In the decades since it’s 1946 release, It’s A Wonderful Life is a Christmas movie that has long stood the test of time.
Fans across the globe has consistently voted the film as one of the best festive films ever made, and as a result, the famous cast have held a fond place in the hearts of movie lovers of all ages.
The likes of Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore famously starred in the iconic movie based on The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern.
The film tells the story of businessman George Bailey (James Stewart), who continuously sets aside his own dreams to give back to his community.
Yet when a financial crisis pushes him to the brink on Christmas Eve, an angel named Clarence is forced to intervene before he throws himself a bridge so his family can benefit from the life insurance.
Clarence then shows him how the lives of those he loved would have been changed for the worse if it wasn’t for the kind gestures through which he lived his life. George recovers his zest for life, Clarence earns promotion as an angel and everyone lives happily ever after.
Many of the film’s stars continued to work in Hollywood and landed more notable TV and film roles that – while others suffered from health issues or chose to step away from the industry completely.
In August 2022, it was revealed that actress Virginia Patton, who played Jimmy Stewart’s sister-in-law Ruth Dakin Bailey, died at the age of 97.
Following the death of the last surviving adult actor from the holiday classic, FEMAIL takes a look at the lives and careers of the iconic cast – from battling PTSD to creating a lasting acting acting legacy.
George Bailey played by Jimmy Stewart
Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart famously played the lead role of George Bailey (pictured left in character with co-star Karolyn Grimes) in the Christmas classic – pictured right at a book launch party in 1991
The actor had actually been struggling to find work until director Frank Capra hired him for It’s A Wonderful Life
James ‘Jimmy’ Maitland Stewart grew up in Indiana, Pennsylvania, where his family had operated a hardware store since the middle of the 19th century.
While he graduated from Princeton with a degree in architecture in 1932, his participation in dramatic and musical productions left him with a desire to work in theater.
The actor had first worked with Capra (and co-star Thomas Mitchell) on the 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
He moved to New York by himself and appeared in a variety of Broadway productions before he was spotted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scout who persuaded the studio to offer him a part in a movie called Murder Man in 1935.
Stewart then played an idealistic young senator fighting the entrenched political establishment in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) while his supporting performance as magazine reporter Macauley Connors, opposite Katharine Hepburn in the high society film The Philadelphia Story (1940), saw him win his first Academy Award.
In his spare time Stewart was flew planes and got his commercial pilot license so that he could join the Air Force.
After several previous attempts to join the Force, he was called up shortly before the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941 which forced America into the World War II.
When asked by a studio boss why he wanted to give up his life in Hollywood, Stewart said: ‘This country’s conscience is bigger than all the studios in Hollywood put together, and the time will come when we’ll have to fight’.
In all Stewart had served four-and-a-half years during World War II and was awarded the Air Medal with oak leaf clusters, Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Croix de Guerre.
Stewart suffered from extreme PTSD from his time as an Air Force commanding officer and channeled his anger and guilt into the scenes when he rages at his family in the film
Like many who fought in the war, Stewart was haunted by ‘a thousand black memories’ from his time as an Air Force commanding officer and suffered from extreme PTSD. The actor wrestled with the guilt of killing civilians in bomb raids over France and Germany including one instance where they destroyed the wrong city by mistake.
In fact, Stewart felt responsible for the death of his men and especially one bloodbath where he lost 13 planes containing 130 men who he knew well.
Stewart starred in more than 75 films during what is often considered the Golden Age of Hollywood – pictured in 1988
When he returned to Hollywood, he faced a grim reality: He was 37 but looked 50 and his career as a romantic lead was over.
He actually struggled to find work until director Frank Capra hired him for It’s A Wonderful Life, with the role as George Bailey giving him space to act out his mental distress by channeling his anger and guilt into the scenes.
Author Robert Matzen said that it was a lifeline for Stewart and rehabilitated him in the eyes of Hollywood, showing directors that he could still act.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Matzen said: ‘Jim came back from hell on earth and groped around for a movie to make, and his only offer he had was for what would become the most beloved motion picture in all American culture. In an unlikely life full of unlikely things -this gangly stringbean becoming a movie star and then a war hero -this was the unlikeliest.’
