Magic still resonates for two actors in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” Frank Capra’s story about redemption and a life fulfilled, bombed at the box office when it was released in early 1947.
For decades, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was largely forgotten until 1974 when Republic Pictures failed to renew its copyright protection. The film lapsed into the public domain, meaning anyone could show the film without obtaining permission or paying royalties. Its ubiquity on broadcast TV gave the film a second life.
Now it’s hard to imagine American life without the film. It was ranked No. 20 of the 100 greatest films in 2007 by the American Film Institute. Capra and stars Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart in interviews said it was their favorite film they ever worked on.
It’s also a treasure that keeps on giving for living cast members Jimmy Hawkins, who played 4-year-old Tommy Bailey, and Karolyn Grimes, who played 6-year-old Zuzu Bailey and uttered the famous line, “Look, Daddy. Teacher says, ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.’ ”
The movie, though, was just a footnote in their lives until the late 1970s. “I started hearing more about it then,” said Hawkins. “People were holding trivia parties. I thought, ‘Wow! This suddenly got big!’ ” He remained an actor in the 1950s and ’60s and worked with Reed on “The Donna Reed Show” from 1958 to 1966.
Grimes got out of show business in her teens. She didn’t even see “It’s a Wonderful Life” until she was 40 years old.
“I was enthralled with the messages from that movie when I first saw it,” Grimes said. “I
knew then why it was very special, and I could understand why I started getting fan mail and people wanted to have interviews with me.”
In 1980, she had no idea how journalists tracked her down because her name had changed, and there was no Google. But the publicity enabled her to reunite with Stewart and Reed, and Grimes became an unofficial ambassador of the movie.
Over the past four decades, she has attended countless screenings, benefits and conventions. She helped create a museum for the film and returns each December to Seneca Falls, New York, the model for the movie’s smalltown Bedford Falls, for the “It’s a Wonderful Life” Festival.
For Grimes, the film’s message is timeless: “How each person’s life touches another,
and we’re given an opportunity to make a difference. That’s so important.”
Hawkins said people have come up to both of them and said watching the film kept them from killing themselves. And even at age 79, he said he feels like he’s 4 all over again when he thinks about the movie. “When people ask us questions about being on the set, you click back into it,” Hawkins said. “It’s so vivid. It seems like a million years ago or just yesterday.”
The movie itself is pretty dark on multiple levels, and Grimes thinks people, coming out of World War II, weren’t quite ready for it yet. Stewart himself wasn’t sure he wanted to even act again after flying naval planes over Germany but, as Hawkins said, actor Lionel Barrymore, who plays the miserly Mr. Potter in the film, convinced Stewart to do it.
“The film is like the cream in the coffee,” Hawkins said. “It just rises to the top.”
Where to watch: Dec. 4 and 24 on NBC; 75th anniversary Blu-ray DVD now available