Karolyn Grimes

Karolyn Grimes. Image: John Mathew Smith

Stars of the Golden Age

by CHAD KENNERK

Born in Hollywood on the 4th of July, Karolyn Grimes is fondly remembered for her roles in Christmas classics. As Zuzu in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, she uttered one of cinema’s most iconic and indelible lines; "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.” Its message of hope and inspiration continues to endear the film to new generations each year. This weekend marks the annual celebration of It’s a Wonderful Life in Seneca Falls, NY, where Karolyn will reunite with co-stars and commemorate Capra’s classic.

In conversation with Karolyn Grimes

Film Review (FR): How did your journey begin as an actor?

Karolyn Grimes (KG): I had a stage mom and I was an only child. She wanted to push me out there and make me a star. She gave me all kinds of lessons. Drama lessons, singing, dancing, playing the piano, the violin. She had big ideas. She took me to see a very famous agent that handled almost all the child stars during that time, her name was Lola Moore. She handled everybody, believe me. That’s where she took me and the agent liked me. She sent me on some interviews. I got some parts and that’s how I got in. 

(FR): Your career began in 1944, the same year our founder F. Maurice Speed began Film Review. What are some of your earliest memories working in film?

(KG): The first movie I was in, That Night with You, I played a little orphan girl. I broke an ornament on a Christmas tree and I remember that because everybody was mad at me. We were orphans that were just visiting for the night and the other kids were sure that since I broke the ornament on the tree, we’d get sent back to the orphanage and wouldn’t get fed. I remember Susanna Foster, she was an opera singer. She held me in her arms and sang me a lullaby and I was supposed to go to sleep, which I did. I’ll never forget that. That was pretty cool.

(FR): You’ve worked with a lot of our former Film Review contributors, one of which is Bing Crosby, who of course is also closely associated with Christmas. What are your memories of working with him in Blue Skies? 

(KG): Oh he was wonderful. He was really kind to me and he included me when we were in-between takes. He’d sit in the chair and laugh and make jokes. Jerry Colonna would come over and visit him from another set. They would both just laugh and they all included me. I did jokes with them and I’d sing and act silly. He was just a great guy. I really liked him.

(FR): Bing not only sang to you, but kissed you on the cheek in that picture.

(KG): He sure did. 

Serenade to an Old-Fashioned Girl: Bing Crosby and Karolyn in Blue Skies

(FR): What was the casting process like for It’s a Wonderful Life? Back then there weren’t auditions.

(KG): It was a one-on-one interview. There would be about five or six, maybe seven little girls that all go to the casting office. You’d just sit out front with your mother or whoever and wait until it was your turn. Then you went in and talked to the casting people. That’s how it worked. For It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra was a perfectionist. He hand picked every single person that was in that movie, even the extras. So he was in on all the casting. When I walked in the room, I more or less talked to Mr. Capra and I got the part.

(FR): Being a perfectionist, did Capra do a lot of takes? 

(KG): Ooooh yeah. Well they all did, that was just part of it, but he was very much a perfectionist. It had to be just right. 

(FR): It’s not like today where a director can see the shot on a monitor. They had to make sure they got the take, because they wouldn’t know for certain until the film was processed.

(KG): That’s right. 

(FR): Another Film Review legend is Jimmy Stewart, what are your memories of working with him? 

(KG): He was wonderful, just wonderful. He was very, very, very tall. He was 6’4. That was like a giant to me, because I was always on his shoulders, or in his arms, or on his body somewhere. So he seemed very tall, but he was so kind and so gentle. For the petal scene in the bedroom, he was just the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul. He really made an effort throughout my stay on the set to create some kind of bond between us, so it would come across on the screen and it did. He did it well.

Zuzu’s Petals: Karolyn and James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life

(FR): What was the atmosphere like on the set of It’s a Wonderful Life?

(KG): It was fun, because I got to be with the other kids. That was really fun, to be able to play with them during the off-times when you’d wait until the next shot. You just had to be very careful, because when that red light came on, that meant you don’t make a sound or ‘you’re outta here.’ I was very careful and we all abided by that red light rule. It was a time when you could just feel the happiness. It was after the War. People were in an elevated mood and it was just a great feeling. It had a giant Christmas tree, which mesmerised me, because I’d never seen such a big tree. I was an only child and we had a little tiny tree on a table. So here’s this giant Christmas tree and I thought ‘Wow’. I really thought that was the best thing ever. The tree was just gorgeous. There was a lot of stuff that took up our interest. We had a really good time on that stage. 

(FR): Capra worked with RKO’s special effects wizard Russell Sherman to develop a new kind of artificial snow. Prior to the innovation, movie snow was essentially made of frosted flakes, which often resulted in post-production dubbing. The Academy recognized the effort with a special Scientific & Technical award to Marty Martin, Jack Lannon, Russell Shearman and the RKO Radio Studio Special Effects Department for ‘the development of a new method of simulating falling snow on motion picture sets’. The recipe is said to have included Phomaide (the material used in fire extinguishers), soap flakes, sugar, and water. Needless to say, they had to create a lot of fake snow. 

