

help and we've seen it now that we've

visited more museums and it's been big

museums right it sends her documentation

that proves that um virtual tours do not

hurt Museum attendance yeah and so ours

was just a YouTube video but I mean

we've seen on National you know Park

Service presidential libraries and

things like that full-blown in-depth

detail virtual tours with all the

descriptions pictures way more than I

ever could have done

and people still go still go people want

to be in the actual space absolutely

yeah it was for me you know it was just

a dream come true because I love it it's

a wonderful life so much and what's very

interesting about that movie is Jimmy

Stewart made it after World War II

so it was kind of he didn't know if he

wanted to get back into acting he had

some PTSD from World War II and what the

person he plays in that movie

is different than who he was in real

life he's more like Harry Bailey when

you think about it he's the pilot he's

the hero he's the one who went to war

and he's actually playing someone who

didn't he's playing someone who stayed

behind and and so what I really love is

he's he's not looking for that Glory

which he personally has

he's looking to give credit to the

people who who did the other stuff and

actually stayed behind and supported and

that's I mean I love that so much about

him and that movie yeah now and trust me

we in this household that's the movie

that we watched on Christmas Eve before

everybody goes to sleep so but talk

about the the rest of the town and kind

of what else we people can see around

the rest of the time what we saw when we

were filming so you will you can see his

birthplace

um it's just marked by a boulder now

it's the the home is no longer there but

his childhood home where he moved where

he was like two years old and then his

family lived there for the rest of his

life and he lived there all through high

school and then came back during college

and would come back and visit anytime he

came to Indiana is still there and I

stand on the porch I get all excited so

you'll see me get excited if we watch

the video and the crosswalks in town

have his voice so if you press the

button to cross the the street it'll say

it'll be Jimmy Stewart's voice and it'll

tell you what streets you're on and what

you're Crossing to so it's so cool yeah

and that's that's one of the things I do

in the video is you actually I wandered

off with the kids and you were just

standing there filming literally the

crosswalk button yes just so you could

get the audio from Jimmy Stewart saying

you're now Crossing Seventh Street yeah

um and then I show a pop-up in the video

and so if folks are curious to you know

to to see that to see what that's like

or what it sounds like I encourage you

guys to go check out the channel and see

the Jimmy Stewart videos

there's now there's some other stuff

that we didn't see so we didn't see the

church

um that he there's a Pew there's a

Stewart family Pew in the church and

there is his plane out front of the this

is small Indiana airport and his plane

is um basically on a stick airplane on a

stick out front of the airport so we

didn't see those two things but though

that's available to you I mean if like

you said it's so much like Bedford Falls

that town is so proud of him so one of

my favorite stories about Jimmy Stewart

is after he won the Oscar for

Philadelphia Story

he he calls his dad the next day and his

dad's like I heard you won some award or

something and he's like yeah I won the

Academy Award and his dad's like well

send it send it home and I'll put it in

the hardware store window and we'll

we'll display it for the town he's like

okay and it stayed in the window for 20

years this this was his Oscars his first

and only yes from 1941 to 1961. if you

lived in Indiana PA or visited it would

be right in the front window of his

parents hardware store which is if you

go to the museum it's across the street

it's not there any longer it's a bank

now

they have some historic photographs and

plaques to talk about it but that it was

right across the street from where the

museum is in Indiana PA so it's such a

great I mean he was the hometown hero

and I really love that the town loved

him and he loved the town yeah it's it's

quintessential Small Town Pennsylvania

and actually one of the other things I

learned it was completely appropriate

because of your love of It's a Wonderful

Life was that Indiana Pennsylvania is

considered the birthplace of where

Christmas trees first started coming

from in in Mass was Indiana Pennsylvania

so

um you can kind of picture that in your

mind right this this small town

Pennsylvania surrounded by Hills

you know and there's Christmas Tree

farms that you're driving in it is

like I said it's quintessential Small

Town Pennsylvania

um it's amazing because we you also have

a family connection to Jimmy Stewart so

while we were there I kept trying to

channel the family connection so we've

talked about this before but Scott comes

from a Hollywood history family so his

great grandfather was a prop master and

I'm not sure I think he worked for both

Paramount and Universal

but he did rear window

and he did The Greatest Show on Earth

which Jimmy Stewart's in he said he

plays a clown in The Greatest Show on

Earth and rear window he plays the

photographer and we have a photograph of

rear window in the house where he's

setting the windows with the the names

under the windows you never see that in

the movie but as the prop Master he's

setting the windows for with the

character with the character names that

they name him him and Grace Kelly name

Miss torso yes the composer The Pianist

and then the newlyweds the lonely yeah

Miss Lonely Hearts Miss Lonely Hearts

yeah yes and then we have the script

from The Greatest Show on Earth yeah so

a prop Master would get a script and

just write in kind of things that he

would need to make and do and and since

that's what's like circus based he we

still have PR your father still has

props from that movie in his storage

from like so we're we're connected to

Jimmy Stewart well you're connected and

me through marriage we're connected to

Jimmy Stewart through Hollywood as well

yeah no it's it's definitely interesting

um and in going to Indiana Pennsylvania

was just kind of this neat little treat

right you really felt that connection to

Jimmy Stewart there and I will say that

that town really does embody that we

talk about how that town feels like

Bedford Falls from It's a Wonderful Life

and the message of that movie is that

Jimmy Stewart wanted to go out and see

the world he wanted to travel he he

always felt like he didn't have he

didn't do anything with with his life

but the message of the movie is that he

made an impact on those around him his

friends and even though he may not have

been able to travel the world as he had

wished he had an effect his effect was

on those around him

but the the effect of the one man or

woman can have on the world through

friends and family it will Echo for

eternity and I think that's the message

of It's a Wonderful Life so just as

Clarence the angel said in that movie

remember no man is a failure who has

friends

so friends who are listening thank you

for joining us and thank you for

listening to the talk with History

Podcast you can reach out to us on

Twitter at talk with history

tell us where in the world that you're

listening from tell us your favorite

Jimmy Stewart story and you can find

more of the podcast over at talk with

history.com yeah and we really

um encourage you to visit the museum if

you're ever around if you love that

movie go to Indiana Pennsylvania and

visit that museum it is a great museum

yeah go visit the museum support your

local museums reach out to us on Twitter

and you can find more of the podcast

over at talk with history.com and we

will talk to you guys next time thank

you thank you

foreign

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