Jimmy Stewart

As one of the many legions of actors who was privileged to work with Jimmy Stewart (obituary, July 3), my fondest memory of his graciousness was during a Western being filmed for television. Being newly arrived from Broadway and the London theater, I was apparently ill at ease in these heady surroundings and Stewart was just as obviously aware of it. In that wonderful drawl that had enchanted a nation for more than half a century he approached me on the set one day and, crossing his booted ankles so that his feet rested on their sides, said, "Now, if you get too tired waiting for the director to yell 'Action!

A high-stakes bidding war has erupted for St. John's Health Center, a storied Santa Monica hospital, with a local billionaire teaming up with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles on an unsolicited offer. The latest bid, expected to be formally announced Wednesday, comes from former drug-company executive and healthcare entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, who said in a statement the bid has the support of the archdiocese. This offer is competing against at least two other bidders'.

Film star Jimmy Stewart was hospitalized Friday after bumping his head in a fall at his Beverly Hills home. Stewart, star of such classic films as "It's a Wonderful Life," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "The Philadelphia Story," was taken by Beverly Hills paramedics to the emergency room of Century City Hospital about 10 p.m. Thursday. He reportedly tripped and hit his head against a table in his home on North Roxbury Drive.

Julie Adams' Leading Men "Creature From the Black Lagoon" Adams was pursued by the amphibious Gill-Man in the 1954 sci-fi favorite. "Bend of the River" Adams appeared with screen legend Jimmy Stewart in this 1952 western. "Tickle Me" Adams plays a rancher who hires rodeo star Elvis Presley in this 1965 musical-comedy.

With regard to the suggestion that the city rename Los Angeles International Airport in honor of the late Jimmy Stewart, let me say that I could not agree more. It is high time that we had a real name for the already too anonymous airport known as LAX. Los Angeles is known throughout the world as the center of the film industry. To name our airport for one of its most successful and well-loved artists would be quite fitting. Stewart personified in films all that was moral and decent in America and that is also how he lived his life.

Talk about heresy -- comparing the face of President Bush to Jimmy Stewart, and with Stewart not here to defend himself ("Hollywood's Fresh Faces," Aug. 14). If Bush really looked like Jimmy Stewart, how is it that everyone I know can't stand to look at Bush but we all loved Jimmy Stewart? Character and personality are part of what makes a face, and no way do those two look alike. Barbara Shafer Los Angeles

On what would have been Jimmy Stewart's 90th birthday, the late World War II pilot and actor was honored Wednesday with a permanent tribute at Griffith Park celebrating his patriotism and charitable work. The bronze plaque and a 25-foot flagpole is the idea of Tom La Bonge, special assistant to Mayor Richard R. Riordan who led a private campaign to honor Stewart. "Jimmy Stewart was truly a great man and a great American," La Bonge said. "What he did for St.

He may be the only person in the world who could get away with publishing a book of poetry containing but four poems--four short poems at that. But Jimmy Stewart, the 81-year-old Hollywood legend who made unpretentiousness a bankable box-office commodity, explains that he has only written "maybe eight--at the very top eight" poems during his entire life. And some of those were even briefer than the ones just published in "Jimmy Stewart and His Poems."

Nobody kept track of young Tom Swift after he grew up. Maybe that inventive fictional American boy of the 1920s became an electronics wizard. Maybe he went to work on an assembly line. Maybe he took over the family hardware store and has spent the last 60 years tinkering in seclusion. Or maybe he just chucked it all, went to Hollywood and became a movie star. Like young Jimmy Stewart. "Uh, I think, No.

The fifth annual Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon, benefiting St. John's Hospital and Health Center, will be held today at 8 a.m. at Griffith Park. Each member of each five-runner relay team will run 5.2 miles of the 26-mile course. Jimmy Stewart and Robert Wagner are the race's co-starters. Following the main event, there will be a celebrity mini-race, scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. A crowd of 20,000 is expected for the two races.

There are few remnants left of the venerable Ambassador Hotel, the site of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's shooting in 1968, after it was demolished to make way for the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools that opened last year. There's still the east wall, which was the location of the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Designed by Pasadena architect Myron Hunt, the glitzy spot opened on New Year's Day 1921 and quickly became a Hollywood favorite. During its first decade, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson were frequent visitors.