His 75 movie career run included mysteries, romance, comedies and high drama during what is often considered the Golden Age of Hollywood.
He starred opposite most of the leading actresses of his time such as Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Jean Arthur, Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford and Kim Novak.
Some of his notable roles included Charles Lindbergh flying across the Atlantic in The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) and band leader Glenn Miller losing his life in a World War II plane crash in The Glenn Miller Story (1954). He also starred as shrewd country lawyer outwitting the city slickers in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and he is remembered as the hero of Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller as Rear Window (1954).
By 1960, the actor has been awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was celebrated for his part in film history – pictured on The Dean Martin Show in 1970
Stewart poses alongside late singer Whitney Houston (left) and late actress Lauren Bacall (middle) at the Eighth Annual American Cinema Award in January 1991
In 1949, Stewart married Gloria Hatrick MacLean and they had twin daughters, Kelly and Judith. There were also two sons from her previous marriage. She died in 1994.
By 1960, the actor was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry. He also received an honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1985.
Stewart did not leave the military and continued to serve until May 1968 when he retired after 27 years of service.
Elsewhere, he published a book of poems in 1989, which became a bestseller after he recited A Dog Named Beau during an appearance on The Johnny Carson Show.
As he aged, Stewart began to experience health problems, including heart ailments and skin cancer, and he wore a hearing aid. The star died of a heart attack caused by an embolism in 1997, at the age of 89.
Stewart has several memorials in his childhood hometown, Indiana, and in 1995, The Jimmy Stewart Museum was established there.
Mary Hatch Bailey played by Donna Reed
Donna Reed was best known for playing Mary in It’s A Wonderful Life, but her career spanned more than 40 years – pictured right in 1982
Donna Belle Mullenger was born and raised in rural Iowa, with her crediting the book, How to Win Friend and Influence People, for shaping her teen years.
After reading it in high school, won the lead in the school play, was voted Campus Queen and was in the top 10 of the 1938 graduating class.
The Hollywood legend starred in more than 40 films, including From Here To Eternity alongside Montgomery Clift (pictured)
When she graduated Denison High School, she has wanted to become a teacher, but she was unable to pay for college.
This led her to move to California to live with her aunt and eventually went on to sign a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. However, she insisted that she would be allowed to finish her education first.
Reed then began to have roles in films such as Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) and in Wallace Beery’s The Bugle Sounds (1942).
Like many starlets at MGM, she played opposite Mickey Rooney in an Andy Hardy film, the hugely popular The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942).
Her ‘girl-next-door’ demeanor and warm onstage personality made her a popular pin-up for many government-issued soldiers during World War II, with her fanbase growing further because she would personally answer letters from many GIs serving overseas.
Reed starred in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and played a nurse in John Ford’s They Were Expendable (1945), opposite John Wayne – with the success of her project leading MGM to be very enthusiastic about her prospects at that time.
Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed hold their Oscars after they were honored for their best supporting roles in From Here To Eternity at Academy Awards ceremonies in 1954
Reed in multiple films throughout the 40s and 50s before she made a move over to TV with The Donna Reed Show – pictured with co-star Carl Betz in 1960
The studio lent her to RKO Pictures for the role of Mary Bailey in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Reed claimed it was ‘the most difficult film I ever did. No director ever demanded as much of me.’
While filming, she proved her countryside credentials by milking one of the cows on the set — which won her a bet with co-star Lionel Barrymore.
She starred in several more films throughout the 40s and 50s. In 1953, she appeared in From Here to Eternity for which she earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Reed also collaborated with her Denison High school chemistry teacher Edward R. Tompkins on the 1947 MGM film The Beginning or the End, which dealt with the history and concerns of the atom bomb. Though, the actress helped provide the story, she did not appear in the final film.
Then Reed decided to make the leap to television in 1958 with The Donna Reed Show, which saw her play a TV mom. Over time, it became one of the small screen’s top programs and Reed was nominated for four Emmy awards during its run, while she also won a Golden Globe in 1963.
The Donna Reed Show was a hit with viewers and saw the actress win a Golden Globe award for her work in 1963 – pictured with her co-stars (L-R) Shelley Fabares, Paul Petersen (standing) and Carl Betz
Donna Reed and her husband Grover Asmus during AFI Life Achievement Awards Dinner honoring director Frank Capra at Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1982
After the series was cancelled in 1966, and Reed took a break from acting for over a decade.
