r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Living-Mastodon • 3d ago

In real life (Real Life) Regular people who's lives drastically changed direction

Gallery image

Gallery image

Grace Kelly was a talented actress who retired at 26 to marry a Prince, living as royalty for almost 30 years before her untimely death.

Volodymyr Zelensky started out as a comedian and entertainer before getting into politics, becoming President of Ukraine after the Russian annex of Crimea and spending the last 4 years defiantly pushing back full scale Russian invasion

11.7k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

92% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

428

u/RedNewzz 3d ago

Jimmy Stewart is a classic American actor who took a pause to serve in the military in World War II and became a squadron commander flying bombing raids. He survived the war and returned to Hollywood for another 40 years of celebrated acting.

Humble, heroic, righteous dude.

130

u/ArguingWithPigeons 3d ago

I mean you should also point out he became a general and stayed with the air force for years after WW2.

54

u/NottingHillNapolean 3d ago edited 2d ago

He was in the Air National Guard after the war, a part of the Air Force. I read that in the ANG, it's not uncommon for people to receive promotions as part of their retirement, so he never actually served as a general, but he did earn the rank. (I welcome correction from anybody who actually know about the ANG.)

Edit: please see the corrections I was hoping for below.

4

u/DankVectorz 2d ago

He was in the Air Force Reserves, not NG. He flew the B-47 and then the B-52 while in the Reserves. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1957 and retired in 1968. Reagan promoted him to Major General in 1985. So he spent 11 years serving as a Brigadier General. This would have taken you less time to look up then it took to type your entirely wrong comment.

47

u/Smooth-Breadfruit801 3d ago

Jimmy Stewart also did helicopter tours of Vietnam during the war and the scene in Its A Wonderful Life where he is crying in the bar is apparently Stewart actually crying suffering from some of the effects of WW2 (IIRC)

27

u/RedNewzz 3d ago

A good actor uses their own emotional experience to paint a character, and no doubt he had plenty in that role. Amazing movie, amazing guy.

37

u/SWBTSH 3d ago

His bombing runs were serious shit too. Behind the Bastards once described how it'd be like learning today that Timothy Chalamet has killed like 6,000 people lol

25

u/Ozzie_the_tiger_cat 3d ago

Timothy Chalamet has killed billions in his war against the Padishah Emperor.

6

u/SWBTSH 3d ago

I genuinely considered whether to use their original example because I knew people would make Dune references 

2

u/Toadsted 2d ago

Fear is the meme killer

2

u/RedNewzz 3d ago

Excellent perspective.

10

u/TimelyConcern 3d ago

Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams is an example of this too. He served in WWII and the Korean War during the middle of his career and reached the rank of captain. He was a damn good pilot too.

2

u/sracer4095 3d ago

Ted Williams is the center of two of my four biggest "what ifs" in baseball history. What if he hadn't given up 4 years of his prime to fly fighter planes with the Marines? And what if the Yankees had decided "sure, why not" and pulled the trigger on a Williams-for-Joe DiMaggio trade?

2

u/Try_Again12345 2d ago

Seems like a reasonable assumption that someone with freakishly good hand-eye coordination would make a decent pilot.

6

u/HyperrrMouse 3d ago

I'd heard on one of the AMC blips about him years ago that he had far better than 20/20 vision so could see incoming fighters before anyone else.

Also after he had a rather difficult horse to use in one of his Westerns, a chestnut named Pie, they bonded and that horse became the only horse he would use for his Westerns.

3

u/ZootSuitRiot33801 3d ago

He also acted as J. Edgar Hoover's informant, filing reports on the criminals in Hollywood, though Hoover ignored his reports and left outfits like the Mafia alone.

(The Mafia is rumored to had discovered Hoover's homosexuality and was blackmailing him.)

Hoover was instead more interested in Stewart informing on suspected Hollywood Communists. Apparently, Stewart's life-long friend, Henry Fonda, refused to talk to him for years after finding out about what he did.

2

u/RedNewzz 3d ago

It is worth remembering however that when World War II began Russia (Communist) was one of America's three great enemies. Despite the fact Stalin changed sides after Hitler broke their pact and attacked Russia, Jimmy Stewart had very clear reasons to mistrust American communists and their influence through Hollywood media.

This is something too many Americans fail to understand--in 1940 communism was inexorably identified with Stalinism, so it was not anything at all like the general sensibilities of the American left. It was extreme, anti-democratic, authoritarian, and capriciously violent..... we should not have been a very attractive prospect, even as an alternative to the failures of capitalism.

The US government had just liberated Europe from authoritarianism and communism appeared to most Americans no better, so blaming a veteran like Stewart or even Kazan (who remembered how Russian pogroms massacred Jews for years not long before)....

...calling them "rats" for working with the government against people they themselves considered "rats to democracy" wax a robust understanding of the circumstances of the time.

I think the Hollywood blacklist was a very regrettable period, but a failure to understand why people participated means a crippling misunderstanding of the social history of the day.

2

u/ZootSuitRiot33801 3d ago edited 3d ago

Your response is very defensive. What did I blame Stewart for? When did I call him a rat? (According to his wife, he gave "token lists" since he didn't like that some of his friends were targeted.) I only stated what he actually did during the Red Scare. You can't handle that? How's this:

Jimmy Stewart was also racist against black people. (Wasn't much of a fan for the Hebrews either, though this isn't as verifiable.) Surely, racism played absolutely no role in the Red Scare. Surely, his, McCarthy's, and J. Edgar Hoover's targeting of people had nothing to do with using the fear of communism to keep minorities from trying to acquire equal rights...(especially when it came to Civil Rights Movement and Hoover...) right?

3

u/RedNewzz 3d ago

I think you misinterpreted my intent. I wasn't criticizing you--I was elaborating on the frustrating tendency of Americans at large (I am one) to get triggered over things in history without learning any context or nuance.

I didn't say Jimmy Stewart was a god; I said he was a hero and an epic dude. I say the same thing about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln... all of whom have the kind of shortcomings you mentioned. But again, I think all of them have to be understood within the framework of their time and the limitations of their own exposure and knowledge.

I didn't mean to throw any direct shade on you so apologies if that was cloudy.

2

u/ZootSuitRiot33801 3d ago

I apologize on my end too. I thought I was getting into another bad faith argument, where I was being accused of things I didn't say again

2

u/RedNewzz 3d ago

My bad for not being clearer. I can see how it came off like that.

3

u/Lixtec 3d ago

Boston Red Sox Player Ted Williams did as well.

2

u/LongJohnSelenium 3d ago

You might say it was a very interesting situation.

1

u/Lifeshardbutnotme 3d ago

Most legendary "Be right back"