Mr. Stewart's Neighborhood

The Wall Street Journal op-ed page (5/20) used the occasion of Jimmy Stewart's 89th birthday last week to toast the actor as a universal role model. No argument there. But contributor John Meroney even discovered virtue in Stewart's Beverly Hills residence.

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"It's also fitting that a man whose movies celebrate middle American values has lived in the same, rather plain Tudor-style house on a block absent the typical L.A. glitz for almost 50 years," wrote Meroney.

A friend of Chatterbox's, who grew up a few blocks away from the Stewart house during the '70s, protests:

"We can debate whether Stewart's place is a house or a mansion. But 'plain'? It's huge. About 15 or 20 years ago he bought and demolished the house next door for a bigger back yard. And the implication that Stewart shuns a glam address is ridiculous. His intersection, Roxbury and Lexington, was ground zero for Hollywood movie stars of the '30s and '40s; on one corner Clark Gable, on another Lucille Ball, and one over from Lucy, Jack Benny."

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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