In 1979 she returned to acting in the made-for-TV movie The Best Place To Be before appearing in shows such as The Love Boat and Dallas, in which she replaced actress Barbara Bel Geddes to play Miss Ellie Ewing while the star was ill.
However, when Geddes demanded her role back, Reed ended up winning a $1.25 million settlement because she had signed a 3-year contract for the Dallas role.
Reed died suddenly in 1986 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 64. She was survived by her husband, Grover Asmus, and four children from a previous marriage.
Reed has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and her hometown Denison hosts an annual Donna Reed Festival.
Uncle Billy Bailey played by Thomas Mitchell
Thomas Mitchell chose to pursue acting over journalist, and famously starred as Uncle Billy Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life – pictured right in a promotional image for P.J. and the Lady in 1956
The celebrated star was the first male actor to earn the Triple Crown of Acting honor by receiving an Oscar for his part in Stagecoach, an Emmy for his role in The Doctor and a Tony award for his part in Hazel Flagg – pictured in 1955
Thomas John Mitchell was born to Irish immigrants in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1892. He came from a family of journalists with his father and brother working as newspaper reporters.
However, Mitchell realized he preferred writing theatrical material far more than hunting down news scoops.
He officially became an actor in 1913 and enjoyed a tour with Charles Coburn’s Shakespeare Company. This led to him getting lead roles on Broadway into the 1920s.
Mitchell also continued to write and co-authored Little Accident, which was eventually made into a film.
His actual big break as an actor came with a role in Frank Capra’s 1937 film, Lost Horizon. After which, Mitchell became an in-demand actor and landing a Best Supporting Actor Oscars nomination for his part in The Hurricane that same year.
Mitchell appeared in as Scarlett O’Hara’s father in 1940 classic Gone With The Wind but is still more known for his role as Uncle Billy (pictured)
Mitchell then appeared in as Scarlett O’Hara’s father in Gone With The Wind (1940), but is still more known for his role as Uncle Billy in It’s A Wonderful Life.
The actor enjoyed an impressive run with parts in well-known films such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (alongside Jimmy Stewart), Stagecoach, Only Angels Have Wings and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. At some points in his career, Mitchell was making six films a year.
The actor still made appearances on Broadway on multiple occasions, including in 1962 in the play Prescription: Murder. It was the same role that Peter Falk played when it was incorporated into the TV series, Columbo.
The celebrated star was the first male actor to earn the Triple Crown of Acting honor by receiving an Oscar for his part in Stagecoach, an Emmy for his role in The Doctor and a Tony award for his part in Hazel Flagg.
Mitchell died at age 70 in 1962 from peritoneal mesothelioma, the name given to the form of cancer which attacks the lining of the abdomen.
The late actor has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for his work in television, and a second star for his work in motion pictures.
Ruth Dakin Bailey played by Virginia Patton
Actress Virginia Patton was the last surviving adult actor from the 1946 holiday classic before she died at 97 in August 2022 – pictured right in 1993
Patton played Ruth Dakin who married George Bailey’s brother Harry – surprising George and Uncle Billy when they arrived in Bedford Falls
Virginia Patton was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was a niece of General George S. Patton.
Her family relocated to her father’s hometown of Portland, Oregon when she was still an infant and the future actress stayed there until she graduated high school and moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California.
Patton retired from Hollywood in 1949, married an automotive executive and has three children – pictured in 1948 movie Black Eagle
While there, she collaborated with playwright turned screen writer William C. deMille, who helped found the USC film school.
He was the older brother of director Cecil B. DeMille. It was this connection that led to an introduction between Patton and director Frank Capra.
The fledgling actress signed a contract with Warner Brothers and made her big screen debut in 1943’s Thank Your Lucky Stars.
She went on to have small roles in Janie, Hollywood Canteen and The Horn Blows at Midnight.
The Warner player’s contract had expired by then and when Capra was looking for actors for the Christmas film under his new Liberty Films banner, she auditioned for the director.
