October 20, 2022 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, our next storyteller has the privilege of being in one of the most beloved movies of all time—while, at the same time, and from the same movie—also has one of the most famous lines in movie history. Her story is as Wonderful as both of these accomplishments.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habibe and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. Our
next storyteller has the privilege of being in one of
the most beloved movies of all time, while at the
(00:31):
same time and from the same movie, also has one
of the most famous lines in movie history. Her story
is as wonderful as both of these accomplishments. Let's take
a listen. My name is Carolyn Grimes, and I was
a child actress, and I lived in Hollywood, and my
(00:55):
mother was stage mom. She felt like I should be
in the movies. So I was an only child, and
she truly put all her energies to that end. And
I had all kinds of lessons, dancing, singing, elucution, dialogue.
(01:17):
I mean, everything was given to me and I had
the opportunity. I'll never forget what I did. Dialect. I
practiced so hard, Give me please a piece of cook
a lot. It was so fun. I mean, I really
had a good time growing up, and that was hard
work to do all that. I played the violin at
(01:38):
five I played the piano at three, so all I
did was practice pretty much most of my free time
practice something. But this was in nineteen forties, so back
in the day, Hollywood was pretty much all people in
the industry. That was the main way people made a
(02:03):
living was working in the industry in some form, so
it wasn't any big deal. Everybody, all the kids were
involved in that, so I never really realized it was
special or that I was special. So my mom took
me to see an agent, and the agent liked me.
(02:24):
Her name was Lola Moore and she had the biggest
stable of kids in Hollywood, and she sent me on
an interview and I got a part, so I was in.
That was the end of that. I started when I
was four years old. I was in a movie called
That Night with You. That was my first. But I
(02:44):
did advertising. I did all kinds of things throughout that
time in my life. I advertised Buster brown shoes and
all kinds of things. So that's kind of how I
got started, and I really had a good time. By
the time I did It's a Wonderful Life, I was
(03:05):
six and I'd already done four movies, so It's Wonderful
Life is the flagship for me. That's the movie that
everybody remembers and everyone wants to hear about. Back in
the day, we didn't have auditions. We had interviews, and
that was usually one on one with the casting directors.
(03:26):
So you went to the casting office and maybe there
were five or six of us, and you just waited
your turn. Then you went in talked to the casting
people and boom, boom boom. That's it. So it wasn't
like an audition. And most of us, I would say
almost all of us were representing Lolamore that one agent
(03:51):
who had children all over LA that were in the
movie business. So we just go there and my mother
would take me to interviews. And she took me to
this interview and I sat there and we were just
kind of talking with other kids, and this mother accidentally
(04:13):
spilled coffee on me on my dress because we wore
dresses back then always, you know, and they were up
to your butt, I mean they were so short, so
it had a soil dress. When I walked in there
to talk to the casting director and lo and behold.
When I got in there, Frank Kapper was in there,
and so I had an interview with him and the
(04:36):
casting director, and you know, I don't know what the
mother thought she was going to do, but I ended
up I get it. Gave me something to talk about,
so I was chatty Kathy, you know. And when we
were leaving, this is when I found out. I heard
my mother talk to another mother and she said, well,
you know, she thought she spilled that coffee on purpose,
(04:59):
so you know, screwed me up when I went in
to do my interview. But that was how I got
the part. Eventually got all these parts. I played with
Bing Crosby, and I played with some of the greatest
(05:20):
people of all time. I was in Rio Grand with
John Wayne, and that was a huge movie, and I
was on the set in Moab, Utah as a little kid,
and I just that was my favorite of all the
movies I ever did, because I got to ride in
covered wagons with Indians chasing me on horses, you know,
(05:41):
I got I got to do all these fun things
and it was just great. And you know, the Indians
were brought in from the reservation and I was with
Pat Wayne. He was John Wayne's son, and he had
both Mike and Pat for the summer, so they were
there during the filming and they were actually in the film.
(06:03):
So pat was my age and we played and had
a really good time. But we were told you can
never go around the Native Americans, don't go there. Well,
of course we went right there and we spied on
them and it was just, you know, it was really
an interesting time and I really had fun. The sons
(06:24):
of the pioneers were there and they'd serenade us, and
then I turned ten while we were there, and the
Korean conflict broke out at that time, and they confiscated
a lot of the planes, so it was a little
difficult for them to get shipments of food and things
like that flown in. But John Wayne happened to be
(06:48):
able to get three hundred dollars worth of fireworks, and
my birthday was the fourth of July. He had that
all shipped. Then he had a big cake made and
we went out to the Colorado River bluffs and Happy
birthday a little miss Caroline. It was a great time.
And you've been listening to Carol and Grimes share her
(07:09):
story as a child actress, and my goodness to be
on an interview, not an audition, an interview and have
Frank Apricam in the room surreal when we come back
more of Carol and Grime's story and just her personality
and her wit and her memory. Here on our American
Story Lehabibi here the host of our American Stories. Every
(07:33):
day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across
this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.
But we truly can't do the show without you. Our
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
to make. If you love what you hear, go to
our American Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot. Go to our American
(07:55):
Stories dot com and give, and we're back with our
American Stories and with Carolyn Grimes's story. He was six
years old when she started as Jimmy Stewart's daughter Zuzu
(08:18):
in the nineteen forty six Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life, although,
as she told us before the break, her favorite movie
was Rio Grand, released in nineteen fifty, starring alongside the
great John Wayne. Here again is Carolyn Grimes. I like
(08:38):
doing the Westerns because there was horses involved. There was
always excitement, you know. In Albuquerque, I got to ride
on a stage coach, right at the top and the horses,
you know, were pulling us and it was really great.
And Gabby Hayes was in that movie and he went
to the director and complained and said it was very gay,
(09:00):
dangerous for me to do that. He wouldn't even do it.
He had a stunt double do it. So I was
up there. You're not tied in or anything. You know,
you're not secure, You're just there and the horses could
lurch and you go, you know, who knows. But that
was a lot of fun. And because the director didn't
pay attention to Gabbie, so I got to do it.
(09:23):
But I enjoyed that so much. And I made a
really good friend on that set, and that was Lawn
Cheney Junior. Do you remember Lon Chaney junior. He was
the wolfman, very scary dude. Well, I liked him a
lot because he was nice to me and he took
time and talk to me. I mean, I was shocked
(09:44):
because I thought he'd be real scary, and he kind
of was scary, but I didn't care he was. He
was kind of. I liked him because he told me
I was ugly and I said, well, why am I ugly?
And he said because you have freckles, and I agreed.
I had freckles. I hated the damn things. I hated freckles.
(10:05):
So yeah, I began to like him right away, and
I watched every scene that he did in fighting and
things like that. He did one fight scene with Randolph Scott.
In the entire scene, he's got a cigarette hanging out
of his mouth. He told me before he did the scene.
He said, now, Carol, and he said, I am. I'm
(10:28):
just gonna tell you that I'm gonna bleed and you're
gonna watch this. And he said, this is what I have.
A capsule, this capsule. I'm gonna put it in my
mouth and he said, I'm gonna hit my cheek in
some way and break that capsule and then blood's gonna
come out of my mouth. But I'm not hurt. It's
just fake. Isn't that great? He took the time to
tell me that, and I thought it was really super
(10:50):
I don't know. I really enjoyed doing that a lot.
And then I loved Blue Skies with Bing Crosbie. He
was so great. He sent me my wardrobe that was
in the movie for after the movie present. Back in
the day, the Big Star sent the members of the
(11:12):
cast a gift as soon as the movie was over,
and he sent me my clothes from the film, which
I thought was pretty cool. So I just really enjoyed
doing those kinds of things with these stars and they
were so down to earth. The ones that weren't down
to earth us kids were told at the very beginning,
(11:34):
don't have anything to do with them, and so we
were warned and we didn't. David Nevin was one. There
were quite a few there didn't like children and didn't
want to be bothered, so we didn't bother them. That
was just a rule. And if you did bother them,
(11:55):
or you forgot your lines, or you did all these things,
you wouldn't last long because there's a lot of people
that would take would take your job from you, a
lot of kids. So the other movie that I really
had fun with was The Bishop's Wife. It was nominated
for an Academy Award and it didn't win an Academy Award,
(12:19):
but it was a wonderful film. I mean, it's wonderful life.
Was nominated for five Academy Awards and it didn't win anything,
and so it got special mentioned for the making of
the snow that was it, and that was ivory soap
flakes that Frank Kapra actually mixed him together with fomite
(12:42):
and made the solution himself. He actually had a degree
in chemical engineering, and so he made that snow. He
created it, and they still used that technique in some
of the movies today. It was pretty remarkable because before
that the snow had been corn flakes sprayed with kind
of a white concoction, and the problem was they crunched
(13:06):
when you stepped on him. And Frank Caper wanted silent snow,
so that's how they got the silent snow. But if
he'll notice, and it's wonderful life. When George is on
the bridge and he jumps in to save Clarence, there's
all this soap SuDS around in the water. It's all
overywhere it goes all over their faces. When George pulls
(13:30):
him out, that's all over their faces. So it's kind
of a funny thing. And the guy that's in the
bridge keeper house he comes out and he's got this flashlight.
Now it's an ordinary flashlight, just you know, regular, and
he shines it down on them and it's like a
beam from heaven, you know. It's this giant beam coming down.
(13:52):
You know, you don't pay attention to things like that
when you're watching the movie, but I think it's a
lot of fun to kind of think about things like that.
The movie was shot in the hot, hot summertime, and
it only took three months to shoot the film. They
started in April and they finished up the end of July,
(14:16):
and it was beastly hot, really, but the inside part
of the bridge was done on a stage and they
were able to keep that area fairly cool. So they
had a lot of crushed ice for snow that they
used as well, you know, on the sides of the
(14:39):
road and things like that on the roads, and that
was all shot inside a stage. There was a location
on the studio ranch and Encino for all the outside
scenes and the buildings and things like that, but for
the most part, the whole thing was shot on a
stage or in the back lot. That's where the water
(15:00):
us was built in the back lot, and so it
was all right there, but it was really hot and
we were wearing winter clothes. And when there's a scene
where Jimmy Stewart gets a real close up as his
eyes are big and you can see the sweat running
off his face. It's because he's hot. He's really hot
(15:23):
with his wool scratchy suit on and it's like nineties
some degrees and that was extreme weather for La at
the time. So working with Capra was a dream. He
was very particular, He was meticulous. He hand picked everybody
that was in that movie, even the extras, he hand
(15:43):
picked them. There was a young woman who was a
what do you call it? In The Wizard of Oz.
She was one of the little people, but she was
just a young girl and she danced and ended up
(16:05):
having a dance career as a teacher, and so she
was brought on the set for Its Wonderful Life when
they had the scene where they're dancing at the high
school gymnasium. So she came and she taught all the
kids how to do the Charleston And her name was
(16:25):
Priscilla Montgomery, and well it is she's still with us.
But she had on a purple dress, and so she
was the first person to jump in the pool. So
she got fifty dollars extra tacked onto her check because
(16:45):
she was the first one, and the other kids that
jumped in got twenty five dollars for jumping in Andy.
We've been listening to Carolyn Grahame's share the stories of
being on set as a child actress in the West,
places like Albuquerque, in some of our great national parks,
and also in the back lots of Burbank and Encino,
(17:07):
making It's a Wonderful Life. And who would have known.
I did not and could not have imagined that was
all done in a back lot. And my goodness to
hear about Frank Capra, and I've read so much about
how he worked, and my goodness, every detail down to
not only interviewing the children actors, but hand picking the
extras and directors. My goodness, the good ones and the
(17:29):
great ones. The details matter more of Carolyn Grimes, her
stories about It's a Wonderful Life, and so much more
here on our American story. And we returned to our
(18:09):
American stories and Carolyn Grimes talking about It's a Wonderful Life.
The movie she started is Jimmy Stewart's Daughter Zuzu. She
was discussing the dance competition at Bedford Falls High School
and how the young actors were taught the Charleston from
one of the girls who played one of the munchkins.
In the Wizard of Oz, the actors turned dance instructure.
(18:30):
Priscilla Montgomery earned an extra fifty dollars for being the
first to jump into the swimming pool during the dance scene,
but she quickly found out that that money was not
easy money. Here again is Carolyn Grimes. But she had
this purple beaded dress on and when she jumped in.
(18:52):
She told me that the weight from these beads pulled
her down under. And she said it was all she
could do to keep her head above water because it
was so heavy, and they had to help her get
out because she couldn't get out on her own. She
couldn't pull herself out because the dress was so heavy beated.
So it was an interesting story. Oh my goodness, there
(19:13):
are so many interesting stories. So I enjoyed doing all
these movies. And I was taught that these people were normal,
ordinary folks. These stars were not. I mean, they weren't stars.
I mean I didn't even know what a star was.
My mother father kept me in the dark about a
(19:34):
lot of things like that so that I would act normal,
I guess. So I just thought they were my friends.
I had no idea that these were stars, so I
really enjoyed it. And then about the time I did
The Bishop's Wife with Carrie Grant, Loretty Young and David Nevin,
my mother started getting sick. And that's when I realized
(20:00):
that my life was going to take a different path,
because she had early onset Alzheimer's and she started slipping
and it took her five years, but she died when
I was fourteen. So during that time it was hard
for my father to be with me on the set.
(20:22):
He was a manager of a safeboy store, and he
had to hire somebody to take me to an interview,
and then he'd have to hire somebody to be my
guardian on this stage if I got a job, and
so he wasn't that interested in having me in the
movies anyway. And of course by that time I discovered boys,
and so I wasn't that greatly interested in acting either.
(20:47):
So when I was fourteen, my mom died, and then
a year later my dad was killed in a car accident,
so my life kind of changed. At that point. I
was an orphan, so the court took over because my
father didn't leave a will, so I had a mean aunt,
Knuckle from Missouri, was my father's brother and his horrible,
(21:10):
mean wife. They came out and they got me, and
they took me back to a little town of Missouri.
I'd gone to LA High. There were nine hundred kids
in my class at LA High. There were eight hundred
people in the whole town, so I had thirty six
other kids in my class in my high school. But
(21:33):
you know, I thought I'd been sent to hell, and
I didn't think I would recover from that. And I
tried every way possible to think of how I could
run away. But I didn't have any money, and I
didn't have any way to get out, and I didn't
have any anybody to help me with that. So she
commandeered all my mail, so I couldn't ask for help
(21:57):
for anybody from anybody in California. And eventually she stopped
all the communication from California, so I couldn't talk to
any of my friends or anything that I had grown
up with over the years. After about a year, I
realized that these people in that town, my teachers, the merchants,
(22:23):
my friends at school, everyone really rallied around me, and
they knew this woman was the devil, my aunt, and
they made me realize that there are loving and caring
people in this world. And that's when I decided that
I never wanted to go back to Hollywood again, because
it's kind of dog eat dog, and people take advantage
(22:46):
of you and they use you. And I could see
how this happened after I saw what real people were about,
and they had no reason. They didn't want anything out
of our relationship like they did in California. Then all
they wanted was to give love and be friends, and
so I never went back to California after that. Of course,
(23:09):
I lost all contact. My aunt had made me do that.
But I graduated and high school, went to college, and
I became a medical technologist whom and then I had kids,
and then I lost a husband to deer hunting, and
then I remarried and I was married to the second
(23:33):
one for twenty five years and he died of cancer.
And in that process I had two kids, he had three,
and then we had two together, so I raised seven kids,
and one of the children that we had together, my
son did take his own life when he was eighteen,
(23:55):
and that was probably the worst experience that I will
ever have in my life, and it hangs over me
like a cloud. Forever. It's a horrible way to lose
the child. But I did okay, and my husband was
getting sick. And there was somebody that knocked on my
(24:20):
door in nineteen eighty and they said, have you ever
have you? Are you that kid, that Susu kid that
was in the movie It's a Wonderful Life? And I said, well, yeah,
I was her, and they said, well, can we have
an interview? And I thought okay. So I went down
(24:40):
to the basement and drug up all my memorabilia so
I could show them all the movies and stuff. And
so it happened again the following week, and it kept
happening and I thought, you know, due, this is weird.
And so then I started getting fan mail and I thought,
(25:00):
holy cow, what's going on here. I don't understand this.
So I guess i'd better sit down and watched that film.
I had never seen the film It's a Wonderful Life
until I was forty years old. I was raising kids.
I had seven kids to raise. I lived in the kitchen,
(25:20):
the car, and the laundry room. That was my life.
So you know, every once in a while at night
i'd catch Johnny Carson. But that was about it. I
didn't watch TV, so I had not seen the film.
I have to tell you, I did go to the premiere. Granted,
I saw it when I was forty years old for
the first time. And you know why because I fell
(25:42):
asleep at the opening. So there you go. I was
six years old. You know, A long night, dude. I remember,
I remember going it. I got to talk on the radio.
That was big stuff, you know. Well after I saw it,
(26:04):
that made my life different, that's for sure. It affected me,
just like it does everybody else. You cry, you laugh,
you feel good, you feel sad, but in the end,
it's a grateful experience that you have gone through and
you've gotten a lot out of it. So I realized
what the movie was. And about that time, Jimmy Stewart
(26:28):
had people coming to him and saying, you know what
happened to that little girl, Zuzu? And we've been listening
to Carol and Grimes tell her story. My goodness, what
a turn it took when she was fourteen, first losing
her mom and then at fifteen her dad dying in
a car accident with no will and came the adopted
(26:48):
parents from Azura, small town in a really, really really
mean aunt. But then she learned that this small town
rallied around her, that there were good people aware. But
that knock on the door comes, and finally she's reconnected
to that life, her earlier life into the film It's
a Wonderful Life, which she'd never seen. She fell asleep
(27:10):
at the premiere. When we come back, what happens next
with Carolyn Grimes here on our American story and we
(27:37):
continue with our American stories. In nineteen eighty, Carolyn Grimes
was visited by a reporter asking if she played Jimmy
Stewart's daughter in the nineteen forty six Christmas classic It's
a Wonderful Life. This was the first of many interactions
with people wanting to know what happened to the six
year old girl who played Zuzu Bailey. So the forty
(27:59):
year old Carollin decided to sit down and watch It's
a Wonderful Life for the very first time to see
what all the fuss was about. Here again is Carolyn Grimes?
About that time, Jimmy Stewart had people coming to him
and saying, you know what happened to that little girl, Zuzu?
And he had one of his secretaries find me. This
(28:22):
all happened in nineteen eighty. It was like, Wow, this
is a different world. And so that's when things started happening.
And I saw the movie. I knew the messages in
the movie were wonderful, and I wanted to go out
and help spread this positive messages that the film has
(28:43):
to offer. So I started doing a lot of speaking
and just appearances locally because I was still raising kids.
But in nineteen ninety three, the Target company got together
and they decided to promote its Wonderful Life for their
Christmas in their stores that year. So they got up
(29:06):
the Bailey Kids together. That was the Reunion of the
Bailey Kids, and so we went all around on a tour.
They took us everywhere to all their Target stores and
it was just a blast. And that's when I started
meeting people. You know, they would go through the autograph
line and they would share with you their stories and
(29:27):
they would share with you how that movie had affected
their lives. A lot of them had been on the
bridge and that movie saved their lives, and the messages
from that film lived within their hearts. And I realized
then that this was something that I had to do,
So I loved being on the road, and I've been
(29:49):
on the road ever since, travel everywhere. And then I
started its Wonderful Life Festival in Seneca Falls twenty years ago.
It's just the best experience you could ever have. It's wonderful.
So the second weekend in December and it's in Seneca Falls,
New York, and it's all about It's a Wonderful Life.
(30:11):
It's great, it's really wonderful. There are so many people
who come and inquire in Bedford Falls or Seneca Falls
about the film. So we started a museum in twenty ten,
and it's a wonderful Life museum. It's the only museum
in the country that celebrates a black and white movie.
(30:34):
And it's a great little place to go in Seneca Falls.
And that's another reason to go to the festival, is
because this wonderful museum. It's got a lot of great
stuff in it, and people come and they enjoy every
bit of it, and we have thousands and thousands that
go through it and they love the film so much.
(30:55):
It's a great experience. So I hope everyone can make
get certainly at least one time in their life. And
of course I've I've gone through, you know, meeting a
lot of the cast members from the film and as
(31:16):
they check out, saying goodbye and they get their wings.
So we're kind of a small number. Now we have
Jimmy Hawkins who played a little Tommy, and Carol Kombs
Mueller who played Janey, who played the piano. Jimmy was
the kid who burked and I still with us. And
(31:42):
there was a twins that played the baby of Pet.
When he's in the hyper the playpen, she picks him
up and that's Pet. Well, the twins are still alive,
and also the baby that played Janey is still alive.
(32:05):
And then there's another fellow that's alive, and he was
in the beginning scene where the boys are sliding down
the hill and the ice, and we call him shovel Boy,
and he really just started becoming active with us at
the festival and so he's there every year now. Then
(32:31):
Virginia Patton Moss, who played Harry Bailey's wife, she is
still with us, yeah, and she I think she's ninety nine.
But it's great. So we have a lot of fun
during the festival and I'm usually on the road from
(32:51):
October through December through Christmas and then I mean, I'm
gone every weekend someplace, so it's wonderful. I just have
the best time. I meet so many wonderful people. It's
just been the best thing that ever happened in my life.
And I'm thrilled and honored to be that little girl
that played Zuzu. I had a lot of fun filming
(33:16):
with Jimmy Stewart and Um, I actually think that for
me that my favorite part was the pedals scene. Hi daddy,
what happened to you? I want to fly? Where do
you think you're going? Why did give my far I'll
(33:38):
I'll give it a drink? Oh daddy? He of course
I saw him put the pedals in his pocket, and
Frank Kapper did not change that. You know they you
don't shoot a scene just once, you do it twenty times,
(33:59):
especially Capra because he had a huge amount of extra footage.
But um, Capra left it that in there because he
wanted wanted to show that I knew my daddy wasn't perfect,
but I loved him very much, so that's why he
left it in there. And then um, I started a whisper,
(34:21):
let us drink. Oh you do something for me? Sleep,
I know? And then you can dream about it and
Carden career. I have no clue why I started to whisper,
(34:44):
I want to give it a drink. I want to
give my flower a drink. Why I whispered, I have
no clue, because he didn't tell me to do that.
But he liked that too, so that was fun. And
then of course the scene where I'm coming down the
stairs on Jimmy Stewart's back, Oh my gosh. When I
was on the stairs on his back, Larry Simms, who
(35:06):
played Pete, well, he's behind us and he's lifting my
rump so that I'm giving it, you know, so I'm
not falling off his back. And then when he comes
down the stairs, he's got Mary's hand in his left
hand and he's got Tommy under his right arm, and
I'm hanging on his back, literally his neck, with my
(35:27):
arms and my legs wrapped around him like a little frog.
And it's just that was quiet experience. And of course
we didn't do that just once either. We did it
many times. But I always prayed that I wouldn't fall
off of him. And he was very tall, he was
six feet four, so I was way up there in
(35:48):
the air. But it was great memories, great memories. Most
people ask me the question what was it like working
with Jimmy Stewart? And I loved working with Jimmy Stewart.
He was kind, he was generous, and after he found
(36:11):
me in nineteen eighty, we became friends and we did
a couple of things together, and it was really nice
to have him in my life. The other thing I
think was his gentleness. He was very gentle with me,
and I appreciate that very much. So when I said
(36:32):
the line that everybody remembers and that movies remember for sure,
I had no idea that that line would become a
piece of film history, and it truly has. It's everywhere,
and it's it's a line that people will always remember forever.
(36:55):
And I'm blessed to be able to say that. Daddy
Teacher said every time a bell rings and angel gets
his wings. So I wish everyone would really watch the
film every Christmas. It's become a tradition in a lot
of homes, and I think that it gives a little
(37:17):
bit of positive feelings and it gives a little bit
of hope for all of us if we watch that
movie every year at Christmas and an amen to that,
a terrific job on the production by Greg Hangler, and
a special thanks to Carolyn Grimes for her storytelling. And
by the way, to go to or visit the It's
(37:37):
a Wonderful Life Festival, You're going to go to Seneca Falls,
New York, a beautiful part of this country. It's every
year in early December, and go to Wonderful Life Museum
dot com to find out more about the museum. And boy,
what Carolyn learned when Target took the Bailey Kids on
the road. He said, together we learned the stories of
(37:59):
so many people, and the film saved lives, and we
hope we do the same here at our American Stories,
which must tell positive stories for a good and beautiful country.
For the story of Caroline Grimes, and it's a Wonderful
life here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habibe and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. Our
next storyteller has the privilege of being in one of
the most beloved movies of all time, while at the
(00:31):
same time and from the same movie, also has one
of the most famous lines in movie history. Her story
is as wonderful as both of these accomplishments. Let's take
a listen. My name is Carolyn Grimes, and I was
a child actress, and I lived in Hollywood, and my
(00:55):
mother was stage mom. She felt like I should be
in the movies. So I was an only child, and
she truly put all her energies to that end. And
I had all kinds of lessons, dancing, singing, elucution, dialogue.
(01:17):
I mean, everything was given to me and I had
the opportunity. I'll never forget what I did. Dialect. I
practiced so hard, Give me please a piece of cook
a lot. It was so fun. I mean, I really
had a good time growing up, and that was hard
work to do all that. I played the violin at
(01:38):
five I played the piano at three, so all I
did was practice pretty much most of my free time
practice something. But this was in nineteen forties, so back
in the day, Hollywood was pretty much all people in
the industry. That was the main way people made a
(02:03):
living was working in the industry in some form, so
it wasn't any big deal. Everybody, all the kids were
involved in that, so I never really realized it was
special or that I was special. So my mom took
me to see an agent, and the agent liked me.
(02:24):
Her name was Lola Moore and she had the biggest
stable of kids in Hollywood, and she sent me on
an interview and I got a part, so I was in.
That was the end of that. I started when I
was four years old. I was in a movie called
That Night with You. That was my first. But I
(02:44):
did advertising. I did all kinds of things throughout that
time in my life. I advertised Buster brown shoes and
all kinds of things. So that's kind of how I
got started, and I really had a good time. By
the time I did It's a Wonderful Life, I was
(03:05):
six and I'd already done four movies, so It's Wonderful
Life is the flagship for me. That's the movie that
everybody remembers and everyone wants to hear about. Back in
the day, we didn't have auditions. We had interviews, and
that was usually one on one with the casting directors.
(03:26):
So you went to the casting office and maybe there
were five or six of us, and you just waited
your turn. Then you went in talked to the casting
people and boom, boom boom. That's it. So it wasn't
like an audition. And most of us, I would say
almost all of us were representing Lolamore that one agent
(03:51):
who had children all over LA that were in the
movie business. So we just go there and my mother
would take me to interviews. And she took me to
this interview and I sat there and we were just
kind of talking with other kids, and this mother accidentally
(04:13):
spilled coffee on me on my dress because we wore
dresses back then always, you know, and they were up
to your butt, I mean they were so short, so
it had a soil dress. When I walked in there
to talk to the casting director and lo and behold.
When I got in there, Frank Kapper was in there,
and so I had an interview with him and the
(04:36):
casting director, and you know, I don't know what the
mother thought she was going to do, but I ended
up I get it. Gave me something to talk about,
so I was chatty Kathy, you know. And when we
were leaving, this is when I found out. I heard
my mother talk to another mother and she said, well,
you know, she thought she spilled that coffee on purpose,
(04:59):
so you know, screwed me up when I went in
to do my interview. But that was how I got
the part. Eventually got all these parts. I played with
Bing Crosby, and I played with some of the greatest
(05:20):
people of all time. I was in Rio Grand with
John Wayne, and that was a huge movie, and I
was on the set in Moab, Utah as a little kid,
and I just that was my favorite of all the
movies I ever did, because I got to ride in
covered wagons with Indians chasing me on horses, you know,
(05:41):
I got I got to do all these fun things
and it was just great. And you know, the Indians
were brought in from the reservation and I was with
Pat Wayne. He was John Wayne's son, and he had
both Mike and Pat for the summer, so they were
there during the filming and they were actually in the film.
(06:03):
So pat was my age and we played and had
a really good time. But we were told you can
never go around the Native Americans, don't go there. Well,
of course we went right there and we spied on
them and it was just, you know, it was really
an interesting time and I really had fun. The sons
(06:24):
of the pioneers were there and they'd serenade us, and
then I turned ten while we were there, and the
Korean conflict broke out at that time, and they confiscated
a lot of the planes, so it was a little
difficult for them to get shipments of food and things
like that flown in. But John Wayne happened to be
(06:48):
able to get three hundred dollars worth of fireworks, and
my birthday was the fourth of July. He had that
all shipped. Then he had a big cake made and
we went out to the Colorado River bluffs and Happy
birthday a little miss Caroline. It was a great time.
And you've been listening to Carol and Grimes share her
(07:09):
story as a child actress, and my goodness to be
on an interview, not an audition, an interview and have
Frank Apricam in the room surreal when we come back
more of Carol and Grime's story and just her personality
and her wit and her memory. Here on our American
Story Lehabibi here the host of our American Stories. Every
(07:33):
day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across
this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.
But we truly can't do the show without you. Our
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
to make. If you love what you hear, go to
our American Stories dot com and click the donate button.
Give a little, give a lot. Go to our American
(07:55):
Stories dot com and give, and we're back with our
American Stories and with Carolyn Grimes's story. He was six
years old when she started as Jimmy Stewart's daughter Zuzu
(08:18):
in the nineteen forty six Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life, although,
as she told us before the break, her favorite movie
was Rio Grand, released in nineteen fifty, starring alongside the
great John Wayne. Here again is Carolyn Grimes. I like
(08:38):
doing the Westerns because there was horses involved. There was
always excitement, you know. In Albuquerque, I got to ride
on a stage coach, right at the top and the horses,
you know, were pulling us and it was really great.
And Gabby Hayes was in that movie and he went
to the director and complained and said it was very gay,
(09:00):
dangerous for me to do that. He wouldn't even do it.
He had a stunt double do it. So I was
up there. You're not tied in or anything. You know,
you're not secure, You're just there and the horses could
lurch and you go, you know, who knows. But that
was a lot of fun. And because the director didn't
pay attention to Gabbie, so I got to do it.
(09:23):
But I enjoyed that so much. And I made a
really good friend on that set, and that was Lawn
Cheney Junior. Do you remember Lon Chaney junior. He was
the wolfman, very scary dude. Well, I liked him a
lot because he was nice to me and he took
time and talk to me. I mean, I was shocked
(09:44):
because I thought he'd be real scary, and he kind
of was scary, but I didn't care he was. He
was kind of. I liked him because he told me
I was ugly and I said, well, why am I ugly?
And he said because you have freckles, and I agreed.
I had freckles. I hated the damn things. I hated freckles.
(10:05):
So yeah, I began to like him right away, and
I watched every scene that he did in fighting and
things like that. He did one fight scene with Randolph Scott.
In the entire scene, he's got a cigarette hanging out
of his mouth. He told me before he did the scene.
He said, now, Carol, and he said, I am. I'm
(10:28):
just gonna tell you that I'm gonna bleed and you're
gonna watch this. And he said, this is what I have.
A capsule, this capsule. I'm gonna put it in my
mouth and he said, I'm gonna hit my cheek in
some way and break that capsule and then blood's gonna
come out of my mouth. But I'm not hurt. It's
just fake. Isn't that great? He took the time to
tell me that, and I thought it was really super
(10:50):
I don't know. I really enjoyed doing that a lot.
And then I loved Blue Skies with Bing Crosbie. He
was so great. He sent me my wardrobe that was
in the movie for after the movie present. Back in
the day, the Big Star sent the members of the
(11:12):
cast a gift as soon as the movie was over,
and he sent me my clothes from the film, which
I thought was pretty cool. So I just really enjoyed
doing those kinds of things with these stars and they
were so down to earth. The ones that weren't down
to earth us kids were told at the very beginning,
(11:34):
don't have anything to do with them, and so we
were warned and we didn't. David Nevin was one. There
were quite a few there didn't like children and didn't
want to be bothered, so we didn't bother them. That
was just a rule. And if you did bother them,
(11:55):
or you forgot your lines, or you did all these things,
you wouldn't last long because there's a lot of people
that would take would take your job from you, a
lot of kids. So the other movie that I really
had fun with was The Bishop's Wife. It was nominated
for an Academy Award and it didn't win an Academy Award,
(12:19):
but it was a wonderful film. I mean, it's wonderful life.
Was nominated for five Academy Awards and it didn't win anything,
and so it got special mentioned for the making of
the snow that was it, and that was ivory soap
flakes that Frank Kapra actually mixed him together with fomite
(12:42):
and made the solution himself. He actually had a degree
in chemical engineering, and so he made that snow. He
created it, and they still used that technique in some
of the movies today. It was pretty remarkable because before
that the snow had been corn flakes sprayed with kind
of a white concoction, and the problem was they crunched
(13:06):
when you stepped on him. And Frank Caper wanted silent snow,
so that's how they got the silent snow. But if
he'll notice, and it's wonderful life. When George is on
the bridge and he jumps in to save Clarence, there's
all this soap SuDS around in the water. It's all
overywhere it goes all over their faces. When George pulls
(13:30):
him out, that's all over their faces. So it's kind
of a funny thing. And the guy that's in the
bridge keeper house he comes out and he's got this flashlight.
Now it's an ordinary flashlight, just you know, regular, and
he shines it down on them and it's like a
beam from heaven, you know. It's this giant beam coming down.
(13:52):
You know, you don't pay attention to things like that
when you're watching the movie, but I think it's a
lot of fun to kind of think about things like that.
The movie was shot in the hot, hot summertime, and
it only took three months to shoot the film. They
started in April and they finished up the end of July,
(14:16):
and it was beastly hot, really, but the inside part
of the bridge was done on a stage and they
were able to keep that area fairly cool. So they
had a lot of crushed ice for snow that they
used as well, you know, on the sides of the
(14:39):
road and things like that on the roads, and that
was all shot inside a stage. There was a location
on the studio ranch and Encino for all the outside
scenes and the buildings and things like that, but for
the most part, the whole thing was shot on a
stage or in the back lot. That's where the water
(15:00):
us was built in the back lot, and so it
was all right there, but it was really hot and
we were wearing winter clothes. And when there's a scene
where Jimmy Stewart gets a real close up as his
eyes are big and you can see the sweat running
off his face. It's because he's hot. He's really hot
(15:23):
with his wool scratchy suit on and it's like nineties
some degrees and that was extreme weather for La at
the time. So working with Capra was a dream. He
was very particular, He was meticulous. He hand picked everybody
that was in that movie, even the extras, he hand
(15:43):
picked them. There was a young woman who was a
what do you call it? In The Wizard of Oz.
She was one of the little people, but she was
just a young girl and she danced and ended up
(16:05):
having a dance career as a teacher, and so she
was brought on the set for Its Wonderful Life when
they had the scene where they're dancing at the high
school gymnasium. So she came and she taught all the
kids how to do the Charleston And her name was
(16:25):
Priscilla Montgomery, and well it is she's still with us.
But she had on a purple dress, and so she
was the first person to jump in the pool. So
she got fifty dollars extra tacked onto her check because
(16:45):
she was the first one, and the other kids that
jumped in got twenty five dollars for jumping in Andy.
We've been listening to Carolyn Grahame's share the stories of
being on set as a child actress in the West,
places like Albuquerque, in some of our great national parks,
and also in the back lots of Burbank and Encino,
(17:07):
making It's a Wonderful Life. And who would have known.
I did not and could not have imagined that was
all done in a back lot. And my goodness to
hear about Frank Capra, and I've read so much about
how he worked, and my goodness, every detail down to
not only interviewing the children actors, but hand picking the
extras and directors. My goodness, the good ones and the
(17:29):
great ones. The details matter more of Carolyn Grimes, her
stories about It's a Wonderful Life, and so much more
here on our American story. And we returned to our
(18:09):
American stories and Carolyn Grimes talking about It's a Wonderful Life.
The movie she started is Jimmy Stewart's Daughter Zuzu. She
was discussing the dance competition at Bedford Falls High School
and how the young actors were taught the Charleston from
one of the girls who played one of the munchkins.
In the Wizard of Oz, the actors turned dance instructure.
(18:30):
Priscilla Montgomery earned an extra fifty dollars for being the
first to jump into the swimming pool during the dance scene,
but she quickly found out that that money was not
easy money. Here again is Carolyn Grimes. But she had
this purple beaded dress on and when she jumped in.
(18:52):
She told me that the weight from these beads pulled
her down under. And she said it was all she
could do to keep her head above water because it
was so heavy, and they had to help her get
out because she couldn't get out on her own. She
couldn't pull herself out because the dress was so heavy beated.
So it was an interesting story. Oh my goodness, there
(19:13):
are so many interesting stories. So I enjoyed doing all
these movies. And I was taught that these people were normal,
ordinary folks. These stars were not. I mean, they weren't stars.
I mean I didn't even know what a star was.
My mother father kept me in the dark about a
(19:34):
lot of things like that so that I would act normal,
I guess. So I just thought they were my friends.
I had no idea that these were stars, so I
really enjoyed it. And then about the time I did
The Bishop's Wife with Carrie Grant, Loretty Young and David Nevin,
my mother started getting sick. And that's when I realized
(20:00):
that my life was going to take a different path,
because she had early onset Alzheimer's and she started slipping
and it took her five years, but she died when
I was fourteen. So during that time it was hard
for my father to be with me on the set.
(20:22):
He was a manager of a safeboy store, and he
had to hire somebody to take me to an interview,
and then he'd have to hire somebody to be my
guardian on this stage if I got a job, and
so he wasn't that interested in having me in the
movies anyway. And of course by that time I discovered boys,
and so I wasn't that greatly interested in acting either.
(20:47):
So when I was fourteen, my mom died, and then
a year later my dad was killed in a car accident,
so my life kind of changed. At that point. I
was an orphan, so the court took over because my
father didn't leave a will, so I had a mean aunt,
Knuckle from Missouri, was my father's brother and his horrible,
(21:10):
mean wife. They came out and they got me, and
they took me back to a little town of Missouri.
I'd gone to LA High. There were nine hundred kids
in my class at LA High. There were eight hundred
people in the whole town, so I had thirty six
other kids in my class in my high school. But
(21:33):
you know, I thought I'd been sent to hell, and
I didn't think I would recover from that. And I
tried every way possible to think of how I could
run away. But I didn't have any money, and I
didn't have any way to get out, and I didn't
have any anybody to help me with that. So she
commandeered all my mail, so I couldn't ask for help
(21:57):
for anybody from anybody in California. And eventually she stopped
all the communication from California, so I couldn't talk to
any of my friends or anything that I had grown
up with over the years. After about a year, I
realized that these people in that town, my teachers, the merchants,
(22:23):
my friends at school, everyone really rallied around me, and
they knew this woman was the devil, my aunt, and
they made me realize that there are loving and caring
people in this world. And that's when I decided that
I never wanted to go back to Hollywood again, because
it's kind of dog eat dog, and people take advantage
(22:46):
of you and they use you. And I could see
how this happened after I saw what real people were about,
and they had no reason. They didn't want anything out
of our relationship like they did in California. Then all
they wanted was to give love and be friends, and
so I never went back to California after that. Of course,
(23:09):
I lost all contact. My aunt had made me do that.
But I graduated and high school, went to college, and
I became a medical technologist whom and then I had kids,
and then I lost a husband to deer hunting, and
then I remarried and I was married to the second
(23:33):
one for twenty five years and he died of cancer.
And in that process I had two kids, he had three,
and then we had two together, so I raised seven kids,
and one of the children that we had together, my
son did take his own life when he was eighteen,
(23:55):
and that was probably the worst experience that I will
ever have in my life, and it hangs over me
like a cloud. Forever. It's a horrible way to lose
the child. But I did okay, and my husband was
getting sick. And there was somebody that knocked on my
(24:20):
door in nineteen eighty and they said, have you ever
have you? Are you that kid, that Susu kid that
was in the movie It's a Wonderful Life? And I said, well, yeah,
I was her, and they said, well, can we have
an interview? And I thought okay. So I went down
(24:40):
to the basement and drug up all my memorabilia so
I could show them all the movies and stuff. And
so it happened again the following week, and it kept
happening and I thought, you know, due, this is weird.
And so then I started getting fan mail and I thought,
(25:00):
holy cow, what's going on here. I don't understand this.
So I guess i'd better sit down and watched that film.
I had never seen the film It's a Wonderful Life
until I was forty years old. I was raising kids.
I had seven kids to raise. I lived in the kitchen,
(25:20):
the car, and the laundry room. That was my life.
So you know, every once in a while at night
i'd catch Johnny Carson. But that was about it. I
didn't watch TV, so I had not seen the film.
I have to tell you, I did go to the premiere. Granted,
I saw it when I was forty years old for
the first time. And you know why because I fell
(25:42):
asleep at the opening. So there you go. I was
six years old. You know, A long night, dude. I remember,
I remember going it. I got to talk on the radio.
That was big stuff, you know. Well after I saw it,
(26:04):
that made my life different, that's for sure. It affected me,
just like it does everybody else. You cry, you laugh,
you feel good, you feel sad, but in the end,
it's a grateful experience that you have gone through and
you've gotten a lot out of it. So I realized
what the movie was. And about that time, Jimmy Stewart
(26:28):
had people coming to him and saying, you know what
happened to that little girl, Zuzu? And we've been listening
to Carol and Grimes tell her story. My goodness, what
a turn it took when she was fourteen, first losing
her mom and then at fifteen her dad dying in
a car accident with no will and came the adopted
(26:48):
parents from Azura, small town in a really, really really
mean aunt. But then she learned that this small town
rallied around her, that there were good people aware. But
that knock on the door comes, and finally she's reconnected
to that life, her earlier life into the film It's
a Wonderful Life, which she'd never seen. She fell asleep
(27:10):
at the premiere. When we come back, what happens next
with Carolyn Grimes here on our American story and we
(27:37):
continue with our American stories. In nineteen eighty, Carolyn Grimes
was visited by a reporter asking if she played Jimmy
Stewart's daughter in the nineteen forty six Christmas classic It's
a Wonderful Life. This was the first of many interactions
with people wanting to know what happened to the six
year old girl who played Zuzu Bailey. So the forty
(27:59):
year old Carollin decided to sit down and watch It's
a Wonderful Life for the very first time to see
what all the fuss was about. Here again is Carolyn Grimes?
About that time, Jimmy Stewart had people coming to him
and saying, you know what happened to that little girl, Zuzu?
And he had one of his secretaries find me. This
(28:22):
all happened in nineteen eighty. It was like, Wow, this
is a different world. And so that's when things started happening.