Veteran impressionist Rich Little admits it's tough getting a handle on contemporary stars. "How are you going to imitate Ashton Kutcher or Brad Pitt or Matt Damon?" asked Little over a cup of coffee at the Beverly Hilton. "Jack Nicholson is larger than life, so is Clint Eastwood. But there are not many people like Nicholson who are around today -- larger than life, with very distinctive voices. How do you do George Clooney? I have worked at it. If you do Tom Hanks, you have got to do 'box of chocolates,' and even that is kind of old now. Good actors, but not voices.

The late Glenn Ford's 8,800-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion has a curious octagon shape that had just one official bedroom -- a huge master bedroom on the main floor. "There are very few right angles in this house," said his only child, 66-year-old Peter Ford, who has lived there with his wife, Lynda, for the last 17 years. They moved in 12 years before Ford's death in 2006 at age 90 to take care of the ailing actor. "The reason was, he didn't want to be fenced in. This house is kind of a metaphor for his life.

Alibi Ike Athletic, rubber-faced comic actor Joe E. Brown hit a home run with this 1935 baseball comedy based on the short story by Ring Lardner. In real life, Brown almost played with the New York Yankees and formed his own studio team at Warner Bros. Rhubarb Orangey, the cat in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," has the title role in this clever 1951 baseball comedy about a rich eccentric who dies and leaves his pro baseball team, the Brooklyn Loons, to his pampered cat. Ray Milland costars.

It's easy to forget that Frank Capra's 1946 Christmas classic, "It's a Wonderful Life," was initially a modest flop. The heartwarming film starring Jimmy Stewart as a despondent everyman saved by an unlikely angel became a cultural touchstone only after countless TV screenings. Now the Egyptian offers a chance to see it on the big screen in all its glory. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. 7:30 p.m. Thu. $11. (323) 466-3456. http://www.americancinematheque.com.

My 12-year-old son recently informed me that he didn't much see the point of black-and-white movies, and I realized this horrifying state of affairs could be blamed only on television. The fact that there's so much good television, that is. My son and his 10-year old sister can now intelligently debate the relative merits of the three modern Doctors of "Dr. Who," but they do not (choked sob and how did I fail them?) know who Abbott and Costello are. Why would they? Even in the dog days of summer, once considered a TV wasteland, new shows are stacked up in our DVR queue like so many accusatory back issues of the New Yorker.

Academy Award-winning actor Jimmy Stewart will be the grand marshal for the 56th Hollywood Christmas Parade, parade officials announced. This will be the actor's second trip down Hollywood Boulevard as grand marshal. Stewart, 79, who starred in such movies as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," led the parade 10 years ago and is the first celebrity to do so twice. Last year's grand marshals, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, will appear this year as well.

Film star Jimmy Stewart was hospitalized Friday after bumping his head in a fall at his Beverly Hills home. Stewart, star of such classic films as "It's a Wonderful Life," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "The Philadelphia Story," was taken by Beverly Hills paramedics to the emergency room of Century City Hospital about 10 p.m. Thursday. He reportedly tripped and hit his head against a table in his home on North Roxbury Drive.

A collection of 130 letters and short notes written by the late actress Marlene Dietrich sold Wednesday for $4,200, a Berlin auction house said. The Berlin-born film legend's husky voice and smoldering eyes seduced audiences for more than four decades in German movies such as "The Blue Angel" and many American films, including "Destry Rides Again" with Jimmy Stewart and "The Spoilers" with John Wayne. The letters were written to Swedish costume designer Max Goldstein in Dietrich's large, spider-like handwriting and span four decades.

Re "L.A. Then and Now," May 24 Your article on Fred Harvey Restaurant at Union Station brought back a lot of happy memories. My mother was a Harvey Girl in the '50s and '60s. It was a big deal to visit the restaurant and to be served a big piece of cheesecake by my mother. This restaurant attracted the big movie stars of the '50s, when trains were such a major mode of transportation. Everybody who was anybody had to stop at the restaurant for a meal. I was underwhelmed to hear about Van Johnson and Jimmy Stewart, but then came the day when Hopalong Cassidy -- a.k.a.