Today we’re continuing our conversation with Scott Eyman about his book Hank & Jim. The book chronicles the long friendship between two Hollywood icons, Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. Unlike many friendships, theirs wasn’t based on shared beliefs about things like religion or politics. In fact, Stewart was a church-going Republican married to the same woman for 45 years. Fonda was a liberal Democrat and a non-believer who was married five times. Despite these and other differences, Fonda and Stewart found solace in each other’s company. They understood each other on a cellular level and around each other, they could have fun and relax.
Biographer Scott Eyman shares some of the things that divided them, but that didn’t prevent them from becoming friends, or staying friends, for half a century. As I mentioned on last week’s show, in this day and age when friendships between people on opposite sides of the political and social spectrum are increasingly rare, the story of Hank and Jim is a particularly instructive and relevant one, and I’m glad we are able to devote two weeks of Reader’s Corner to it.
