Despite tragedies in her life, Karolyn Grimes champions theme of beloved film

We've barely settled into the comfy furniture when Karolyn Grimes wants to stop the movie.

"There," she said. "Right there. I've never noticed that before."

On the screen in front of us, little plumes of black smoke are pouring from the chimneys of what's obviously a model house, the home of George and Mary Bailey (Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed) and their four children in "It's a Wonderful Life."

"Frank Capra has such an eye for detail. A perfectionist," says Grimes, a great admirer of the film's director.

I'm at the Carnation home of Grimes, who played the Baileys' precious daughter Zuzu. We're watching the Christmas-season classic on her 12-year-old big-screen TV. The picture is huge, although the aging set puts faded green and red arcs across the screen.

Grimes, now 62, said she's seen the movie hundreds of times, but never quite like this. The DVD makes it easy for us to stop, back up, slow down and take a close look at characters, scenes and expressions. And she points out a few editing gaffes, such as frames in one scene that belong in another, two actors impossibly switching positions and a piece of masking tape meant to show an actor where to stand, but never intended to show up in the finished film. (See accompanying story for more details on watching the film.)

How Grimes can praise Capra's eye for detail one moment and then snitch on the film's editors the next indicates the complex, intimate relationship between this woman and this movie.

She has become its most vocal ambassador and revels in the film's status as a Christmastime staple. Earlier this month, she got front-page coverage on a visit to Seneca Falls in upstate New York to endorse that community's claim to being Capra's model for the fictional Bedford Falls.

Watching the film, she points out some of the connections: Seneca Falls has a bridge almost identical to the one in the movie, Capra is known to have visited Seneca Falls, and the film contains references to other upstate cities: Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and Elmira.

Down a hallway from where we're watching the movie is a room filled floor to ceiling with movie posters and photographs, including a 1990 shot of her with Stewart. That was the only time the two got together after the movie, although they traded phone calls and letters over the years. Stewart died in 1997 at 89.

She's still in demand on the speaker circuit, especially at Christmas, and keeps her legions of fans informed of her activities on her Web site, www.zuzu.net, and publishes a twice-yearly newsletter, "The Zuzu News." Back pages of the current issue tell how to buy a Zuzu bell ornament, Zuzu soap, Zuzu photos and a membership certificate to "The Zuzu Society."

Grimes isn't shy about asserting her right to a piece of the pie. She likes to buy up the "Wonderful Life" paraphernalia she sees in stores, but not to keep. "I buy it, bring it out a couple of years later, then sign it and sell it on eBay."

More than the money, Grimes says, she enjoys spreading the "Wonderful Life" philosophy, which she boils down to the film's central point: that one person's actions — good or bad — influence the lives of many others.

Grimes' show-biz career was engineered by her mother. "She was afraid my father was going to be drafted, and we'd need the money." The first movie role she can remember was speaking two lines in "That Night With You," 1945, with Franchot Tone, Susanna Foster and Buster Keaton.

Devoted to Jimmy

Her most vivid memories of "It's a Wonderful Life" are of Stewart, who's with her six minutes in the film. "He was tall. Taller than God," Grimes said. He comforted 6-year-old Grimes when she missed a line, saying, "It's all right to make mistakes and don't you feel bad. You'll get it right in the next take."

"And I did," she announces.

Over the decades, Grimes kept in touch with the other Bailey kids: Janie is Carol Coombs Muller, a retired Christian school teacher in Southern California; Tommy is Jimmy Hawkins of Los Angeles, who with Grimes has been an advisory-board member of the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pa. But she lost track of Larry Simms, who played Petey Bailey. Last she heard, he was in Thailand.

When Zuzu appears on the screen, Grimes notes that the girl's attention is focused on her father. "I don't even remember Donna Reed; I was never one-on-one with her. I was either in his arm or on his back." But she does know that Reed, in scenes that called for teary eyes, didn't need a spray of onion dust as some actors did.

Capra's first choice as Mary Bailey had been actress Jean Arthur, but she had a commitment to a theater role on Broadway.

Donna Reed's portrayal of sweet, dependable Mary Bailey helped shape her character on TV's long-running "Donna Reed Show." Reed died in 1986 at 65.

Grimes makes sure I notice the range of emotions required from Stewart, from the deepest despair to the highest elation. The film drew five Academy Award nominations, including best picture, actor and director — but didn't collect a single Oscar.

Life off screen

"It's a Wonderful Life" was the fifth of at least 16 films Grimes appeared in by the time she was 15. Although she's consistently upbeat, her life has included many challenges and difficult moments.

Her mother suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died when Grimes was 14. Her father died in a car accident the next year. An orphan, Grimes was sent to live with relatives in Missouri.

She lost her first husband to a hunting accident and her second to cancer, and, in what she calls the most "crushing blow," a son committed suicide at 18. But three daughters and four grandchildren have helped keep life, as she invariably puts it, wonderful.

Grimes fell in love with the Northwest on her first visit, in 1994, for a benefit for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In 1998, she moved here with husband Chris Brunell, whose work has included an unusual combination: clinical psychology and taxidermy.

In difficult times, Grimes has clung to the warmth and reassurance offered by "It's a Wonderful Life." That's what she finds in her favorite scene, near the end of the film. We see George Bailey standing at the bridge, after having seen what the world would have been like if he hadn't been born. "Please, God," he begs. "Let me live again."

"To me," Grimes said. "That sort of signifies what the movie is all about ... faith and family and friends — and the possibility of miracles."

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com.