Lionel Bart (1 August – 3 April ) was a writer and composer of British pop music and Jump to navigation Jump to search He grew up in Stepney; his father worked in the area as a tailor in a garden shed. . overwhelming praise , in particular from Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Dame Barbara Windsor.
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It is estimated that around this time Bart was earning 16 pounds a minute from Oliver! Bart's next two musicals, Blitz! By this time Bart was taking LSD and other drugs and was drinking heavily, and this may have affected both his work and his business judgement. He rashly used his personal finances to try to rescue his last two productions, selling his past and future rights to his work, including Oliver! A twenty-year period of depression and alcoholism ensued.
He eventually stopped drinking, although the years of substance abuse seriously damaged his health, leaving him with diabetes and impaired liver function. In May , an autobiographical musical called Lionel! It was loosely based on Bart's early life as a child prodigy. Bart added some new songs for the show and expectations were high. Bart continued writing songs and themes for films, but his only real success in his later years was "Happy Endings", a song he wrote for a Abbey National advertising campaign, which featured Bart playing the piano and singing to children.
He received a special Ivor Novello Award for life achievement in In , encouraged by long time friend Barry Humphries, he travelled to Australia to attend the opening of a new production of "Blitz! Cameron Mackintosh , who owned half the rights to Oliver! Mackintosh gave Bart a share of the production royalties. At the peak of his career, Bart was romantically linked in the media with singers Judy Garland and Alma Cogan , [8] though he was in fact gay.
His sexuality was known to friends and colleagues but he did not "come out" until a few years before his death. A first workshop of a musical play based on Bart's life and using his songs, It's a Fine Life , was staged in at the Queen's Theatre , Hornchurch. The play, after substantial development and now titled "More! From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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November Learn how and when to remove this template message. The New York Times. Bart, Lionel Biography". Archived from the original on 3 April Archived from the original on 29 June Retrieved 19 February Retrieved 2 May Lionel Bart obituary, The Independent , 5 April ". The success of Lionel Bart's masterpiece sent him into a spiral of drug-fuelled hedonism".
Stewart played George Bailey in the classic movie and channeled his anger and guilt into the scenes where he rages at his family. Stewart was haunted by 'a thousand black memories' from his time as an Air Force commanding officer that he took with him back to Hollywood after the war. Stewart wrestled with the guilt of killing civilians in bomb raids over France and Germany including one instance where they destroyed the wrong city by mistake. Scroll down for video.
Lionel Barrymore - IMDb
Before entering the military, Stewart earned his commercial pilot license so that he could join the Air Force. He would would channel his PTSD while filming scenes for the film, including the above scene on the bridge. Stewart felt responsible for the death of his men and especially one bloodbath where he lost 13 planes containing men who he knew well. He acted it out during It's a Wonderful Life, where character George Bailey unravels in front of his family - the emotional core of the film after a lifetime of setbacks, including being unable to go to war while his brother becomes a decorated hero.
Films like Shenandoah and Winchester 73 allowed Stewart to explore his dark side which was never there before he went to war. Matzen writes that Stewart's decision to join the military was less surprising than his decision to become an actor; his grandfather fought in the Civil War and more distant relatives fought in the Revolutionary War.
Growing up in Indiana, Pennsylvania, he got into acting while in school and was given a contract by MGM in which led to him starring Philadelphia Story in , for which he won the Oscar. Stewart's initial attempts to join the military failed because he was too skinny. Pictured above, he's wrapped in layers while experiencing winter in Europe.
Jimmy Stewart suffered such extreme PTSD after he lost 130 of his men as a fighter pilot
His bulk includes long johns, a blue bunny heated flying suit, shirt, tie, pants, coveralls, jacket, scarf and gloves. Stewart's chance came with the creation of a B bomber group, the th, and he was appointed commander of the rd squadron. However in his spare time Stewart was flying planes relentlessly and got his commercial pilot license so that he could join the Air Force.
His initial attempts failed because he was too skinny, despite trying to fatten himself up on ice cream and chocolate bars.
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Asked by a studio boss why he wanted to give up his life in Hollywood, Stewart said: Stewart was initially put in the Air Force Motion Picture Division because commanders wanted to use him to make films to convince more airmen to sign up. He was also used for PR stunts until he demanded that he see combat like other airmen. Fellow actor Clark Gable right, with Stewart also entered the military and was sent into combat. Comparison photos show the price of service.
