Box Clever: Last of the good guys

James Stewart is one of the best-loved actors of all time, inspiring affection for his screen persona and respect for his acting prowess. This Christmas, BBC television celebrates his achievement with a documentary and a season of his films

The death of James Stewart in July this year was greeted with the kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth not usually accorded to a mere movie star. Saul Metzstein, the director of James Stewart - Last of the Good Guys, a documentary tribute to the star, confirms that: "When he died, everyone felt they knew him. When we were making the documentary, everywhere we went in America, everyone had a Jimmy Stewart story."

"If you've grown up with James Stewart movies, he's someone you'd like to be your dad," reckons May Miller, producer of the documentary.

Janet Leigh, the actress who co-starred with Stewart in The Naked Spur, echoes this theme. "He could be everything that we, the audience wanted... A man could say `That's my best friend', a woman could say `That's my best friend', a woman could say `That's my best lover', a child could say, `That's the kind of uncle I want'. So he was to each group what they wanted, what they hoped they would have."

Alfred Hitchcock was drawn to use the perhaps unlikely figure of Stewart in his more disturbing films for the same reasons. The director's thinking was: "When you drive past a car accident and see someone on a stretcher, if it's a stranger you think, `That's sad', and drive on. But if you see it's a star like James Stewart, you think `That's my brother' and stop."

Another side to Stewart's appeal is that audiences want to look after this man who often seems lost in an unforgiving world. According to the director David Lynch, "there's a likeability about Jimmy Stewart, a vulnerability, and an inner strength... There's enough of a fear in him so you worry for him, but you always feel assured that he'll rise to the occasion."

Audiences also latch on to Stewart's essential modesty. He observed that: "The most important thing about acting is to approach it as a craft, not as an art and not as some mysterious kind of religion."

Stewart was, of course, downplaying his own marvellous technique. His timing, for instance, was legendary - every um and er was absolutely deliberate. "His voice is a sort of mid-Western twang, but it's unlike any other," surmises David Lynch. "Many people have done imitations of it, but lots of the timing of the phrases and the word-structures are just unique to him... It's really great timing he's got."

Metzstein highlights Stewart's great breadth as an actor. "If you see a Charlton Heston performance, there's an incredibly narrow range it'll be in; he's only going to play an invincible guy with a big jaw. Stewart lets inadequacies creep into his roles - that makes him greater. In westerns, he was much more complex than John Wayne. Stewart could be great in more types of films than most stars."

`James Stewart - Last of the Good Guys' is on BBC2 at 6.35pm on 23 Dec and repeated at 1.50pm on 2 Jan. A season of his films runs throughout the festive period on BBC2. See our Christmas Film Guide, p50-53