‘I read for him, and he signed me, she told the National Catholic Register in 2013, and due to the way the studio system worked back then, ‘I was the only girl he ever signed in his whole career.’
Stewart, Donna Reed and the other cast members were under contract to other studios and on loan for the project.
She went on to make a few more films, including 1948’s Black Eagle, before retiring from show business following a small part in 1949’s The Lucky Stiff.
Patton married automotive executive Cruse W. Moss in 1949, and they had three children. They were married for 69 years until his death in 2018.
Patton gives an acceptance speech for the 2013 Spirit of Christmases Past, Present & Future Award issued by the St. Nicholas Institute
In a 2012 interview for Patch.com, Patton noted that Capra asked her to think twice about giving up show business, but she said she was comfortable with her decision.
‘I have a beautiful letter that [Capra] wrote me because I kept in touch with him,’ she said. ‘He wrote, ‘I just knew you’d be a wonderful mother with three little bambinos and a wonderful husband.”
The former actress served as a docent at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Art and president and director of the Patton Corp., an investment and real estate holding company.
Patton spent her final years at an assisted living facility in Albany, Georgia, where she died in August 2022.
Mr. Potter played by Lionel Barrymore
Acting legend Lionel Barrymore was a star on film and stage before he appeared as Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life – pictured left in 1948
Lionel Herbert Blythe was born in Philadelphia to actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew Barrymore.
He was the elder brother of Ethel and John Barrymore and the great-uncle of The Wedding Singer star Drew Barrymore, among other notable members of the Barrymore family.
Lionel Barrymore starring alongside Elizabeth Allan in Mark of the Vampire in 1935
He attended private schools as a child, including the Art Students League of New York but he had been reluctant to follow in his parents’ footsteps. Though he appeared with grandmother, Louisa Lane Drew, in a stage production aged 15, he had hoped to become a painter and to compose music.
Despite his attempts to stay away, he soon saw his acting career begin to flourish as he continued to take character roles on Broadway with his uncle John Drew in plays like The Second in Command (1901) and The Mummy and the Hummingbird (1902).
He continued to enjoy success on stage, however after a series of more disappointing plays in 1906, Barrymore and his first wife, the actress Doris Rankin, left their stage careers and travelled to Paris, where he trained as an artist.
However, they had to moved back to the US in 1909 after he failed to make it as a painter. He once again took to the stage, but also began to establish his film career with leading roles in The Battle (1911), The New York Hat (1912), Friends and Three Friends (1913) and Wildfire (1915) alongside Lillian Russell.
His last stage success was in Laugh, Clown, Laugh, in 1923, with his second wife, Irene Fenwick; they met while acting together in The Claw the previous year, and after they fell in love he divorced his first wife.
Lionel and his sister Ethel Barrymore reunited to star in the 1953 motion picture, Main Street to Broadway
After appearing in Man or Devil in 1926, he signed a film contract with MGM and thanks to the rise of sound films in 1927, he never again appeared on stage.
He appeared in the TV series, Young Dr. Kildare, before landing his famous role as money-hoarding banker Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life.
By this time, the actor was in and out of a wheelchair due to a hip injury and arthritis, according to reports.
Barrymore is the great-uncle of The Wedding Singer star Drew Barrymore
Barrymore’s disability didn’t prevent him from working, and filmmakers wrote parts and blocking that would accommodate his use of a wheelchair.
He was also very active in his community and lent his hand to civic causes, including the National Arthritis Research Foundation, for which he was the chairman of the national board of sponsors.
In 1951, Barrymore co-wrote the book ‘We Barrymores’ which told ‘The Life Story of a Fabulous Member of a Fabulous Family’, while he also wrote the novel titled Mr. Cantonwine: A Moral Tale.
In 1952, one of his musical compositions, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was released after he continued to pursue projects outside of acting.
Prior to his death, he was honored by the Treasury Department for his work in promoting the sale of U.S. Savings Bonds. Barrymore died in November 1954 at the age of 76, after suffering a heart attack.
The received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960—a motion pictures star and a radio star. He was also inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, along with his siblings, Ethel and John.
Zuzu Bailey played by Karolyn Grimes
Karolyn Grimes was a six-year-old child star when she appeared in the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life – pictured right in 2010
Karolyn Grimes played Zuzu, the daughter of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed’s characters, and said the famous line, ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings’
Karolyn Grimes, 82, was born in Hollywood, California in July 1940 and her acting debut came when she was just six months old.
