She helped create a museum for the film and returns each December to Seneca Falls, New York, the model for the movie’s small-town Bedford Falls, for the “It’s a Wonderful Life” Festival.įor Grimes, the film’s message is timeless: “How each person’s life touches another and we’re given an opportunity to make a difference. Over the past four decades, she has attended countless screenings, benefits and conventions. But the publicity enabled her to reunite with Stewart and Reed, and Grimes became the unofficial ambassador of the movie. PARAMOUNTīack in 1980, she had no idea how journalists even tracked her down because her name had changed and there was no Google back in the day. The Bailey family in the 1946 film 'It's a Wonderful Life,' which celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2021. “I knew then why it was very special and I could understand why I started getting fan mail and people wanted to have interviews with me.” “I was enthralled with the messages from that movie when I first saw it,” Grimes said. She didn’t even see “It’s a Wonderful Life” until she was 40 years old. Her first husband died in a hunting accident. Grimes got out of show business in her teens after her mother died from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and her father was killed in a car accident. I thought, ‘Wow! This suddenly got big!’” He remained an actor in the 1950s and 1960s and worked with Reed on “The Donna Reed Show” from 1958 to 1966. “I started hearing more about it then,” said Hawkins in a recent Zoom interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to promote the 75th anniversary Blu-ray release, which came out Nov.

The movie, though, was just a footnote in their lives until the late 1970s. For years, civic boosters have pointed out intriguing parallels that suggest Seneca Falls was the inspiration for Bedford Falls, the make-believe mill town in 'It's a Wonderful Life.' (AP Photo/David Duprey, File) 8, 2006 file photo, Karolyn Grimes who played 'Zuzu' in the movie 'It's a Wonderful Life' poses for a photo in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

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