McBride hosted a talk/interview show broadcast from WABC in New York City. For most of its run, the show aired weekdays at 1 p.m. An ancillary show, Saturday Digest, aired on Saturdays. The shows were produced by Stella Karn and Vincent Connolly served as announcer.
Her show was one of the most popular of its type and she was well respected among her colleagues. Although they are not in general circulation, all three programs are available as part of the NBC Collection at the Library of Congress.
Stewart’s appearance on the program came of March 6, 1953. He was on the first half of the show and talked about many different topics. Here is a transcript of his portion of the show.
McBride: …once stuffed yourself just to gain weight.
Stewart: Oh yes, I remember it very well myself. As a matter of fact, I’ve done it almost all my life. I’m getting a little smug about it.
McBride: You seem to be a little heavier than the last time I saw you.
Stewart: Yes, I’ve gained about three pounds in the last seven years. That’s pretty good for me.
McBride: …I can put on ten pounds in a week without trying.
Stewart: When I gain weight it just sort of fills out those holes in my cheeks.
McBride: …I think having twins agrees with you.
Stewart: Yes, I think the family life is for me…to coin a phrase.
McBride: …remember your bachelor life?
Stewart: But don’t undersell that now, Mary Margaret…that has its place.
McBride: It does?
Stewart: Yes…we don’t want to be too unkind to the bachelor.
McBride: Well, all of them got married, didn’t they?
Stewart: Well, it’s getting a little rough…the club is dwindling.
McBride: …think you were the very last one.
Stewart: No…I was…I was way down the list.
McBride: …you went to a party and there was this girl.
Stewart: Yes…now there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about it. I just…I met this girl and thought she was fine and before I knew it I was walking down the aisle; just like it happens to all we men.
McBride: …knew a lot of tricks, but it all evaporated when the right girl came along.
Stewart: Yes, it wasn’t a whirlwind thing; it was just sort of a natural course of events.
McBride: …never heard of anyone having twins unless there were twins somewhere in the family.
Stewart: Yes, I thought that, too. There aren’t twins in either Gloria or my family. And I was a little surprised when I heard that we were gonna have twins…a little surprised he said. That’s an understatement if I ever heard one. The doctor says that there’s nothing unusual about this. He says it just has to start sometime. Now, the two girls…from now on, the two girls…
they’ll…they’ll have twins probably…they’re…the thing’s started now.
McBride: …not the same peaceful atmosphere you had as a bachelor.
Stewart: No, it happened…when you come to think of it, I…years ago I had a sort of a bungalow and I had a dog named Bud and my father sent me a canary whose name was George, who didn’t sing, and I had a housekeeper name of Daisy Dooley and that was sort of the set-up as far as my living place was concerned. And then a year and a half later I’m the father of four in a house with a police dog and a couple of cats…every once in a while it brings me up with quite a start.
McBride: Quick work.
Stewart: Yes, yes, rather hasty.
McBride: …stopped the habit of bringing home stray dogs and cats.
Stewart: Of necessity we had to stop this, yes. It’s pretty crowded around our house now.
McBride: Are you a good disciplinarian?
Stewart: Oh, I don’t think exceptional. I think I get by with it.
McBride: I’ll bet you don’t discipline worth a darn.
Stewart: No, I spare the rod and spoil the child…I believe that.
McBride: You do?
Stewart: Un-hum.
McBride: Were you disciplined when you were young?
Stewart: Yes, indeed…yes, indeed.
McBride: Well, you turned out okay.
Stewart: Yeah, I think it’s a good thing…
McBride: Have you ever wished you had several lives, so that when you get tired of talking about one of them, you could switch to another?
Stewart: Yes, well, sometimes you…why don’t you just try elaborating a little. My wife accuses me of exaggeration.
McBride: She does? You’re the last man I’d pick for that.
Stewart: I always thought that, too.
McBride: In what way?
Stewart: The only way I can explain it to you is something that happened just the other day. We did this radio broadcast down from Constitution Hall and I was talking on the phone to somebody about it and I said that the show went very well and it was very thrilling to see all
these 8,000 people in Constitution Hall. Well, actually, there were just 4,000. My wife caught me on it right away. But I thought 8,000 sounded so much better and I didn’t think I was talking to anybody that was gonna to check up on me.