(KG): Yeah they did and it was fascinating. I’d never seen snow, so I thought it was pretty exciting. It wasn’t real, but it was sure cool.

(FR): You made another quintessential Christmas film, The Bishop’s Wife, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. What was that experience like?

(KG): I loved it. I had a fabulous time. I loved Cary Grant, he was my favourite star that I ever worked with. He loved kids, so he would play with me every day at noon. He’d come get me and take me to the ice skating rink that we had on the stage. He would practise his ice skating, while pulling me around on a sled. Just magnificent. He loved kids and he would read me stories. He was really a nice man. The original story had Cary Grant as the priest and David Niven being the angel. That’s how it was being filmed. Samuel Goldwyn came down and said, “I don’t like this. It’s not good. Stop.” Then he hired another director, Henry Koster. He changed the characters, he made Cary Grant the angel and David Niven my father. I think David Niven really wanted to be the angel and it kind of pissed him off. He was kind of aloof, shall we say. There wasn’t any camaraderie at all on the stage with the adults. So Cary Grant just hung around with me, which I thought was great. He was just as nice as could be. 

Let it Go: Karolyn and Cary Grant in The Bishop’s Wife

(FR): What did you take away from the actors you worked with?

(KG): I really don’t know what I would have picked up from them. No one ever sat down and tried to teach me anything. I never wanted to copy them in anyway. They were just normal, ordinary folks to me. My mother made that happen. She and my father never told me what a star was or that these were stars. I had no idea, I thought they were just my friends. I was not allowed to know that this was a different kind of life than other kids had. She didn’t want me to be changed in any way, so they didn’t tell me and I didn’t know. I just thought everybody lived like that. 

(FR): And all the other kids that you worked with were doing the same thing.

(KG): Yeah, they were doing the same thing. We all went to school in a little room school house on the stage and it wasn’t a big deal. So I really never knew at all. It was a good thing that I didn’t know, it might have gone to my head. 

(FR): You’ve been directed by an impressive list of directors. We talked about Frank Capra, but there’s also Cecil B. DeMille, George Marshall, John Ford. What were your experiences like working with them?

(KG): John Ford is the one that stands out in my mind as being a little difficult—and scary. Everybody else that I worked with was quite nice, but he’d go on a tangent and he’d tear up John Wayne, he’d tear up Maureen O’Hara, he’d tear up anybody that was in his way.

(FR): John Wayne respected him, but Ford did have a reputation for being very tough on his actors.

(KG): I would imagine that’s probably the only person that ever could chew John Wayne out. 

(FR): Have there been films you’ve seen later in life that surprised you or brought back memories?

(KG): All of them really, because I grew up far away from Hollywood. I didn’t even see a lot of movies, because I was not at a place to do that. They all surprised me when I saw them. I thought they were great. I never saw It’s a Wonderful Life until I was 40. 

(FR): When Film Review transitioned to a digital publication in 2015, our Executive Editor James Cameron-Wilson named It’s a Wonderful Life among his Top Ten Films of the Last Seventy Years. It became a cultural tradition later on, but it wasn’t a success when it was released. 

(KG): It was a box office failure. It was nominated for all kinds of awards, but it didn’t win anything. It got a special mention for the making of the snow, but that was it. It was a real bomb, but I can understand why now. It was right after the end of the War. It was a time to be happy and this was kind of a dark film, it’s about a man who was going to commit suicide. I can see why it wasn’t particularly successful at the time. People’s minds were somewhere else. The Best Years of Our Lives won the Oscar that year and that was because it was about soldiers returning to civilian life. That was the times. It was a good thing that It’s a Wonderful Life had a chance to sit on the shelf and cook.  

(FR): I heard that in the 1980s, a knock on your door brought Hollywood back to you. 

(KG): Yes it did. We lived way out in the country on a huge ranch. I heard this guy knock on the door. He said, “Were you the kid who played Zuzu? Are you Zuzu?” And I said, “Well, yeah.” He said, “Can I have an interview?” I was taken aback and I said “Well, I guess so.” So I went down in the basement and drug all my memorabilia up and we had an interview. It kept on happening after that. Then I started getting fan mail and thought, ‘Whoa, what is this?’ It turned out to be very nice and I’m very fortunate to be the little girl in that movie.

(FR): This year marks the 20th anniversary of your first visit to Seneca Falls, where the It’s a Wonderful Life museum now resides. 

(KG): That’s right, we’re going to celebrate that.

(FR): It’s the only museum in the world dedicated to a single black & white film. The museum and annual festival have really grown over the years and the museum is currently working on the first phase of a new expansion. How did you get involved?

