The Heart of "It's a Wonderful Life"

Bret and Veronica are joined by Jimmy Hawkins who acted in "It's a Wonderful Life" to share behind the scenes memories.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gorgeous December morning in San Diego. Daytime highs this afternoon
in the mid sixties. Little bit of patche fog tonight
and through part of the morning commute tomorrow. Otherwise, expect
it to be a cut and paste job for tomorrow.
Coco News Time seven forty one.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
It's Coco in the Community Holiday edition this week, presented
by Singleton Schreiber Fearless Advocacy for the Injured relentless results.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Ask anyone in San Diego for their favorite holiday movie
and they can likely list a few, But probably the
most well known and beloved Christmas movies of all time
is It's a Wonderful Life.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Before a leap of faith, before a life altering realization,
there was George Bailey, a man who, despite his own despair,
discovered the profound impact one life can have.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
On the world.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
That's right, Boil.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Dive into the heart of this beloved holiday classic. With
the heart of It's a Wonderful Life by Jimmy Hawkins.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, is ers to appreciate
what he has and don't throw it away. The movie
is still inspiring people to this day, even though it
was released back in nineteen forty six.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
George Bailey's youngest son of the movie is played by
Jimmy Hawkins. He has just written the book, as you heard,
called the heart of It's a Wonderful Life, and he
joined us now on the COGA News liveline.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Good morning morning, Jimmy, Hey.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Good morning you guys. Have merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, thank you, and happy Holidays to you too. This
must have been just such a wonderful experience to be
in a movie that ended up to be nearly everyone's
all time classic favorite holiday movie.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Oh yeah, it's great pleasure. You look back and so
many things in the movie and people don't understand are
so vivid.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
To me.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
It was like it was happening yesterday. I've done over
forty movies and three hundred TV shows, and some of
the movies that come on TV. I don't remember doing it,
and I was a little lower seven eight years of age,
but this one, for some reason, I remember getting up
early in the morning and taking a bus and street
cars to the studio and walking onto that set of

(02:15):
the Bailey House and there was real snow on the outside,
and then every busybody running around doing whatever they did
on the set and they take me to wardrobe, put
the clothes on and make up. Kids didn't have much
makeup then, and then we're ready to do whatever they
wanted to do. But I remember Capra squatting down talking

(02:38):
to me about things, and my mom would go over
the night before and tell me kind of what I
was going to do the next day. But Capra had
a new idea, so he threw in this excuse me,
excuse me, I burped thing to relieve a little pressure
of the scene. He liked to do humor common and

(03:00):
mix it with the drama that was going on. In fact,
I asked him once that one of the screenings at
the Academy, what was the most difficult scene to direct
in the movie? He said, oh, the one with you kids? Really,
what were we have problems of? Oh no, you guys
were great, It's just that so much was going on.

(03:20):
They had different levels. He lost the eight thousand dollars,
He's worried about his brother coming the Medal of Honor.
Just all these things are crashing down on him. And
you got a kid saying how do you spell this?
And you got a daughter pound out a piano. You're
burkein excusing me, and he said the people could have
laughed at the scene instead up with it. And when

(03:42):
you see that scene done, you go, that's like a
real family. They're just asking different questions, what about this?
And oh this, somebody's coming over tonight, And it just
played like a real family. And that was that was
all Capra. He just would throw things in at the

(04:02):
last second. You know, Now your daddy walks in, go
through his pockets, maybe brought you something. Little things like
that to make it real family. Like, Yeah, it's a brilliant,
brilliant film. It's you know, voted the most inspirational movie
of all time. And I say, one day it'll be
the greatest movie ever made. It's just he's just said,

(04:25):
deserves so much. And he was so crushed when it flopped.
He was beside himself. He didn't understand it.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, but we're speaking with Jimmy Hawkins. He just wrote
a book. It's called The Heart of It's a Wonderful Life.
And Jimmy, is there any are there any secrets revealed
in your book? That's what we want to know.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Oh, lot, this is all new. This is all a
different perspective of the film of what Kapper had to
go through, what Jimmy Stewart had to go through to
bring George Bailey alive when he got home for World
War Two. You know, he had what we call shell
shock then now it's taken on a whole other name.

(05:07):
But he'd had major problems of dealing with returning home.
And Kaeper noticed it when he was doing the scene
with Jimmy Stewart at the bar when he's praying to God.
He said, I'm not praying, man, but I need help.
And he was a medium shot of Stewart and he

(05:30):
saw what Stuart was doing with this scene. He said, okay, cut,
that's great. Great, Now let's do it one more time.
I'm going to move in and Stuart said, now that's it. Well,
I can't give you anymore. That's it, And he was
kind of short with him, and and Caeper thought, oh, well,
I'm not going to push it here. I'll do it
in post production. I can move in and get what

(05:52):
I want. But I see he's got an issue here.
And he noticed that big time. When Jimmy Stewart runs
off as George Bailey runs off the porch of his
mom's house and the mother said, I don't know you,
and he rushes up, and Caprin had his face full
through the screen and you just saw this horror going

(06:14):
through this man's eyes. That where am I?

Speaker 2 (06:18):
You know, we don't want to give away all the
secrets here, Jimmy.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
Well no, but I mean it's not just some fluff
thing like my other books, who are very good, you know,
but they just talk about the actors and what they
thought of it. But this goes deeper. And I think
that's why they'll like it more, because I bring the
reader into the book and anyway, but the Heart of

(06:47):
It's Wonderful Life, it's different. I got a different picture
for the book cover. I thought for that, and I
think they'll get a lot out of it. And see
how deep Jimmy Stewart and what he gave to the
film in Capra, just all the characters.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Well, Jimmy, we want to thank you so much. We're
out of time, but we want people to check out
your book. It's called The Heart of It's a Wonderful Life.
We've been talking to Jimmy Hawkins, who played George Bailey's
youngest son in It's a Wonderful Life. Thank you for
joining US today.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Okay, merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.