Remember, no man is a failure who has friends
That's not just a nice sentiment. It's scientifically true.
Quick update on Life Story Magic: I’m pushing the final Founding Customer offer to tomorrow while I wrap up a small technical detail. I’ll include details in the Tuesday newsletter when it goes out at 7 a.m. E.T. Thanks for your patience.
It’s a Wonderful Life
In 1946, actor Jimmy Stewart looked like hell.
He was 38 years old but could pass for 50: gaunt, weathered, prematurely aged. He’d spent the last five years in the cockpit of a B-24 Liberator, flying bombing missions over Germany, watching friends die, making decisions that either saved lives or cost them.
He’d risen from private to colonel and became one of the most decorated pilots in his unit. But he’d come home with nightmares he couldn’t shake and weight he couldn’t gain back.
Acting felt pointless to him now. Before the war, Stewart had been one of Hollywood’s biggest stars—the charming everyman in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the romantic lead in “The Philadelphia Story” (which won him an Oscar).
But that felt like someone else’s life. After what he’d seen, standing in front of a camera and pretending seemed silly. Indecent, even.
He seriously considered going home to Pennsylvania to run the family hardware store.
Then Frank Capra called. Capra—another war veteran, another man trying to figure out if movies still mattered—had a script he wanted to film, based on a short novella published during the war. It was called The Greatest Gift, and it was about a man who’d given up his dreams to help others, who felt like a failure, and who stood on a bridge on Christmas Eve wondering if anyone would miss him if he were gone.
Stewart agreed to do the film, but thought it might be his last.
On set, he struggled with things that used to be easy—remembering lines, hitting marks. His hearing was going from all those hours in loud bombers. In a scene in which his character breaks down in front of his family, Capra and crew realized they were watching Stewart’s real-life pain and what we would now call PTSD, captured on film.
Meanwhile, the film went way beyond budget thanks to script rewrites, a chaotic shooting schedule, and an obsessive quest to create realistic-looking fake snow.
Stewart and Capra persevered, and the movie—retitled “It’s a Wonderful Life”—premiered December 20, 1946—79 years ago this week—in New York City.
It bombed.
“The weakness of this picture,” wrote The New York Times, “is the sentimentality of it—its illusory concept of life.” Audiences stayed away.
They’d just survived a brutal war; maybe they wanted escapism, not a movie about a suicidal man contemplating jumping off a bridge.
The flop bankrupted Liberty Films, the independent studio Capra had founded with fellow war veteran directors; Capra would make only five more films, none successful.
But for Stewart, the result was different. His performance, even in a failed film, was undeniable. Within two years he was starring in “Rope” for Hitchcock. By 1950, he was back on Broadway in “Harvey,” then reprised it on film to great success.
He transitioned from romantic leads to darker, more complex roles—Westerns with Anthony Mann, psychological thrillers with Hitchcock. “Rear Window.” “Vertigo.” “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”
As for “It’s a Wonderful Life,” for nearly three decades, it was just a forgotten flop.
But in 1974, in what can only be described as a clerical miracle, Republic Pictures failed to renew the film’s copyright. The movie fell into the public domain; suddenly any TV station could air it for free.
So they did, especially at Christmas, when stations needed cheap programming to fill airtime, to the point that it became ubiquitous. People recorded it on VHS, families watched it together, and it became as essential to Christmas as wrapped presents and decorated trees.
In fact, I’m going to assume that you’ve seen it; it’s hard to imagine there are too many people living in the United States over the age of say, 30 or 40, who haven’t. Today it’s considered not just a Christmas classic but one of the 100 greatest American movies of all time.
All of which is a great story. But, there’s another reason why I think it resonates.
Remember the movie’s message? The inscription in the book at the end: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”
That’s not just a nice sentiment. It’s scientifically true, at least according to the Harvard Grant Study, which has followed people for nearly 90 years to understand what makes humans happy and healthy.
The finding? Dr. Robert Waldinger, who runs it, put it simply: “Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”
George Bailey learned it on a bridge. Jimmy Stewart lived it coming home from war. And decades of Harvard research backs them both up.
7 optimistic moments from history this week
Sunday, December 14: “Victory awaits those who have everything in order—people call that luck. Defeat is certain for those who have forgotten to take the necessary precautions in time—that is called bad luck.” — Roald Amundsen, whose five-man Norwegian expedition reached the South Pole on this day in 1911, beating Robert Falcon Scott’s British team by 33 days.
Monday, December 15: “This is an extraordinary moment for Pisa and Italy and all of humanity. A monument that is known around the world is finally open again for everyone to see.” — Pisa Mayor Paolo Fontanelli, as the Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened on this day in 2001 after 11 years and $27 million in repairs that stabilized it without eliminating its famous lean.
Tuesday, December 16: “There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this last Effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire. The People should never rise, without doing something to be remembered—something notable And striking.” — John Adams, writing in his diary on December 17, 1773, about the Boston Tea Party that occurred the night before, when colonists dumped 342 chests of British tea into Boston Harbor.
Wednesday, December 17: “My goal in creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what I called ‘the mainstream trash’ that they were watching.” — Matt Groening, whose animated series The Simpsons premiered on Fox on this day in 1989 with “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” becoming the longest-running American primetime scripted series.
Thursday, December 18: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” — The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, proclaimed on this day in 1865 after Secretary of State William Seward certified its ratification by three-quarters of the states.
Friday, December 19: “Mr. Commissioner, I accept the Williamsburg Bridge from your hands and I now pronounce it to be open from this day forward to the public use.” — New York City Mayor Seth Low, speaking at the dedication ceremony on this day in 1903 for the Williamsburg Bridge, which at 7,308 feet became the world’s longest suspension bridge until 1924.
Saturday, December 20: “There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three eighths of our territory must pass to market.” — President Thomas Jefferson, in a letter written in 1802, describing why the Louisiana Purchase—which was completed on this day in 1803—was essential to the nation’s future, doubling the size of the United States for $15 million.
Thanks for reading—and thanks again for responding as people did to Life Story Magic. See you in the comments!
Did not know that whole backstory about Jimmy Stewart - thanks!
I did know a bit about Jimmy Stewart’s war history and his subsequent struggles with PTSD however I knew nothing about Its A Wonderful Life and how it became a staple in the American Christmas experience. Somehow there was a strange yet wonderful destiny for both the actor and this little “failure” of a film. It ended up with lots of friends.
On another, much darker front, no doubt too late for mention in your newsletter, word of the death of Rob Reiner and his wife flew around the US and probably the world as well. It just seemed to top off a horrible, bloody weekend of news.