(KG): I was at home, at that time I lived in Carnation, Washington, and I got a phone call. There was a friend of mine who I had met years before at a party in Chicago. He was a cameraman on The Oprah Show. We became very good friends and I did a show down south that wasn’t far from his summer home. He got ahold of us and invited us down to his house for a weekend after the show was over. He picked us up and we had a really good time. We were really good friends. That fall, he and his wife went on a little trip to look at the fall leaves in northern New York. They went through Seneca Falls. He called me and said, “This is it. This. Is. it!” And I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “This is the place. I am going to see that it happens. I’m going to talk to them right now. This is Seneca Falls and it’s also Bedford Falls. It really is.” He went over and talked to the tourist department. Fortunately he talked to the right person, her name is Moe Young now. She got it, she really did get it. So she took it to the historical society and thought it would be great to bring me in and have a little gathering and show the movie. She approached them and they bought it, which was unbelievable. By golly, the next thing you know, I got a phone call and they said come on in, we’re going to do this, that, and the other.

So they brought me in and that was such a wonderful time. I’d been told for years that the town was Bedford Falls or Frank Capra’s desire was to build the town after that town. I always thought it was based on Jimmy Stewart’s hometown, so I came there thoroughly expecting not to have feelings like that. It had started to snow and we drove up on the main street. Moe said, “Get out and walk. Why don’t you walk down this main street.” So I said, “Ok.” So we got out and walked in the snow. It was silently snowing and there were angels on all the light posts. There wasn’t anybody in town. It was just so quiet. It was one of those first snows where nobody shows up in town, they all stay home. They had lit wreaths on each side of the street that went across. It was just beautiful. It was silent, so quiet, yet you could see all these beautiful angels. It was just gorgeous. Then she said, “Look over there.” I looked and there was the bridge, all lit up with lights. It was absolutely a moment I’ll never forget. I felt like I was in Bedford Falls, I really did. I thought, ‘This is it. This really is the place.’ From then on, it’s been a part of my heart to see that Seneca Falls is celebrated as the town that Bedford Falls was designed from.

(FR): It sounds magical.

(KG): It’s something to see. I would go during the festival, because that’s when it’s really magical. They have a 5K run and its kind of at twilight in the snow or whatever is there. It’s just fabulous. Everything goes into the parade. Everything is all lit up, they decorate everything. There were 5,600 participants last year. It’s really exciting and something to see. It’s really fun. 

(FR): Much like the spirit of the film, it sounds like something that really brings people together.

(KG): Oh it does, the whole festival brings people together. It’s a community thing and I think everyone goes away very mellow and perhaps ready to take on the next year. 

(FR): Would Capra have ever passed through Seneca Falls?

(KG): There was a barber who swears Frank Capra came through the town. Supposedly he got a haircut there, so he would have seen the town. He had an aunt in Aurora, which is not too far down the road. I talked to Tom Bellissima when he was still alive. I said, “Well how did you know it was him?” He said, “Well, I’ll tell ya. My name is Bellissima, which in Italian means beautiful. Capra in Italian means goat, so I always remembered cutting the goat’s hair.” He said not too long after he’d been in the shop, he saw in the newspaper that Frank Capra was doing this film, It’s a Wonderful Life. He was very, very sure that he cut Capra’s hair. So Capra would have seen Seneca Falls. 

(FR): You mentioned memorabilia, what have you kept from your career over the years?

(KG): I have a lot of paper good, articles from the paper, original stills. When I started getting fan mail, which blew me away, I started sending out original stills. There’s a lot of people in the Kansas City area that have original stills. Finally, this autograph guy who wanted a bunch of autographs came to my house and said, “You do what?!” He showed me what to do and I hung onto my memorabilia, which is a lot of stuff like that. I have a lot of great memories. My mother for some reason, more than any other movie, collected on It’s a Wonderful Life. There might even be a bell missing off the Christmas tree, I’m not sure…

Auld Lang Syne: Donna Reed, James Stewart, and Karolyn Grimes in It’s a Wonderful Life

KAROLYN GRIMES began acting at the age of 4. She has worked with film legends such as Bing Crosby, Betty Grable, Cary Grant, Danny Kaye, Fred MacMurray, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Loretta Young. Karolyn's life has not always been wonderful. Her Hollywood career ended in her teens when her mother died from early-onset Alzheimer's disease and her father was killed in an automobile accident. An only child, Karolyn was sent by the court to live in tiny Osceola, MO. Living in a less than desirable home, she found support from the townspeople. Through their love and encouragement, Karolyn decided to get an education and became a medical technician. The renewed interest in It's a Wonderful Life gave Karolyn a new focus. She serves as the ambassador for the film, travelling the world and speaking at screenings, benefits, conventions and other venues. Her sparkling personality and courageous story helps audiences to feel good about themselves and their lives, no matter the hardship.

Visit Karolyn’s website for upcoming appearances and shop her store for signed books and bells! http://www.zuzu.net

Learn more about The Seneca Falls It’s a Wonderful Life Museum and Festival: https://www.wonderfullifemuseum.com/