Like so many of the other Tex McCrary-Jinx Falkenburg programs, Mr. Stewart’s appearance on this show would have been very difficult to confirm from newspaper listings alone. Most, like the one below from the May 19, 1953, edition of New York Times, simply listed a title:
Fortunately, this particular program is a part of the NBC Collection at the Library of Congress. Because of this, we were able to listen to the entire one-hour program and confirm Jimmy’s guest appearance.
In the show’s first segment, Jinx has a quiz arranged for Jimmy. She is going to mention the title of a film in which he has starred and he has to give his character’s name.
1) She begins with Thunder Bay, which she mentions would be premiering in New York that evening (the Internet Movie Database lists the premier as coming on May 21st…not the 19th). Jimmy gets Steve Martin with little trouble.
2) He easily remembers that his character’s name was Shorty in The Murder Man.
3) He is stumped on The Philadelphia Story. Unfortunately, so is Jinx! Apparently, no one had supplied her with the correct answers. (He played Macaulay Connor)
4) Jimmy has very little trouble in naming Elwood P. Dowd as his character in Harvey.
5) Stewart remembers that his first name was George in It’s a Wonderful Life, but he can’t remember that his last name was Bailey.
6) He guesses that his first name was Bill in Magic Town. He’s wrong, of course. His role was that of Rip Smith.
7) Jimmy is positive that he played Glen McLintic in Winchester ’73. Wrong again…he was Lin McAdam.
8) He had no answer at all for the film The Naked Spur. Jinx didn’t know either, although later in the show she was handed a piece of paper saying that he had played Howard Kemp.
9) Jimmy knew that he had played Buttons, a clown, in The Greatest Show on Earth.
10) Jimmy also got the final character correct when he knew he was Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
After a break, Tex and Jinx had another quiz for Jimmy. This time they would play a clip of a song or a voice and he would have to identify each. He was able to easily identify all four.
1) The Princeton Fight Song – Stewart even sang a little bit of it for them.
2) Josh Logan
3) Jose Ferrer
4) Leland Hayward; he mentioned that Logan and Hayward owned the rights to Rear Window and that he and Alfred Hitchcock were going to make a film of it. He also mentioned the titles of three other movies in which he was going to star – The Glenn Miller Story, Strategic Air Command and Alder’s Gulch. Alder’s Gulch? Yes, this was the working title for what became The Far Country.
Following another break, Jimmy came back and wrapped up his appearance by talking about his marriage, his children and boy scouting. He especially talked about his two-year-old twin daughters, Judy and Kelly.
At the very beginning of the show, Jinx and Jimmy estimate that this was his “12th or 13th” visit to one of her programs as a guest. Only five appearances, including this one, have been definitely established, with a further three remaining to be confirmed. That would seem to leave at least four or five guest shots yet to be found.
