Scott Eyman has done us a favor with the writing of his book Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart (Simon Schuster, 2017).
First, he has chronicled through interviews with their family members and friends and archival sources, that two individuals, especially two well-known celebrities who hold well-defined and differening political perspectives, can be friends, work together, raise their families together, still care and support one another when one is riding the crest of success and the other is not, and do so over the course of fifty years!
Second, Eyman has given us a very human view of two public men who were celebrities in their hey-day and, for a while after, who were also very private men, troubled at times, and two men who, even though they were becoming leading men in the motion picture industry, entered military service and served America during World War 2.
What a gift for us is Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart! Thank you Scott Eyman!
Well researched and written from a sympathetic and yet honest point of view, Eyman chronicles the rise and the decline of Fonda and Stewart’s careers and lives in a manner which drew this reader/reviewer in. He goes behind the scenes of stardom and gets into the personal lives of both men, in an alternating narrative as the story develops.
And the stories told are priceless…
for they reveal two men who enjoyed one another’s company…
and who delighted in the everyday things of life…
This reviewer’s interest was caught and held by two things Fonda and Stewart loved: model planes and cats!
The story of the model Martin Bomber that they bought as a Christmas present for themselves in New York resonated with this reviewer who built model plans, plastic not balsa wood as theirs was, as a kid. As did their love of cats, including a group of feral cats that grew to over 30 despite their best efforts to domesticate them. With their LA rental house AND yard becoming flea infested the two decided to get rid of the cats by digging a hole in the fence of their next-door neighbor…an actress named Greta Garbo, with disatrous results, (and who eventually moved).
And as Eyman tells their stories, he also speaks of their films, with the mind and persepective of the art and movie critic that he is, talking about their performances and which films were their best and which were not. (It reminded me of Carl Rollysons’ biography on Dana Andrews, Hollywood Engima, written several years ago.)
Hank and Jim.
It is great biography…and a fresh telling of Hollywood history in its golden years.
It is a great biography…of two well-known stars and their trials and successes on screen and in real life.
I rated this biography five stars on Goodreads.
Note: I recieved a e-copy of this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.
(One last thing…my favorite films in which Fonda and Stewart starred both have airplanes in them… for Fonda it was Midway and for Stewart it was Strategic Air Command.)
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