Jimmy Stewart was also interesting..........he was a war hero, a senator, and of course an actor..........................

elly unhesitatingly turned down the opportunity to star alongside Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront.^{[citation needed]} Eva Marie Saint, who replaced Kelly won an Academy Award for that role. Kelly committed instead to the role of Lisa Fremont in Rear Window. Said Kelly, "All through the making ofDial M for Murder, he [Hitchcock] sat and talked to me about Rear Window all the time, even before we had discussed my being in it."^[16] During the shooting of Dial M for Murder, Kelly and Hitchcock shared a close bond of humor and admiration, although minor strife sometimes emerged on set.

With James Stewart in Rear Window, 1954

Kelly's new co-star, James Stewart, was highly enthusiastic about working with her.^[17] The role of Lisa Fremont, a wealthy Manhattan socialite and model, was unlike any of the previous women Kelly had played. For the very first time, she portrayed an independent, career-driven woman. Stewart played a speculative photographer with a broken leg, bound to a wheelchair and so reduced to curiously observing the happenings outside his window. Just as he had done earlier, Hitchcock provided the camera with a slow-sequenced silhouette of Kelly, along with a close-up of the two stars kissing, and finally lingering closely on her profile. With the film's opening in October 1954, Kelly was again praised. Variety's film critic remarked on the casting, commenting on the "earthy quality to the relationship between Stewart and Miss Kelly. Both do a fine job of the picture's acting demands."^[18]

Kelly won the role of Bing Crosby's long-suffering wife, Georgie Elgin, in The Country Girl, after a pregnant Jennifer Jones bowed out. Already familiar with the play, Kelly was highly interested in the part. To do so, MGM would have to lend Kelly out to Paramount. Kelly was adamant, and threatened the studio that if they did not allow her to do it she would pack her bags and leave for New York for good. MGM relented, and the part was hers. The film also paired Kelly again with William Holden. The wife of a washed-up alcoholic singer, played by Crosby, Kelly's character is emotionally torn between two lovers.