Zuzu’s “Wonderful Life”: The Story of Karolyn Grimes

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To learn more, visit Bose.com. This is Lee Habib 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 podcasts. 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.

Let's take a listen. 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 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. 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. 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 1940s. So back in the day, Hollywood was pretty much all people in the industry.

That 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 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 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, I really had a good time. By 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 that was usually one on one with the casting director. 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 and 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 Lola Moore, that one agent who had children all over L.A. 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 spilled coffee on me, on my dress, because we were dresses back then always, you know, and they were up to your butt.

I mean, they were so short. So I 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 Capra 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 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. So, you know, it 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 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 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 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. 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 of the Pioneers were there and they'd serenade us. And then I turned 10 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 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. We went out to the Colorado River Bluffs and it was happy birthday, little Miss Carolyn. It was a great time. And you've been listening to Carolyn Grimes share her story as a child actress. And my goodness, to be on an interview, not an audition, an interview and have Frank Capra come in the room.

Surreal. When we come back, more of Carolyn Grimes story and just her personality and her wit and her memory here on Our American Story. Lee Habib 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.

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There's a better way to fly private. And we're back with our American stories and with Carolyn Grimes' story. She was six years old when she starred as Jimmy Stewart's daughter, Zuzu, in the 1946 Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. Although, as she told us before the break, her favorite movie was Rio Grande, released in 1950, starring alongside the great John Wayne.

Here again is Carolyn Grimes. I like doing the westerns because there were there was horses involved. There was always excitement in Albuquerque. I got to ride on a stagecoach 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 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 Gabby Hayes, so I got to do it. But I enjoyed that so much.

And I made a really good friend on that set. And that was Lon Chaney Jr.. Do you remember Lon Chaney Jr.? He was the wolf man. Very scary dude. Well, I liked him a lot because he was nice to me and he took time and talked to me. I mean, I was shocked 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, 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, 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. The entire scene, he's got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He told me before he did the scene, he said, now, Carolyn, he said, I am I'm just going to tell you that I'm going to bleed and you're going to watch this. And he said, this is what I have a capsule, this capsule. I'm going to put it in my mouth. And he said, I'm going to hit my cheek in some way and break that capsule and then 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. I really enjoyed doing that a lot. And then I loved Blue Skies with Bing Crosby.

He was so great. He he sent me my wardrobe that was in the movie for an after the movie present. Back in the day, the big star sent the members of the 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, don't have anything to do with them. And so we were warned and we didn't.

David Niven 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 or you did all these things, you wouldn't last long.

Because you 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 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 Capra actually mixed him together with fomite 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 corn flakes sprayed with kind of a white concoction. And the problem was they crunched 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 in 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 over everywhere. 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 bridgekeeper 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 a giant beam coming down. 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. 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 road and things like that on the roads. And that was all shot inside a stage. There was a location on the studio ranch in 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 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 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 90 some degrees. And that was extreme weather for L.A. at the time.

So working with Capra was a dream. He was very particular. He was meticulous.

He handpicked everybody 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 dance career as a teacher.

And so she was brought on the set for It's a 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.

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 $50 extra tacked onto her check because she was the first one.

And the other kids that jumped in got $25 for jumping in. And we've been listening to Carolyn Grimes share the stories of being on set as a child actress. In the West, places like Albuquerque and some of our great national parks. And also in the back lots of Burbank and Encino 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 handpicking the extras. And directors, my goodness. The good ones and the 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. When the world gets in the way of your music, try the new Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2. Next-gen earbuds uniquely tuned to the shape of your ears. They use exclusive Bose technology that personalizes the audio performance to fit you. Delivering the world's best noise cancellation and powerfully immersive sound. So you can hear and feel every detail of the music you love. Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2, sound shape to you.

To learn more, visit Bose.com. Tis the season for something special. The Starbucks sugar cookie almond milk latte. Red and green sprinkles, non-dairy buttery yum, and blonde espresso. Every sip is a moment made merrier. Find your cheer on the Starbucks app today. Get a free quote on your next flight at surfair.com.

There's a better way to fly private. And we return to Our American Stories and Carolyn Grimes talking about It's a Wonderful Life, the movie she starred in, as 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 actress turned dance instructor Priscilla Montgomery earned an extra $50 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, 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 beaded. It was an interesting story. Oh, my goodness, there are so many interesting stories.