Her mother took ensured she was attending singing and dancing lessons, as well as training in violin and piano – all while she also took her young daughter to auditions.
This led to the child starring appearing in 16 movies as young actress – including The Bishop’s Wife, starring Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young.
Grimes, pictured here in 1946, said she did not watch the movie again until she was 40
Meanwhile she also starred as playing Fred MacMurray’s daughter in 1945’s Pardon My Past and she had a part in John Ford’s Rio Grande with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.
Grimes was just six-year-old child when she uttered her famous line ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings’ while staring opposite Stewart’s character George Bailey.
When it was revealed that her mother was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s, Grimes has since described how life soured by the time her teenage years loomed.
‘My mother died when I was 12, and right after my dad died in a car crash. I was 15 and had no family,’ she told the Washington Post. She was sent to live with an uncle and aunt in Missouri.
‘They were kind of nutso religious fanatics who didn’t believe in movies, dancing, singing, that kind of thing,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they believed in laughing, either.’
Her aunt cut her off from friends and people she’d met during filming. Instead, she went to college and became a medical tech at a clinic outside Kansas City.
After marrying and giving birth to two daughters, she divorced – and the girls’ father went on to die in a hunting accident.
Following the tragedy, she remarried, had a son and daughter and helped raise her second husband’s three children from a previous marriage.
Then her 18-year-old son committed suicide, and her second husband died of cancer. Grimes eventually retired to take care of her teenage daughters, two of whom became single parents.
Grimes was one of the stars who attended the unveiling of the It’s A Wonderful Life Wax Exhibit at Madame Tussauds Hollywood in November 2010 and posed alongside the wax figure of her movie father
Film visual-effects supervisor Craig Barron, Grimes and Donna Reed’s daughter Mary Owen at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presentation of It’s A Wonderful Life in 2011
Having suffered so much in her personal life, Grimes said that rediscovering the movie she starred in at the age of 40 was ‘a gift’.
Having raised seven children, she said that It’s a Wonderful Life reentered her life when she most needed it.
Since then, she has dedicated much of her life to preserving the movie’s memory – traveling around the country to speak to fans, gathering stories from those who knew Stewart, and acting as an adviser for the museum honoring the film in Seneca Falls, New York, which opened in 2010.
‘It was a gift,’ Grimes said. ‘There is no two ways about it. Because I didn’t watch it until I was 40, and once I watched the film, I realized what a fabulous opportunity that it was for me to share the messages of this film.’
Grimes has been honored as a famous Missourian with a star on the Missouri Walk of Fame in Marshfield, Missouri.
Meanwhile, she also received the city’s highest honor, the Edwin P. Hubble Medal of Initiative in 2007 at the annual Marshfield Cherry Blossom Festival.
Henry Travers played Clarence Odbody
Henry Travers famously played angel Clarence Odbody (right) in It’s A Wonderful Life but the actor was already a huge name in the land of theater – pictured left performing on stage as Mr. Doolittle in 1926
The actor received an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Mrs. Miniver (1942) before he landed his iconic part as Angel Clarence (pictured)
Travers John Heagerty was born in Northumberland, England in 1874 to Irish parents. He grew up in Berwick-upon-Tweed and initially trained as an architect at Berwick, before taking to the stage under the name Henry Travers and working as an actor in a series of plays in the late 1890s.
He then went on to make his Broadway debut in The Price of Peace in 1901. However, he made a return to England once his run was over and created a highly successful theatrical career.
After moving back to the US in 1917, he spent the next 2 decades doing theatrical productions and starred in over 30 plays during his career.
Travers was described in The New Yorker as ‘one of the most consistent performers now in the American theatre, and at the same time one of its least appreciated’.
Travers starring alongside Carleton Young (left) Esther Williams (middle) and Spring Byington in Thrill of a Romance
You Can’t Take It with You was his last play on Broadway and ended up being his best known run after he acted in over 380 performances in the space of two years.
In the Oscar-winning movie of the same name, his It’s A Wonderful Life co-star Lionel Barrymore played the role which Travers had portrayed on Broadway.
