While studying architecture at Princeton, Jimmy Stewart acted on campus and in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
In the summer of 1932, Jimmy Stewart went to Cape Cod to do bit roles and plays the accordion. With colleague and friend Henry Fonda, he began playing in New York. Neither actor had training or background.
In 1933, Stewart was the stage manager for the Boston engagement of Jane Cowl’s production of Camille. In October 1933, he stage managed Spring in Autumn, in which he also played as an actor. Then the producer Arthur Beckhard also employed him in his New York office, which added to his meager income.
Stewart acted as Johnny Chadwick in the play All Good Americans, which opened in December 1933. His first important Broadway play was as the idealist sergeant O’Hara in Sidney Kingsley’s Yellow Jack, which opened at the Martin Beck Theater on March 6, 1934, and enjoyed a respectable run.
He later appeared as Teddy Parish in Divided by Three, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, on October 2, 1934; as Ed Olsen in Page Miss Glory at the Mansfield Theatre, on November 27, 1934; and as Carl in Journey By Night, at the Shubert, on April 16, 1935.
