"Going beyond biography, Donald Dewey captures the wistful America of the 1940s and '50s and the screen icon who symbolized it.With polished ease and impeccable pacing, Parker brings listeners into each chapter and onto each movie set to glimpse Hollywood's inner workings. Parker narrates with the same casual yet focused flair that characterized Stewart's acting style. In this way, Parker lends an instant comfort and intimacy to the text and its subject, while giving Dewey's writing center stage to engage and captivate the listener." AudioFile

"[A] voluminous, highly intelligent look at one of the richest and most complex of Hollywood star personas, not incidentally, one of the industry's most beloved actors.very astute is the analysis of Stewart's career choices, and the detailed recounting of his distinguished record as a bomber pilot and squad commander during WW II is downright moving. A model of how to do a serious but entertaining Hollywood biography." Kirkus Reviews

In the most penetrating and in-depth biography yet written about the beloved screen icon, award-winning author Donald Dewey delves beneath the persona into the usually unremarked turmoil of the actor's private life and behind the earnest Capraesque image so often accepted as the Stewart identity.

He draws upon extensive research and nearly two hundred interviews to follow Stewart from his hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania, and a childhood shaped by a strong-willed father, to the fateful encounter at Princeton University with actress Margaret Sullavan, to his first professional theatrical experiences on Cape Cod and the forging of a remarkable life-long friendship with Henry Fonda in New York, to his unexpected stardom at MGM.

Tom Parker, recipient of the Golden Voice award, records a remarkable variety of books while pursuing his love of theater by directing two or three professional stage productions a year in the Washington, D.C., area.