60
DECEMBER 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
KAROLYN GRIMESWAS 6
when she
played Zuzu Bailey, the girl who lost her
petals in
It’s a Wonderful Life
.
The 1946
Frank Capra fantasy, possibly the most
popular Christmas movie ever made,
wasn’t such a big deal at first—certainly
not for Grimes.
Now 72, Grimes says she didn’t even
see
It’s a Wonderful Life
until 33 years
a er its release. “I was orphaned at the
age of 15 and sent out of Hollywood to
live in the Midwest,” she explains. “I was
in a home where movies were ‘sinful.’
My former life in
movies was never
mentioned.”
Grimes had seven kids by the time she
realized, in the early 1980s, that her part
in Capra’s film represented more than a
memory. “Someone interviewed me in the
li le town where I lived,” she says. “The
story was picked up by other papers, and
I started ge ing fan mail. I thought, ‘Good
grief. I’d be er see what all this is about.’”
Today, being Zuzu is a full-time job.
When Grimes isn’t serving as an “ambas-
sador” for
IAWL
,
she’s writing books
about it—she just finished her third—or
updating the website zuzu.net. She has
seen the movie more than 300 times,
blurring the line between her real-life
persona and her onscreen character.
“
I am Zuzu
and
Karolyn,” she says. “My
life has become that li le girl that people
hold fondly in their hearts.”
Grimes calls herself “a survivor of
life,” and not without reason. In addition
to the early loss of her parents, the father
of her first two children died in a hunting
accident, another husband died of
cancer, and a son commi ed suicide at
age 18. Zuzu has helped Grimes make
sense of it all. “I believe I had to suffer so
I could have compassion for others,” she
says. “As Zuzu, I have an opportunity to
touch people’s lives.”
—
chris wright
RKO/PHOTOFEST NYC (
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
);
BILLY INGRAM/WIREIMAGE (GRIMES)
THEATER
Broadway tortures a holiday classic into a new formwith
A Christmas Story, the Musical
MOVIES
The
Lord of the Rings
franchise
backtracks for Bilbo Baggins’ epic adventure in
The Hobbit
//
Quentin Tarantino’s
Django Unchained
lets loose on the subject of slavery
BOOKS
Brit crit Simon Garfield turns his attention to cartography in
On the Map
//
Dolly Parton doles out nuggets of wisdom in
Dream
More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You
MUSIC
The tirelessly experimental Scott Walker releases his first studio album in six years,
Bish Bosch
EXHIBITS
“
Matisse: In Search of True Painting” at New York’s MetropolitanMuseum of Art picks apart the artist’s creative process
Zuzu-ology
Former child
actress Karolyn
Grimes on …
Being on the set:
“
Gosh, it
was fun—kids to play with, fake snow.
The snowwas packed around the house
on the stage. It was just beautiful. I had
never seen snow before.”
Lionel Barrymore (a.k.a. the horrible
Mr. Potter):
“
He was kind of crotchety,
a bit cranky, if you will. He really was in
a wheelchair and suffered from severe
arthritis, so I think he was in a lot of pain.”
Capra’s continuity issues:
“
When George
carries the Christmas wreath into Bailey
Building and Loan, he has it on his arm
and he throws it on the desk. In the next
frame he has the wreath on his arm again,
talking to Harry on the phone.”
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culture
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THEMONTHAHEAD
FLOWER GIRL
Karolyn
Grimes and Jimmy Stewart
in
It’s a Wonderful Life
It’s aWonderful
Alternate Universe
More than
60
years have
passed since the
release of Frank
Capra’s holiday
classic, but for
one of the film’s
stars it may as
well have been
yesterday
