Dying Breed Dialogues: Jimmy Hawkins on It’s a Wonderful Life
Jimmy Hawkins was four and a half years old when he played Tommy Bailey, George Bailey’s youngest child in America’s most beloved Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life. Now, nearly eight decades later, he’s one of its last remaining living cast members (only the actors who played his sisters, Janie and Zuzu, are still alive) and has become the keeper of the film’s legacy. He’s written several books about the movie and its impact on people, including his latest, The Heart of It’s a Wonderful Life.
Frank Capra called It’s a Wonderful Life the best film he ever made. In 1947, few agreed.
Today, Hawkins believes the movie will one day be recognized as not just the most inspirational film of all time, but simply the greatest, period.
In this edition of Dying Breed Dialogues, Hawkins shares what it was like working with silver screen legends Frank Capra, Jimmy Stewart, and Donna Reed, gives us a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the film’s most iconic scenes, and offers his take on its enduring power.
Hawkins shares whether the children felt scared during the scene where Stewart’s George Bailey comes undone in front of his family, what real-life town served as the inspiration for Bedford Falls, how Capra’s obsessive, improvisational creative genius shaped the film, the only thing Capra would have changed about the movie, what Stewart was drawing on that made his performance so affecting, what really makes for a wonderful life, and more.
