Who was the baby in 'It's a Wonderful Life'? Twins remember child stardom at NY festival
Their mother handled the negotiations. And like any good Hollywood agent in the 1940’s, Beverly Collins was not one to budge when it came to getting her stars what they wanted.
Like naps. They would need a place to snooze on set. Non-negotiable.
The studio backed down.
And that’s how Don and Ron Collins, blue-eyed baby boys of 18 months, came to be in one of the most popular movies of all time, the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Well, one of them did. Their scene lasted just a few seconds and since they’re identical, it’s hard to tell which one made the final cut.
But 78 years later, Don and Ron will tell you it was him leaning out of a playpen while Donna Reed’s Mary Bailey cared for their movie brother.
“I call him my understudy,” Don Collins, 79, joked Friday as the 21st annual “It’s a Wonderful Life" Festival kicked off in Seneca Falls, the upstate New York town which claims to be the inspiration for the film’s fictional Bedford Falls.
At an autograph signing later, the two were sporting red t-shirts with “It was Me!” in green.
The Collins twins joined fellow child actors Karolyn Grimes (ZuZu) and Jimmy Hawkins (Tommy Bailey) for the three-day festival celebrating a 1946 film that flopped at the box office but inspired a devoted following in the decades to come, with books, documentaries and podcasts dissecting its place in American culture.
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Movie lovers from Canada, Illinois, Vermont, and elsewhere traveled to Seneca Falls this weekend for a chance to meet the child actors and listen to presentations about the film.
Margaret Arnold, 24, came from Chicago because she’s a fan of classic films, especially ones starring Jimmy Stewart.
“I just have always been a very big nerd about it,” she said.
“Half the time she can tell me what year a movie came out without looking it up,” her husband Eddie Arnold, 28, added.
Mandy Aubin, 32, brought her children Abigail, 9, and Gabriel, 11, down from Vermont to meet Grimes for the second year in a row.
“We just love the movie, classic movies and we like the kids to meet some of the people,” she said. Grimes signed their posters from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “The Bishop’s Wife,” among the 16 movies she acted in as a child.
Others came for the film’s message of hopefulness amid despair.
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Like Stewart’s George Bailey, Amy Ley found herself in a dark place several years ago, wondering if her life was worth living. She’s moved to tears each time she watches him up on the bridge declaring that he wants to live again.
“It’s not a movie to me,” said Ley, 54, who traveled from Illinois. “It’s like my touchstone. When I’m feeling down and out, I pop that movie in.”
Two years ago, after meeting Grimes at the festival, Ley had the film’s initials “IWAL,” tattooed on a wrist above “ZuZu” and a bell, the signature Grimes uses to sign memorabilia.
When she was 6, Grimes spoke the film’s most famous line as Stewart — by then convinced by the angel Clarence that his life was worth living — held her in his arms: “Look, Daddy. Teacher says every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”
Behind Ley on the autograph line were twin sisters Edna Kennedy and Edlyne Cadet who traveled from Pennsylvania and Florida, respectively.
Cadet has watched the film dozens of times since and says she keeps coming back because it echoes the ideals of her Christian faith.
“If you’re good to people, they’ll be good back to you as well,” Cadet said. “People may call it karma but I think really for me as a Christian, I believe that God hears and knows everything. And he sees when we do good, he gives good back to us.”
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An acting career wrapped up in a Christmas classic
Fellow twins Ron and Don Collins didn’t learn that one of them appeared in the film until their mother told them in high school. By then the film was in a revival, airing on television during the Christmas season.
They watched it over and over.
“Love, jealousy, romance... all kinds of things,” Ron said. “Every scene is sending out a message.”
“Everybody has a purpose in life, nobody’s a failure, nobody should sell themselves short,” Don said. “That’s the way I see it.”
They found their way into the movie because the casting director lived next door to their Los Angeles home, not far from the lot where the movie was shot. Twins were preferred because infants were only allowed to be on set and under the lights for a short period of time.
They never “acted” again after “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
The family moved east to Washington, D.C. when they were 11. “I blame my father for ruining my acting career,” Don joked.
They made $75 each for their appearances in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and another film starring Olivia de Havilland earlier that year.
“If we just had a speaking part, it would have been a lot more,” Don joked. “If I had just learned to speak a little earlier.”
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He snoozed but didn't lose
The twin brothers weren't the only child actors dozing off on the "It's a Wonderful Life" set.
On Friday, Hawkins recalled reading for a role in the Donna Reed show years after playing Tommy Bailey as a four-year-old.
He went up and introduced himself. That’s when he found out Reed and the other actors had nicknamed him for a literary character who famously slept for 20 years.
Reed told him: “You could fall asleep and all this noise was going on and then when they needed you they woke you up and you were bright eyed and bushy tailed. But that’s how you got to be called Rip Van Winkle.”
The Collins brothers, along with their wives, raised five children of their own — two for Don and three for Ron.
Don worked in finance for the National Coal Association in Washington, D.C. and Ron was in marketing. They lived near one another in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
In 1980, Don saw Stewart telling Johnny Carson that his favorite movie was “It’s a Wonderful Life.” So, he wrote him a letter.
Stewart wrote back letting him know they had another connection. “My wife and I have twin daughters who are now 29 and happily married; and I am a great booster of twins,” Stewart wrote in 1981.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: 'It's a Wonderful Life' Festival: The mystery of twins' child stardom
