George Bailey Turns 100, and America Remembers

Jimmy Stewart will always and forever be George Bailey, the good man in crisis in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.

And he'll always be the stalwart young patriot in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The obsessed detective in Vertigo. The reluctantly heroic sheriff in Destry Rides Again. The commitmentphobe trying to resist Grace Kelly in Rear Window.

The lanky, slow-talking star who played those roles and many more so memorably would have been 100 years old this month, and the tributes are popping up all over.

There are film festivals in California, a celebration at the museum in his home town of Indiana, Pennsylvania, and a six-week long tribute at the American Film Institute's Silver Theater just outside Washington, DC.

I'm going to celebrate with Mr. Smith. We could use him around here.

Stewart in his real life role in the U.S. Air Force/wikimedia commons