Travers only made four films after the Christmas movie before deciding to retire – pictured in 1942
The actor officially made his film debut with the 1933 film titled Reunion in Vienna as he joined the many actors that flourished during the advent of sound films.
In the same year, he played the father of Gloria Stuart in the horror film The Invisible Man.
Travers also starred in the Errol Flynn Western Dodge City, as Doc Irving; Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Shadow of a Doubt, playing Teresa Wright’s mystery story-obsessed father; and the drama The Bells of St. Mary’s, as businessman Horace P. Bogardus.
The actor received an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Mrs. Miniver (1942) before he landed his iconic part as Angel Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life.
Travers only made four films after the Christmas movie including The Flame, Beyond Glory and The Accused.
In 1949, Henry made his final on-screen appearance, playing a supporting role in the Ronald Reagan-starrer comedy film, The Girl from Jones Beach.
By this time, he was 75 and opted to retire from the demanding work of screen acting after starring in over 50 films. After several years in retirement, Travers died as a result of arteriosclerosis in 1965, at the age of 91.
The Maltings Theatre in Berwick-upon-Tweed has a performance space, The Henry Travers Studio, named after him.
Gloria Grahame played Violet Bick
Hollywood siren Gloria Grahame was most widely praised for her role as flirtatious Violet Bick in It’s A Wonderful Life
Gloria Grahame was born in Los Angeles in 1923 and was raised by an architect and author father, while her Scottish mother, Jeannie McDougall, had been a stage actress in the 1910s.
Grahame appeared in over 30 films during her career – pictured in a PR photo for Sudden Fear in 1952
She attended Hollywood High School as a teen but eventually dropped out to pursue a career in acting like her mother.
Grahame eventually made her Broadway debut in 1943 and quickly signed a contract with MGM Studios, like so many talent stars of the time did.
Gloria Grahame appeared in over 30 films during her career, and made a memorable film debut in the 1944 flick, Blonde Fever.
However, she was most widely praised for her role as flirtatious Violet Bick in It’s A Wonderful Life. Surprisingly, MGM felt they were no longer able to develop her potential as a star and sold her to RKO Studios in 1947.
In 1952, she won an Oscar for her supporting role in The Bad and the Beautiful but her win was greatly overshadowed by elements of her personal life.
In 1951, her director husband Nicholas Ray claimed he found Grahame in an inappropriate situation with his 13-year-old son, Tony, from a previous marriage, leading the actress to make headlines for the alleged sex scandal with her stepchild.
Her name was in headlines again nine years later when it was revealed that Grahame had married her stepson, and the couple had two children together. This meant Tony became the stepfather to his half-brother Timothy, whose mother was Grahame and father was Nicolas Ray.
During the 1950s, Grahame starred in The Greatest Show on Earth and played starring as Ado Annie in Oklahoma! but took some time off from acting to raise her children.
In 1952, she won an Oscar for her supporting role in The Bad and the Beautiful – pictured in 1954
Actors Annette Bening and Jamie Bell played Grahame and her British lover Peter Turner in 2017 flick, Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool, which charted the unlikely romance between the pair
Grahame and Tony Ray’s marriage lasted 14 years, with the actress’ mental health being affected by the negative press surrounding her relationship.
In the 1970s she once again dabbled with acting in film, television, and stage.
During her acting career, the Oscar-winning actress worked with some of the silver screen’s biggest names such as Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Charlton Heston and Joan Crawford. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Gloria Grahame has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
After moving to the UK, Grahame was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1980 and the doctors in Lancaster wanted to operate immediately to remove a large tumor, but Graham refused to go back to hospital.
Grahame’s children moved her back to New York in October 1981 and the actress died there at the age of 57.
It’s A Wonderful Life cost $3.7 million to make — a vast sum at the time — but only earned $3.3 million at the box office.
Though it managed to secure six Oscar nominations it was only given the Technical Achievement award.
It was only due to repeat showings on TV in the years that followed which helped to establish the film’s enduring popularity and won it fans in succeeding generations all across the world.
Carol Coombs and Jimmy Hawkins, who played Janie and Tommy Bailey, join Grimes as the last remaining actors from the film who are still alive.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk