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 (It's a Wonderful Life)—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 Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for Our American Stories podcast, go to the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Our Next Storyteller has the privilege.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
My name is Carolyn Grimes, and I was a child actress,
and I lived in Hollywood, and my mother was a
stage mom. She felt like I I should be in
the movies. So I was an only child, and she
truly put all her energies to that end. And I
(01:11):
had all kinds of lessons, dancing, singing, lucution, dialogue. I mean,
everything was given to me, and I had the opportunity
I'll never forget when I did dialect. I practiced so hard.
Give me please a piece of chocolate. It was so fun.
(01:32):
I mean, I really had a good time growing up,
and that was hard work to do all that. I
played the violin at 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
(01:57):
people in the industry was the main way people made
a 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
(02:20):
took me to see an agent, and the agent liked me.
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
(02:41):
That Night with You. That was my first. But I
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
(03:02):
the time I did It's a Wonderful Life, I was
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
(03:24):
that was usually one on one with the casting directors.
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
(03:45):
almost all of us were representing Lola Moore, that one
agent 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
(04:06):
just kind of talking with other kids, and this mother
accidentally 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 sure.
So it had a soil dress when I walked in
there to talk to the casting director, and lo and behold.
(04:29):
When I got in there, Frank Kapper was in there,
and so I had an interview with him. And the
casting director, and you know, I don't know what the
mother thought she was going to do, but I ended
up get it. Gave me something to talk about, so
I was chatty Kathy, you know. And when we were leaving,
(04:50):
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, so you know,
screwed me up when I went in to do my interview.
But that was how I got the part. Eventually got
(05:12):
all these parts. I played with Bing Crosbie and I
played with some of the greatest people of all time.
I was in Rio Grande 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
(05:33):
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, 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 was John Wayne's son,
(05:56):
and he had both Mike and Pat for the summer.
They were there during the filming and they were actually
in the film, 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
(06:17):
we spied on them and it was just, you know,
it was really an interesting time and I really had fun.
The sons 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
(06:38):
little difficult for them to get shipments of food and
things like that flown in. But John Wayne happened to
be able to get three hundred dollars worth of fireworks.
And my birthday was the fourth of July. He had
that all shipped in. He had a big cake made
and we went out to the Colorado River bluffs and
(06:59):
was happy birthday, little miss Carolyn. It was a great time.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And you've been listening to Carolyn Grime share her story
as a child actress, and my goodness to be on
an interview, not an audition, an interview and have Frank
Africam in the room. Surreal when we come back more
of Carolyn Grime's story and just her personality and her
wit and her memory. Here on Our American Story. Lihabib
(07:30):
here the host of our American Stories. Every 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 Olamericanstories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
(07:53):
a lot. Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give
and we're back with our American Stories and with Carolyn Grimes' story.
(08:13):
She was six years old when she started as Jimmy
Stewart's daughter Zuzu 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.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Here again is Carolyn Grime.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
I like doing the Westerns because there was horses involved.
There was always excitement. 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
(08:59):
dangers 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 Gabby Hayes, 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 Lon
Cheney Jr. You remember Lawn Cheney Junior. He was the wolfman,
very scary dude. Well, I liked him a lot because
he was nice to me and he took time to
talk to me. I mean, I was shocked because I
(09:44):
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. So yeah,
(10:07):
I begin 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. The entire
scene He's got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
He told me before he did the scene. He said, now, Caroline,
he said, I am, I'm just going to tell you
(10:29):
that I'm going to 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 the blood's going to 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 that was really super. I don't know,
(10:51):
I really enjoyed doing that a lot. And then I
loved Blue Skies with Bing Crosby. 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 cast a gift
(11:13):
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, don't have anything
(11:35):
to do with them, and so we were warned and
we didn't. David Nevin was one. There were quite a
few that didn't like children and didn't want to be bothered,
so we didn't bother them. That was just the rule.
And if you did bother them, or you forgot your lines,
(11:56):
or you do all these things, you wouldn't last long
because you'd get 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 didn't win an Academy Award, but
(12:20):
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 mention for the making of
the Snow that was it, and that was ivory soap
flakes that Frank Kaepra actually mixed him together with fau
(12:41):
mite 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 use that technique in
some of the movies today. It was pretty remarkable because
before that the snow had been cornflakes raid with kind
of a white concoction, and the problem was they crunched
(13:06):
when you stepped on them, and Frank Capra wanted silent snow,
so that's how they got the silent snow. But if
you'll notice, it's wonderful life. When George is on the
bridge and he jumps in to save clearance, there's all
this soap SuDS around in the water. It's all over where.
(13:26):
It goes all over their faces. When George pulls him out,
it'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
(13:48):
from heaven. You know, it's a giant beam coming down
on 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,
(14:09):
and it only took three months to shoot the film.
They started in April and they finished up the end
of July, 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.
(14:31):
So they had a lot of crushed ice for snow
that they used as well, you know, on the sides
of the 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 Ensino for all
the outside scenes and the buildings and things like that,
(14:53):
but for the most part, the whole thing was shot
on a stage or in the back lot. That's where
the water was 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
(15:15):
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 with his wool scratchy suit on and it's
like ninety 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 handpicked everybody
(15:41):
that was in that movie, even the extras, he handpicked 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 having a
(16:06):
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 Priscilla Montgomery,
(16:27):
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 she was
the first one, and the other kids that jumped in
(16:49):
got twenty five dollars for jumping in.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And we've been listening to Carolyn Grime 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,
making its a wonderful life. And who would have known.
I did not and could not have imagined that was
(17:12):
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
great ones. The details matter more of Carolyn Grimes, her
(17:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
The movie she started is Jimmy Stewart's Daughter Zuzu.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
She was discussing the dance competition at Bedford Falls High
School and how the young actors were taught to Charleston
from one of the girls who played one of the
munchkins in the Wizard of Oz. The actors turned dance
instructor 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
(18:40):
was not easy money. Here again is Carolyn Grimes.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
But she had this purple beaded dress on and when
she jumped in. 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
(19:06):
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 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
(19:27):
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 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
(19:50):
with Carrie Grant, Loretty Young and David Nevin, my mother
started getting sick. And that's when I realized is 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
(20:13):
was fourteen. So during that time, it was hard for
my father to be with me on the set. He
was a manager of a safe boy 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 the stage if I got a job, and
so he wasn't that interested in having me in the
(20:35):
movies anyway. And of course by that time I discovered boys,
and so I wasn't that greatly interested in acting either.
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
(20:57):
was an orphan, so the court took over because my
father didn't leave a will, So I had a mean
aunt and uncle from Missouri. It was my father's brother
and his horrible, 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
(21:19):
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 you know, I thought I'd been sent
to hell, and I didn't think I would recover from that.
(21:39):
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 for anybody from anybody in California. And eventually
(22:01):
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, my friends at school, everyone really rallied around me,
(22:28):
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 of you and they use you. And I can
(22:48):
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.
All they wanted was to give love and be friends.
And so I never went back to California after that.
Of course, I lost all contact. My hand had made
(23:11):
me do that. But I graduated and high school, went
to college, and I became a medical technologist, and then
I had kids, and then I lost a husband to
deer hunting, and then I remarried and I was married
(23:32):
to the second 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
(23:53):
when he was eighteen, 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 a child, but I did okay,
and my husband was getting sick. And there was somebody
(24:18):
that knocked on my door in nineteen eighty and they said,
have you ever have you? Are you that kid, that
Zuzu 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
(24:39):
I went down to the basement and drug up all
my memorabilia so I could show them all the movies
and stuff. And so it happened again in the following week,
and it kept happening, and I thought, you know, gee,
this is weird. And so then I started getting fan
mail and I thought, holy cow, what's going on here.
(25:02):
I don't understand this. So I guess I'd better sit
down and watch 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, the car, and the laundry room.
That was my life. So you know, every once in
(25:24):
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 asleep at the opening.
So there you go. I was six years old, you know,
(25:50):
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, 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,
(26:12):
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 had people coming to
him and saying, you know what happened to that little
girl Zuzu?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And we've been listening to Carolyn 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 parents from assuri small town and a really, really,
really mean aunt. But then she learned that this small
(26:56):
town rallied around her, that there were good people everywhere,
but that knock on the door comes, and finally she's
reconnected to that life, her earlier life, and to the
film It's a Wonderful Life, which she had never seen.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
She fell asleep at the premiere.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
When we come back, what happens next with Carolyn Grimes?
Here on our American stories? And we continue with our
(27:38):
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.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
A Wonderful Life.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
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 year old Carolyn
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 Grime About.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
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 these secretaries find me. This all
happened in nineteen eighty. It was like, Wow, this is
a different world. And so that's when things started happening.
(28:32):
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
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
(28:57):
and they decided to promote One Full Life for their
Christmas in their stores that year. So they got up
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
(29:19):
meeting people. You know, they would go through the autograph
line and they would share with you their stories and
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
(29:42):
then that this was something that I had to do.
So I loved being on the road, and I've been
on the road ever since, travel everywhere, and then I
started It's Wonderful Life Festival in Seneca Falls twenty years ago.
It's just the best experience you could ever have. It's wonderful.
(30:04):
So the second weekend in December and it's in Seneca Falls,
New York, and it's all about It's a Wonderful Life.
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,
(30:27):
and it's a Wonderful Life museum. It's the only museum
in the country that celebrates a black and white movie.
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
(30:50):
bit of it. And we have thousands and thousands that
go through it and they love the film so much.
It's a great experience. So I hope everyone can make it,
certainly at least one time in their life. And of
course I've gone through, you know, meeting a lot of
(31:13):
the cast members from the film and as 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 Little Tommy, and Carol Coombs Mueller who played Janey,
who played the piano. Jimmy was the kid who burked,
(31:37):
and I was still with us. And there was a
twins that played the baby of Pete. When he's in
the height or the playpen, she picks him up and
that's pet Well, the twins are still alive, and also
(32:00):
the baby that played Janey is still alive. And then
there's another fella that's alive. And he was in the
beginning scene where the boys are sliding down the heel
and the ice, and we call him shovel Boy. And
(32:21):
he really just started becoming active with us at the
festival and so he's there every year now. Then Virginia
Patton Moss, who played Harry Bailey's wife, she is still
with us, yeah, and she I think she's ninety nine.
(32:41):
But it's great. So we have a lot of fun
during the festival and I'm usually on the road from
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
(33:04):
just been the best thing that ever happened to my life.
And I'm thrilled and honored to be that little girl
that played Zuzu. I had a lot of fun filming
with Jimmy Stewart, and I actually think that for me,
my favorite part was the pedal scene. Hi, Baddy, what
(33:29):
happened to you? I want a fly? Where do you
think you're going? What did you?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I'll give that out of the blow, I'll give it
a drink.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
No, Daddy, hey get.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Together.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Of course I saw him put the pedals in his pocket,
and Frank Kaeper did not change that. You know, you
don't shoot a scene just once, you do it twenty times,
especially cap because he had a huge amount of extra footage.
But Capra left it that in there because he wanted
(34:09):
I 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 I started a whisper.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I give them flower a drink. Now you do something
for me.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
To get some sleep. I know, I know you and
then you can dream about it and I'll oh, god, career.
I have no clue why I started to whisper, I
want to give it a drink. I want to give
(34:47):
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 played Petie, well,
(35:07):
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 arms and my
(35:28):
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 the air, but
(35:50):
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 me in nineteen eighty,
(36:13):
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 the line that everybody
(36:34):
remembers and the movies remembered before, for 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 a line that people will always remember forever. And
(36:56):
I'm blessed to be able to say that. Daddy said,
every time a bell rings and the angel gets his wings.
So I wish everyone would really watch the film every Christmas.
It's become a tradition and a lot of homes, and
I think that it gives a little bit of positive
(37:19):
feelings and it gives a little bit of hope for
all of us. If we watch that movie every year
at Christmas.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And an amen to that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
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
a Wonderful Life Festival, You're going to go to Seneca Falls,
New York, a beautiful part.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Of this country. It's every year in early December.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Go to Wonderfullifemuseum 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 so many people, and the film
saved lives, and we hope we do the same here
at our American Stories, which tell positive stories for a
(38:07):
good and beautiful country. The story of Caroline Grimes and
It's a Wonderful Life here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for Our American Stories podcast, go to the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Our Next Storyteller has the privilege.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
My name is Carolyn Grimes, and I was a child actress,
and I lived in Hollywood, and my mother was a
stage mom. She felt like I I should be in
the movies. So I was an only child, and she
truly put all her energies to that end. And I
(01:11):
had all kinds of lessons, dancing, singing, lucution, dialogue. I mean,
everything was given to me, and I had the opportunity
I'll never forget when I did dialect. I practiced so hard.
Give me please a piece of chocolate. It was so fun.
(01:32):
I mean, I really had a good time growing up,
and that was hard work to do all that. I
played the violin at 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
(01:57):
people in the industry was the main way people made
a 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
(02:20):
took me to see an agent, and the agent liked me.
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
(02:41):
That Night with You. That was my first. But I
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
(03:02):
the time I did It's a Wonderful Life, I was
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
(03:24):
that was usually one on one with the casting directors.
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
(03:45):
almost all of us were representing Lola Moore, that one
agent 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
(04:06):
just kind of talking with other kids, and this mother
accidentally 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 sure.
So it had a soil dress when I walked in
there to talk to the casting director, and lo and behold.
(04:29):
When I got in there, Frank Kapper was in there,
and so I had an interview with him. And the
casting director, and you know, I don't know what the
mother thought she was going to do, but I ended
up get it. Gave me something to talk about, so
I was chatty Kathy, you know. And when we were leaving,
(04:50):
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, so you know,
screwed me up when I went in to do my interview.
But that was how I got the part. Eventually got
(05:12):
all these parts. I played with Bing Crosbie and I
played with some of the greatest people of all time.
I was in Rio Grande 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
(05:33):
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, 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 was John Wayne's son,
(05:56):
and he had both Mike and Pat for the summer.
They were there during the filming and they were actually
in the film, 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
(06:17):
we spied on them and it was just, you know,
it was really an interesting time and I really had fun.
The sons 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
(06:38):
little difficult for them to get shipments of food and
things like that flown in. But John Wayne happened to
be able to get three hundred dollars worth of fireworks.
And my birthday was the fourth of July. He had
that all shipped in. He had a big cake made
and we went out to the Colorado River bluffs and
(06:59):
was happy birthday, little miss Carolyn. It was a great time.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And you've been listening to Carolyn Grime share her story
as a child actress, and my goodness to be on
an interview, not an audition, an interview and have Frank
Africam in the room. Surreal when we come back more
of Carolyn Grime's story and just her personality and her
wit and her memory. Here on Our American Story. Lihabib
(07:30):
here the host of our American Stories. Every 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 Olamericanstories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
(07:53):
a lot. Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give
and we're back with our American Stories and with Carolyn Grimes' story.
(08:13):
She was six years old when she started as Jimmy
Stewart's daughter Zuzu 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.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Here again is Carolyn Grime.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
I like doing the Westerns because there was horses involved.
There was always excitement. 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
(08:59):
dangers 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 Gabby Hayes, 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 Lon
Cheney Jr. You remember Lawn Cheney Junior. He was the wolfman,
very scary dude. Well, I liked him a lot because
he was nice to me and he took time to
talk to me. I mean, I was shocked because I
(09:44):
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. So yeah,
(10:07):
I begin 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. The entire
scene He's got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
He told me before he did the scene. He said, now, Caroline,
he said, I am, I'm just going to tell you
(10:29):
that I'm going to 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 the blood's going to 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 that was really super. I don't know,
(10:51):
I really enjoyed doing that a lot. And then I
loved Blue Skies with Bing Crosby. 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 cast a gift
(11:13):
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, don't have anything
(11:35):
to do with them, and so we were warned and
we didn't. David Nevin was one. There were quite a
few that didn't like children and didn't want to be bothered,
so we didn't bother them. That was just the rule.
And if you did bother them, or you forgot your lines,
(11:56):
or you do all these things, you wouldn't last long
because you'd get 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 didn't win an Academy Award, but
(12:20):
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 mention for the making of
the Snow that was it, and that was ivory soap
flakes that Frank Kaepra actually mixed him together with fau
(12:41):
mite 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 use that technique in
some of the movies today. It was pretty remarkable because
before that the snow had been cornflakes raid with kind
of a white concoction, and the problem was they crunched
(13:06):
when you stepped on them, and Frank Capra wanted silent snow,
so that's how they got the silent snow. But if
you'll notice, it's wonderful life. When George is on the
bridge and he jumps in to save clearance, there's all
this soap SuDS around in the water. It's all over where.
(13:26):
It goes all over their faces. When George pulls him out,
it'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
(13:48):
from heaven. You know, it's a giant beam coming down
on 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,
(14:09):
and it only took three months to shoot the film.
They started in April and they finished up the end
of July, 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.
(14:31):
So they had a lot of crushed ice for snow
that they used as well, you know, on the sides
of the 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 Ensino for all
the outside scenes and the buildings and things like that,
(14:53):
but for the most part, the whole thing was shot
on a stage or in the back lot. That's where
the water was 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
(15:15):
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 with his wool scratchy suit on and it's
like ninety 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 handpicked everybody
(15:41):
that was in that movie, even the extras, he handpicked 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 having a
(16:06):
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 Priscilla Montgomery,
(16:27):
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 she was
the first one, and the other kids that jumped in
(16:49):
got twenty five dollars for jumping in.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And we've been listening to Carolyn Grime 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,
making its a wonderful life. And who would have known.
I did not and could not have imagined that was
(17:12):
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
great ones. The details matter more of Carolyn Grimes, her
(17:33):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
The movie she started is Jimmy Stewart's Daughter Zuzu.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
She was discussing the dance competition at Bedford Falls High
School and how the young actors were taught to Charleston
from one of the girls who played one of the
munchkins in the Wizard of Oz. The actors turned dance
instructor 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
(18:40):
was not easy money. Here again is Carolyn Grimes.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
But she had this purple beaded dress on and when
she jumped in. 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
(19:06):
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 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
(19:27):
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 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
(19:50):
with Carrie Grant, Loretty Young and David Nevin, my mother
started getting sick. And that's when I realized is 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
(20:13):
was fourteen. So during that time, it was hard for
my father to be with me on the set. He
was a manager of a safe boy 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 the stage if I got a job, and
so he wasn't that interested in having me in the
(20:35):
movies anyway. And of course by that time I discovered boys,
and so I wasn't that greatly interested in acting either.
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
(20:57):
was an orphan, so the court took over because my
father didn't leave a will, So I had a mean
aunt and uncle from Missouri. It was my father's brother
and his horrible, 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
(21:19):
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 you know, I thought I'd been sent
to hell, and I didn't think I would recover from that.
(21:39):
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 for anybody from anybody in California. And eventually
(22:01):
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, my friends at school, everyone really rallied around me,
(22:28):
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 of you and they use you. And I can
(22:48):
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.
All they wanted was to give love and be friends.
And so I never went back to California after that.
Of course, I lost all contact. My hand had made
(23:11):
me do that. But I graduated and high school, went
to college, and I became a medical technologist, and then
I had kids, and then I lost a husband to
deer hunting, and then I remarried and I was married
(23:32):
to the second 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
(23:53):
when he was eighteen, 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 a child, but I did okay,
and my husband was getting sick. And there was somebody
(24:18):
that knocked on my door in nineteen eighty and they said,
have you ever have you? Are you that kid, that
Zuzu 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
(24:39):
I went down to the basement and drug up all
my memorabilia so I could show them all the movies
and stuff. And so it happened again in the following week,
and it kept happening, and I thought, you know, gee,
this is weird. And so then I started getting fan
mail and I thought, holy cow, what's going on here.
(25:02):
I don't understand this. So I guess I'd better sit
down and watch 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, the car, and the laundry room.
That was my life. So you know, every once in
(25:24):
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 asleep at the opening.
So there you go. I was six years old, you know,
(25:50):
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, 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,
(26:12):
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 had people coming to
him and saying, you know what happened to that little
girl Zuzu?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And we've been listening to Carolyn 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 parents from assuri small town and a really, really,
really mean aunt. But then she learned that this small
(26:56):
town rallied around her, that there were good people everywhere,
but that knock on the door comes, and finally she's
reconnected to that life, her earlier life, and to the
film It's a Wonderful Life, which she had never seen.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
She fell asleep at the premiere.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
When we come back, what happens next with Carolyn Grimes?
Here on our American stories? And we continue with our
(27:38):
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.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
A Wonderful Life.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
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 year old Carolyn
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 Grime About.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
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 these secretaries find me. This all
happened in nineteen eighty. It was like, Wow, this is
a different world. And so that's when things started happening.
(28:32):
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
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
(28:57):
and they decided to promote One Full Life for their
Christmas in their stores that year. So they got up
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
(29:19):
meeting people. You know, they would go through the autograph
line and they would share with you their stories and
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
(29:42):
then that this was something that I had to do.
So I loved being on the road, and I've been
on the road ever since, travel everywhere, and then I
started It's Wonderful Life Festival in Seneca Falls twenty years ago.
It's just the best experience you could ever have. It's wonderful.
(30:04):
So the second weekend in December and it's in Seneca Falls,
New York, and it's all about It's a Wonderful Life.
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,
(30:27):
and it's a Wonderful Life museum. It's the only museum
in the country that celebrates a black and white movie.
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
(30:50):
bit of it. And we have thousands and thousands that
go through it and they love the film so much.
It's a great experience. So I hope everyone can make it,
certainly at least one time in their life. And of
course I've gone through, you know, meeting a lot of
(31:13):
the cast members from the film and as 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 Little Tommy, and Carol Coombs Mueller who played Janey,
who played the piano. Jimmy was the kid who burked,
(31:37):
and I was still with us. And there was a
twins that played the baby of Pete. When he's in
the height or the playpen, she picks him up and
that's pet Well, the twins are still alive, and also
(32:00):
the baby that played Janey is still alive. And then
there's another fella that's alive. And he was in the
beginning scene where the boys are sliding down the heel
and the ice, and we call him shovel Boy. And
(32:21):
he really just started becoming active with us at the
festival and so he's there every year now. Then Virginia
Patton Moss, who played Harry Bailey's wife, she is still
with us, yeah, and she I think she's ninety nine.
(32:41):
But it's great. So we have a lot of fun
during the festival and I'm usually on the road from
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
(33:04):
just been the best thing that ever happened to my life.
And I'm thrilled and honored to be that little girl
that played Zuzu. I had a lot of fun filming
with Jimmy Stewart, and I actually think that for me,
my favorite part was the pedal scene. Hi, Baddy, what
(33:29):
happened to you? I want a fly? Where do you
think you're going? What did you?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I'll give that out of the blow, I'll give it
a drink.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
No, Daddy, hey get.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Together.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Of course I saw him put the pedals in his pocket,
and Frank Kaeper did not change that. You know, you
don't shoot a scene just once, you do it twenty times,
especially cap because he had a huge amount of extra footage.
But Capra left it that in there because he wanted
(34:09):
I 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 I started a whisper.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I give them flower a drink. Now you do something
for me.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
To get some sleep. I know, I know you and
then you can dream about it and I'll oh, god, career.
I have no clue why I started to whisper, I
want to give it a drink. I want to give
(34:47):
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 played Petie, well,
(35:07):
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 arms and my
(35:28):
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 the air, but
(35:50):
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 me in nineteen eighty,
(36:13):
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 the line that everybody
(36:34):
remembers and the movies remembered before, for 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 a line that people will always remember forever. And
(36:56):
I'm blessed to be able to say that. Daddy said,
every time a bell rings and the angel gets his wings.
So I wish everyone would really watch the film every Christmas.
It's become a tradition and a lot of homes, and
I think that it gives a little bit of positive
(37:19):
feelings and it gives a little bit of hope for
all of us. If we watch that movie every year
at Christmas.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And an amen to that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
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
a Wonderful Life Festival, You're going to go to Seneca Falls,
New York, a beautiful part.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Of this country. It's every year in early December.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Go to Wonderfullifemuseum 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 so many people, and the film
saved lives, and we hope we do the same here
at our American Stories, which tell positive stories for a
(38:07):
good and beautiful country. The story of Caroline Grimes and
It's a Wonderful Life here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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