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Arthur retired when her contract with Columbia Pictures expired in 1944. She reportedly ran through the studio's streets, shouting "I'm free, I'm free!"<ref name="Morgan">{{Cite web |title=Jean Arthur, the Nonconformist |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6930-jean-arthur-the-nonconformist |last=Morgan |first=Kim |date=2020-05-05 |website=The Criterion Collection |language=en |access-date=2020-05-16}}</ref> For the next several years, she turned down virtually all film offers, the two exceptions being [[Billy Wilder]]'s ''[[A Foreign Affair]]'' (1948), in which she played a congresswoman and rival of Marlene Dietrich's , and as a homesteader's wife in the classic Western ''[[Shane (film)|Shane]]'' (1953), which turned out to be the biggest box-office hit of her career. The latter was her final film, and the only color film in which she appeared.<ref>Anthony, Elizabeth. [http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Arthur/arthur2.htm "Jean Arthur at Screen Classics."] ''Reelclassics.com,'' July 21, 2010. Retrieved: August 14, 2010.</ref>
Arthur's postretirement work in theater was intermittent, somewhat curtailed by her unease and discomfort about working in public.<ref>[http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=6045 "TCM Movie Database: Jean Arthur."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930235833/http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=6045 |date=2007-09-30 }} ''Tcmdb.com,'' August 14, 2010.</ref> Capra claimed she vomited in her dressing room between scenes, yet emerged each time to perform a flawless take. According to John Oller's biography, ''Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew'' (1997), Arthur developed a kind of [[stage fright]] punctuated with bouts of [[psychosomatic illness]]es. A prime example was in 1945, when she was cast in the lead of the [[Garson Kanin]] play ''[[Born Yesterday (play)|Born Yesterday]]''. Her nerves and insecurity got the better of her and she left the production before it reached Broadway, opening the door for a then-unknown [[Judy Holliday]] to take the part.
She did score a major triumph on Broadway in 1950, starring in [[Leonard Bernstein]]'s [[Peter Pan (1950 musical)|adaptation of ''Peter Pan'']], playing the title character, when she was almost 50. She tackled the role of her eponym, Joan of Arc, in a 1954 stage production of [[George Bernard Shaw]]'s ''[[Saint Joan (play)|Saint Joan]]'', but she left the play after a [[nervous breakdown]] and battles with director [[Harold Clurman]].{{citation needed|date=March 2020}}
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