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Jimmy Stewart of Indiana, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

Indiana, Pennsylvania gave the world one of Hollywood's most beloved actors. James Maitland Stewart was born here on May twentieth, nineteen oh eight, and grew up in the town his family had called home for generations. His career spanned nearly sixty years, from nineteen thirty-two to nineteen ninety-one, and produced some of the most iconic films in American cinema: Mister Smith Goes to Washington, It's a Wonderful Life, Rear Window, Vertigo, and The Philadelphia Story, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in nineteen forty.

Stewart was no armchair patriot. He flew twenty combat missions over Europe in World War Two, rising to the rank of Brigadier General in the Air Force Reserve. President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in nineteen eighty-five.

The Jimmy Stewart Museum, a block from this marker, tells the full story.

Sources (2)
Map of Pennsylvania with this story marked