And I saw the movie. I knew the messages in
the movie were wonderful, and I wanted to go out
and help spread this positive messages that the film has
(28:43):
to offer. So I started doing a lot of speaking
and just appearances locally because I was still raising kids.
But in nineteen ninety three, the Target company got together
and they decided to promote its Wonderful Life for their
Christmas in their stores that year. So they got up
(29:06):
the Bailey Kids together. That was the Reunion of the
Bailey Kids, and so we went all around on a tour.
They took us everywhere to all their Target stores and
it was just a blast. And that's when I started
meeting people. You know, they would go through the autograph
line and they would share with you their stories and
(29:27):
they would share with you how that movie had affected
their lives. A lot of them had been on the
bridge and that movie saved their lives, and the messages
from that film lived within their hearts. And I realized
then that this was something that I had to do,
So I loved being on the road, and I've been
(29:49):
on the road ever since, travel everywhere. And then I
started its Wonderful Life Festival in Seneca Falls twenty years ago.
It's just the best experience you could ever have. It's wonderful.
So the second weekend in December and it's in Seneca Falls,
New York, and it's all about It's a Wonderful Life.
(30:11):
It's great, it's really wonderful. There are so many people
who come and inquire in Bedford Falls or Seneca Falls
about the film. So we started a museum in twenty ten,
and it's a wonderful Life museum. It's the only museum
in the country that celebrates a black and white movie.
(30:34):
And it's a great little place to go in Seneca Falls.
And that's another reason to go to the festival, is
because this wonderful museum. It's got a lot of great
stuff in it, and people come and they enjoy every
bit of it, and we have thousands and thousands that
go through it and they love the film so much.
(30:55):
It's a great experience. So I hope everyone can make
get certainly at least one time in their life. And
of course I've I've gone through, you know, meeting a
lot of the cast members from the film and as
(31:16):
they check out, saying goodbye and they get their wings.
So we're kind of a small number. Now we have
Jimmy Hawkins who played a little Tommy, and Carol Kombs
Mueller who played Janey, who played the piano. Jimmy was
the kid who burked and I still with us. And
(31:42):
there was a twins that played the baby of Pet.
When he's in the hyper the playpen, she picks him
up and that's Pet. Well, the twins are still alive,
and also the baby that played Janey is still alive.
(32:05):
And then there's another fellow that's alive, and he was
in the beginning scene where the boys are sliding down
the hill and the ice, and we call him shovel Boy,
and he really just started becoming active with us at
the festival and so he's there every year now. Then
(32:31):
Virginia Patton Moss, who played Harry Bailey's wife, she is
still with us, yeah, and she I think she's ninety nine.
But it's great. So we have a lot of fun
during the festival and I'm usually on the road from
(32:51):
October through December through Christmas and then I mean, I'm
gone every weekend someplace, so it's wonderful. I just have
the best time. I meet so many wonderful people. It's
just been the best thing that ever happened in my life.
And I'm thrilled and honored to be that little girl
that played Zuzu. I had a lot of fun filming
(33:16):
with Jimmy Stewart and Um, I actually think that for
me that my favorite part was the pedals scene. Hi daddy,
what happened to you? I want to fly? Where do
you think you're going? Why did give my far I'll
(33:38):
I'll give it a drink? Oh daddy? He of course
I saw him put the pedals in his pocket, and
Frank Kapper did not change that. You know they you
don't shoot a scene just once, you do it twenty times,
(33:59):
especially Capra because he had a huge amount of extra footage.
But um, Capra left it that in there because he
wanted wanted to show that I knew my daddy wasn't perfect,
but I loved him very much, so that's why he
left it in there. And then um, I started a whisper,
(34:21):
let us drink. Oh you do something for me? Sleep,
I know? And then you can dream about it and
Carden career. I have no clue why I started to whisper,
(34:44):
I want to give it a drink. I want to
give my flower a drink. Why I whispered, I have
no clue, because he didn't tell me to do that.
But he liked that too, so that was fun. And
then of course the scene where I'm coming down the
stairs on Jimmy Stewart's back, Oh my gosh. When I
was on the stairs on his back, Larry Simms, who
(35:06):
played Pete, well, he's behind us and he's lifting my
rump so that I'm giving it, you know, so I'm
not falling off his back. And then when he comes
down the stairs, he's got Mary's hand in his left
hand and he's got Tommy under his right arm, and
I'm hanging on his back, literally his neck, with my
(35:27):
arms and my legs wrapped around him like a little frog.
And it's just that was quiet experience. And of course
we didn't do that just once either. We did it
many times. But I always prayed that I wouldn't fall
off of him. And he was very tall, he was
six feet four, so I was way up there in
(35:48):
the air. But it was great memories, great memories. Most
people ask me the question what was it like working
with Jimmy Stewart? And I loved working with Jimmy Stewart.
He was kind, he was generous, and after he found
(36:11):
me in nineteen eighty, we became friends and we did
a couple of things together, and it was really nice
to have him in my life. The other thing I
think was his gentleness. He was very gentle with me,
and I appreciate that very much. So when I said
(36:32):
the line that everybody remembers and that movies remember for sure,
I had no idea that that line would become a
piece of film history, and it truly has. It's everywhere,
and it's it's a line that people will always remember forever.
(36:55):
And I'm blessed to be able to say that. Daddy
Teacher said every time a bell rings and angel gets
his wings. So I wish everyone would really watch the
film every Christmas. It's become a tradition in a lot
of homes, and I think that it gives a little
(37:17):
bit of positive feelings and it gives a little bit
of hope for all of us if we watch that
movie every year at Christmas and an amen to that,
a terrific job on the production by Greg Hangler, and
a special thanks to Carolyn Grimes for her storytelling. And
by the way, to go to or visit the It's
(37:37):
a Wonderful Life Festival, You're going to go to Seneca Falls,
New York, a beautiful part of this country. It's every
year in early December, and go to Wonderful Life Museum
dot com to find out more about the museum. And boy,
what Carolyn learned when Target took the Bailey Kids on
the road. He said, together we learned the stories of
(37:59):
so many people, and the film saved lives, and we
hope we do the same here at our American Stories,
which must tell positive stories for a good and beautiful country.
For the story of Caroline Grimes, and it's a Wonderful
life here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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