LOS ANGELES, July 3: James Stewart, the lanky, slow-talking actor who embodied American decency and moral courage in movies such as Mr Smith goes to Washington and It's a wonderful life, died at 89.

Daily variety columnist Army Archerd said Stewart's son told him the actor died at his Beverly Hills home.

Stewart played in some of the most memorable performances in cinema history, appearing in more than 75 films. He won a best actor academy award for The Philadelphia story and was nominated for the Oscar four other times.

He starred in such righteous tales as The man who shot liberty valance, Destry rides again and The flight of the phoenix. He also played more troubled characters in films like Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

But he was best known for his role as a suicidal businessman who finds redemption in It's a wonderful life, among the most-loved films in Hollywood history and Stewart's personal favourite.

In Mr Smith goes to Washington in 1939, he was an idealistic young Senator who challenges the backroom deals of the US Capitol. In one of Stewart's most famous lines, he says: ``I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if behind them they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary kindness and a little lookin' out for the other fella.'' In his most memorable roles, he played earnest, sometimes bashful heroes, slow to anger but with endless perseverance. He seemed the same in life, and the American public's affection for him endured. In an age of elegant, handsome matinee idols, Stewart was more the average-looking guy next door. Stewart's life reflected a small-town, religious upbringing and sense of responsibility: he was conservative politically, married only once, earned medals for his World War II missions and often returned to help out at the family hardware store in Indiana, Pennsylvania, where his best actor Oscar was displayed in the window for 20 years.

With a stammering, humble manner, Stewart's acting seemed effortless and natural. Frank Capra, who directed Mr Smith and It's a wonderful life, once said that even better than a great performance was ``when the actor disappears and a real live person appears on the screen.'' Stewart was one of the few to reach that level, Capra has said of the man. Stewart made his feature film debut in 1935's The murder man as a newspaper reporter opposite Spencer Tracy. ``I was all hands and feet, and didn't know what to do with either,'' he once said.

In 1980, he received the American Film Institute's life achievement award, and in 1985, an honorary Oscar.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.