McBride: But you forgot you had a wife.
Stewart: Yes, it was twice too many.
McBride: I guess now she’ll be a little suspicious.
Stewart: No, she’s not a very suspicious girl.
McBride: She isn’t?
Stewart: Very nice girl.
McBride: Can she cook?
Stewart: No, can’t cook anything. Neither can I.
McBride: Hope you have a good cook then.
Stewart: You bet we do.
McBride: Was the Daisy you mentioned a while ago the one who used to censor your phone calls?
Stewart: Yes, Daisy never liked me very much, I’m afraid. I don’t think that was because she liked me. I don’t think Daisy liked many people at all.
McBride: …didn’t like you to act in a picture unless she approved
of the picture.
Stewart: No, but she didn’t approve of pictures.
McBride: At all?
Stewart: No.
McBride: How long was that?
Stewart: Let’s see, I had her about five years…about four years and then I went into the Army. Lots of people accused me of going into the Army to get away from Daisy.
McBride: And when you came out Daisy was…
Stewart: Yes, I thought, as a matter of fact, Daisy would sort of forget, but Daisy was the first one to call after I got out of the Army and I was so touched that I took her back…and that was a mistake because instead of mellowing over the years, Daisy had hardened up a little sort of like tungsten steel. And, ah, gee, I hope she’s not listening in.
McBride: Ever take any interest now in architecture?
Stewart: No, no, I sort of…several years ago I was thinking about maybe designing a house, but I’m very sorry that I haven’t gone on with it. I think maybe, perhaps later on I might get back to it. I hope so.
McBride: Did you take a whole course in it?
Stewart: Well, I majored in it in college and that’s two years and I got a Bachelor of Science degree in it.
McBride: What diverted you?
Stewart: Well, I went up to a stock company the summer after I got out of college and got bit by the bug and been in show business ever since.
McBride: …first review…two lines and howls of laughter…
Stewart: In Goodbye Again, yeah, I wish I could find a part like that again.
McBride: …the words didn’t sound so funny.
Stewart: Well, the part was spotted in the play very well. When they used to have vaudeville, you know, the spot of the act on the bill was a very important thing. And this part had absolutely nothing to do
with the play. You could cut the thing out…had nothing to do with the characters or anything in the play, but it was just spotted as a sort of a wait between the introduction of the main characters of the play. As a matter of fact, I remember I used to stay and take the first curtain call after the play and people would wonder who it was because I hadn’t been there since the first act. Yeah, it was the part of a chauffeur. I imagine people thought it was somebody’s chauffeur who’d got lost and ended up on the stage.
McBride: …reviewer said, never before in history had a man spent so little time on stage and gotten so much laughter.
Stewart: Is that right?
McBride: …keep for your scrapbook, or don’t you keep one?
Stewart: Yeah, my mother keeps one.
McBride: I guess you’re not very vain.
Stewart: Well, I don’t know…I don’t think I’m particularly vain.
McBride: If you’d become an architect, you might never have been so famous.
Stewart: Never have been able to play a clown…never been able to be a cowboy, be brave and conquer the northwest.
McBride: Is the clown the nicest thing you’ve ever played?
Stewart: Well, it was really exciting.
McBride: It was?
Stewart: Oh dear, it was lovely.
McBride: Tell me about it.
Stewart: Well, I think everybody…I think everybody at one time or another in their life has wanted to run away and join the circus and has wanted to play a clown. The thing about a clown’s makeup that they all say…all the clowns, all the real clowns in the circus…Emmett Kelly and all…they say that the minute you get the makeup on then your…then all your inhibitions, all self-consciousness that you have at some
time or another…all actual stage fright that almost everybody in the business has, goes because you’re another fella and you can do anything and it’s all right.
McBride: Did you feel that?
Stewart: Yeah, very definitely. It’s a wonderful experience.
McBride: Were you ever self-conscious?
Stewart: Oh yes. I think that’s the thing in acting that you have to overcome and that you can’t actually give true characterizations until you do overcome it. Stage fright is another thing. I think that just naturally happens to everybody.