So I enjoy 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 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 Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Nevin, my mother started getting sick. And that's when I realized 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 14. So during that time, it was hard for my father to be with me on the set.

He was a manager of a Safeway 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 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 14, 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 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 in Missouri. I'd gone to L.A. High. There were 900 kids in my class at L.A. High.

There were 800 people in the whole town. So I had 36 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. 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 anybody to help me with that. So she commandeered all my mail, so I couldn't ask for help 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, 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 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. 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 aunt had made me do that, but I graduated in high school, went to college, and I became a medical technologist. And then I had kids, and then I lost the husband to deer hunting, and then I remarried, and I was married to the second one for 25 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 18, and that was probably the worst experience that I will ever have in my life, and it hangs over me like a cloud forever. Forever.

It's a horrible way to lose a child. But I did okay, and my husband was getting sick, and there was somebody that knocked on my door in 1980, and they said, 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 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 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? I don't understand this. So I guess I better sit down and watch that film. I had never seen the film It's a Wonderful Life until I was 40 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 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 40 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, long night. But I remember, I remember going, 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, 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? And we've been listening to Carolyn Grimes tell her story. My goodness, what a turn it took when she was 14. First losing her mom, and then at 15, her dad dying in a car accident with no will. In came the adopted parents from Missouri, small town, and a really, really, really mean aunt. But then she learned that this small 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'd never seen. She fell asleep at the premiere.

When we come back, what happens next with Carolyn Grimes here on Our American Story? fit you, delivering the world's best noise cancellation and powerfully immersive sound so you can hear and feel every detail of the music you love. Bose QuietComfort earbuds to sound shape to you.

To learn more, visit Bose.com. Cozy up to a cup of Starbucks caramel brulee latte with cream crunchy caramel brulee toppings, steamed milk and espresso. Just bring your own comfy sweater. Find your cheer on the Starbucks app today. And we continue with Our American Stories. In 1980, Carolyn Grimes was visited by a reporter asking if she played Jimmy Stewart's daughter in the 1946 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 40-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 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 all happened in 1980. 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 to offer.

So I started doing a lot of speaking and, you know, just appearances locally, because I was still raising kids. But in 1993, the Target company got together and they decided to promote It's a Wonderful Life for their Christmas in their stores that year. So they got 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 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 on the road ever since.

Travel everywhere. And then I started It's a Wonderful Life Festival in Seneca Falls 20 years ago. It's just the best experience you could ever have. It's wonderful.

It's 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 2010. 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 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 meeting a lot of 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 Janie who played the piano. Jimmy was the kid who burped.

And I still with us. And there was a twins that played the baby of Petey. When he's in the playpen, she picks him up and that's Petey. Well the twins are still alive. And also the baby that played Janie is still alive. And then there's another fellow that's alive. And he was in the beginning scene where the boys are sliding down the hill in the ice. And we call him Shovel Boy. And he really just started becoming active with us at the festival.

And so he is 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 99. 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 just been the best thing that ever happened to my life. And I'm thrilled and honored to be that little girl that played Janie. 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 that my favorite part was the petal scene. Hi daddy. What happened to you? I want a flower. Oh wait now where do you think you're going? Want to get my flowery drink. All right I'll give that to the flower. I'll give it a drink. Look daddy paste it.

All right we'll paste this together. Of course I saw him put the petals in his pocket. And Frank Capra did not change that. You know you don't shoot a scene just once you do it 20 times. Especially Capra because he had a huge amount of extra footage. But 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 I started to whisper. Good as new. I'll give the flower a drink. Now will you do something for me?

What? Will you try and get some sleep? I'm not sleeping. I want to look at my flower.

I know I know but you just go to sleep. And then you can dream about it and it'll be a whole garden. I have no clue why I started to whisper. 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 Sims who played Petey 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 arms and my legs are wrapped around him like a little frog. And it's just that was quite an 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 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 1980 we became friends and we did a couple things together and it was really nice to have him in my life. The other thing that I remember most of the time when I was working with Jimmy Stewart 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 remembers and the movies remember before 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 I'm blessed to be able to say that.

Daddy teacher said every time a bell rings an 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 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 Hengler 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 of this country it's every year in early December and go to wonderfullifemuseum.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 is tell positive stories for a good and beautiful country the story of Carolyn Grimes and It's a Wonderful Life here on Our American Stories.

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