In the photo at left, Second Lieutenant Stewart poses in early The photo at right shows Major Stewart two years later, after having flown three months of maximum effort combat missions as a squadron commander. Stewart was put in command of a B bomber group, the th. A B with the circle F pictured above denoted the th Bomb Group.
Matzen writes that the 'key moment in Jim's life had arrived. There would never be another like this, not before, not after'. He wanted to prove he was responsible enough to be an officer, that he could handle this, he could make his dad proud of him'. According to 'Mission', Stewart and the th were deployed to Tibenham in East Anglia in England where they would carry out bombing raids on German targets. Stewart did not stay on the ground and flew with his men. Unlike other commanding officers Stewart, who was a Captain, took time to get to know his men as he wanted a team atmosphere.
- Lionel Bart;
- Harry Potter and the Civil War.
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The tactic worked but at a huge personal cost - when they started to be killed off it hit him harder. Their first mission was to bomb a Nazi submarine facility in the city of Kiel and went off better than Stewart had expected. Not flying was difficult than flying for Major Stewart, seen here waiting on the control tower platform at Station Tibenham for the group to return from a mission. Stewart refused to discuss his combat missions and remained aloof about his service until the end of his life. In he returned to Tibenham, England, where he spent four months as a squadron commander.
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As the flight got underway Stewart's dream was finally realized - he was in combat. Matzen writes that he 'became part of something vital, something like the phalanx of the Roman legions'. The biggest shock was the flak from anti-aircraft guns. Matzen writes that the training about it 'bore no resemblance to the experience' and their bombers yawed left and right and pitched up and down as explosions went off all around them in the sky.
None of Stewart's planes were shot down during the raid - but soon the bodies began fall. During a raid on Bremen, the second largest port in Germany, enemy fighters took down a bomber called 'Good Nuff'. Of the crew of ten, just three parachuted out. Not for the first time, Stewart had to write a letter to the parents of the dead airmen saying they were missing and presumed dead. A mission over Mannheim ended in catastrophe when they lost two planes with 20 men inside. And as the weeks went on, this all began to weigh heavily on Stewart. It wasn't just that he had responsibility for his plane, if he was in a group it was planes and it was sometimes planes.
He took back to Hollywood all the stress that he had built up.
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In total Stewart flew 20 missions and the stress manifested itself physically and mentally. Stewart could not keep his food down which became a problem when he was embarking on draining eight or nine hour missions. Stewart survived the war on peanut butter and ice cream which meant his diet consisted of just protein and sugar. Unable to sleep, he became more and more wore down by the demanding flights - that became more and more bloody. The worst was one that Stewart did not actually fly on, but his squadron did. The raid on the city of Gotha, Germany, led to the loss of 13 planes, or men all in one go.
Those who survived told horrific tales of bodies flying through the air and planes exploding in front of them.
More more than two hours Nazi fighters 'poured death and destruction' at Stewart's men from every direction. They used cables with bombs attached to them to bring their bombers down, fired rockets 'like the Fourth of July' and fired rockets at will. Nazi pilots followed the planes as they went down to make sure there were no survivors. Stewart heard all this and knew that the next day he had to lead the next nearly identical mission. That night he did not sleep - miraculously his flight was nowhere near as bad.
Perhaps the episode which disturbed Stewart the most was a raid which went terribly wrong. The rd were assigned to bomb a V-1 rocket facility in the northern French village of Siracourt. It's A Wonderful Life pictured, with Stewart center was a lifeline for Stewart and rehabilitated him in the eyes of Hollywood, showing directors that he could still act. The instruments in Stewart's cockpit malfunctioned and 12 bombers deployed their payloads on the city of Tonnerre instead.
At least 30 tons of general purpose bombs rained down causing unknown numbers of civilian casualties. Stewart's pilots tried to cover for him but he took the blame himself, something which earned him their ultimate respect. Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, hits bookstores on October 24 and is available for order on Amazon. After getting a leave of absence Stewart spent weeks staying with his friend Peter Fonda in Los Angeles doing nothing but decompress. Matzen writes that Stewart 'couldn't imagine life in a peacetime air force, settling into a routine of drudgery'.
For Stewart his soul had been 'ground down to nothing' and his 'youth had died'. When Stewart's mother Bessie and his father Alex saw him for the first time they were 'shocked by what they saw - their boy had aged what seemed decades'. Matzen writes that he was a decorated war hero, was rake thin and had gray hair and a 'command authority' that made his father uneasy.
Stewart faced a grim reality: He was 37 but looked 50 and his career as a romantic lead was over.