McBride: What’s the difference between the two? Stage fright…
Stewart: You’re scared to death.
McBride: …and the other thing?
Stewart: The other thing is to let yourself not be conscious of anything except just the character that you’re playing or what you’re doing or who you’re listening to. A lot of people, I think, you see a performance or you hear something on the radio and you get the feeling that the person that isn’t talking at the moment isn’t listening and that’s just as important as talking in a conversation. You see it all the time in conversation around the dinner table. Somebody that won’t listen is a very annoying person.
McBride: …I wish we could do something about people like that.
Stewart: Yeah, there ought to be a home for them or something.
McBride: Limbo.
Stewart: Yes, yes, I’d settle for that.
McBride: When did you begin to get over being self-conscious?
Stewart: Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s just a part of the experience in show business. I think it comes gradually. It doesn’t come all at once and it depends on your experience. The only way to get over it is work, work at your craft.
McBride: Who discovered you?
Stewart: Gee, I don’t know. Bill Grady…Bill Grady is a casting director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, has been for 30 years, and I think maybe he had more to do with it than anyone else. I was in a play here in New York and he saw it and I took a test here. I think he was responsible for it.
McBride: Are those tests different now?
Stewart: They don’t make them anymore very much.
McBride: …because they can tell without them.
Stewart: Pretty much, yes. Actually, they don’t do much good. I mean it’s a…they do it to the girls so that they can get the best way to photograph her and everything, but actually as far as acting is concerned…for knowing whether a person can play a part or not…they’re of very little value. Well, another thing…it’s a very expensive thing. They’ve had to economize and wisely so. So they’ve cut out a lot of that. It’s an added expense that isn’t necessary.
McBride: How does Hollywood feel about three dimensions and television?
Stewart: Well, it’s all very exciting out there now. Everybody’s…I don’t know much about the three dimension…four dimensions…I don’t know, but I think the thing will level off and they’ll have some new kind of thing — probably a combination of Cinerama and three dimension. But it’s very exhilarating now because the movie business is much better than it was. And this boogie man, television that everybody was talking about, I think actually has helped the movies. I think that people in the east and in different parts of the country have had whole new avenues of entertainment opened up to them by the movies. By seeing outdoor pictures in the western-type of movies on television, I think it’s been a…it’s given them the desire to see more of them on bigger screens, in color and to see more adventure-type movies; so that I think, actually, it’s helped us.
McBride: …have a different opinion than most.
Stewart: Well, Hollywood is an emotional place, you know. Everybody’s up in the clouds or we’ll have something just…if something happens out there, it happens much more violently than anywhere else
because, you know, it’s a sort of an emotional place. We deal in emotions, so it’s sort of natural that it happens that way.
McBride: What are you working on now?
Stewart: I’ve finished two. One is in release now, but will be here a little later, this month, I think, called The Naked Spur, the Western we did up in Colorado. Then I finished one called Thunder Bay that I did down in Louisiana. It’s about the off-shore oil drilling thing down off the coast of Louisiana. We did the whole picture down there. It’s in color. It’s an adventure story with a sort of a broad, wide scope. Then I’m going to do the life story of Glenn Miller, the orchestra leader, in March. Then I’m gonna do a picture with Hitchcock; a murder mystery. And then I’m gonna do another Western. They call this one Alder’s Gulch and we call this a wet Western. It starts on a boat out to sea. This is so you don’t have to spend the whole picture on your horse, you see. [Note: The title Alder’s Gulch, was changed to The Far Country before the film’s release.]
McBride: I love you, James Stewart.
Stewart: Well, bless your heart.
McBride: And give my love to the twins and your nice wife.
Stewart: I certainly will.
McBride: …recommend marriage to all bachelors out there.
Stewart: Well, I’m gonna tell my wife what you said.
Parts of this interview were included on Saturday Digest, broadcast from 1 to 2 p.m. the following day (March 7, 1953). Interviews with writer Ed Reid and opera singer Nadine Conner were also included.
The entire March 6th program was rebroadcast in the Chicago area on March 23rd.
