Everybody's Man: A Biography of Jimmy Stewart

"Everybody's Man" is a quick reading, concise paean to the famous actor It is far from an in depth biography and presents only a thumbnail's portrait of the screen legend. It is hard to be too critical to such a brief tale, since little time must be invested in it.Thus, a charitable 4 star rating. The story includes some Hollywood gossip and offers tidbits of insight into Jimmy's relationship with luminaries such as Alfred Hitchcock. We learn that his close friends included Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper but the author keeps these friendships at arms length. There are large hints that Jimmy was quite the ladies' man during his extended bachelorhood, but once again, the reader never gets too close to the subject. This observer would have enjoyed a more in depth look at Jimmy's famous Western roles especially the 5 made with Anthony Mann ("Winchester 73", "The Naked Spur", etc) and those made with John Ford ("The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance").Predictably, the coverage is wafer thin. One gets the impression that "EM" was written with no cooperation from Stewart or his family and that the author had to rely on material already published. This is not a book for serious film followers and they may well consider "EM" to be fawning. Jimmy's fans, on the other hand will never notice the shortcomings. This latter group has known for years that nothing is too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance!

"Everybody's Man" is a quick reading, concise paean to the famous actor It is far from an in depth biography and presents only a thumbnail's portrait of the screen legend. It is hard to be too critical to such a brief tale, since little time must be invested in it.Thus, a charitable 4 star rating. The story includes some Hollywood gossip and offers tidbits of insight into Jimmy's relationship with luminaries such as Alfred Hitchcock. We learn that his close friends included Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper but the author keeps these friendships at arms length. There are large hints that Jimmy was quite ladies' man during his extended bachelorhood, but once again, the reader never gets too close to the subject. This observer would have enjoyed a more in depth look at Jimmy's famous Western roles especially the 5 made with Anthony Mann ("Winchester 73", "The Naked Spur", etc) and those made with John Ford ("The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance").Predictably, the coverage is wafer thin. One gets the impression that "EM" was written with no cooperation from Stewart or his family and that the author had to rely on material already published. This is not a book for serious film followers and they may well consider "EM" to be fawning. Jimmy's fans, on the other hand will never notice the shortcomings. This latter group has known for years that nothing is too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance!