Let’s Hope She Hears The Bells On Christmas Day
Life hasn’t exactly been a bowl of gingersnaps for Karolyn Grimes.
Grimes, who played Jimmy Stewart’s youngest daughter, Zuzu, in the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” mouthed the immortal line: “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”
But it wasn’t long before reality came crashing in. At age 14, her mother died of an illness. Her father was killed in an auto accident a year later. Her first husband was killed in a hunting accident, the second died of cancer, and one of her seven children committed suicide when he was 18.
“My life has been far from wonderful,” admits Grimes, 57.
But she hasn’t completely lost faith. Says Grimes: “I really do believe in angels, and I believe I was lifted from the Hollywood scene.”
Loose talk
Singer Judy Collins, on the anatomy of the holidays below the Mason-Dixon line: “Christmas is a very big deal in the South. It’s in our bones.”
Visions of sugarplums are made of this
Annie Lennox turns 43 today.
Looks like we’re the ones who were all wet
A Christmas correction: June Lockhart played the mother on TV’s “Lassie,” not June Allyson, as erroneously stated here Wednesday.
The one in swaddling clothes is Baby Spice
Despite their recent difficulties - firing their manager, bad reviews, being booed off the stage at a Spanish awards show - the Spice Girls have the No. 1 song on the British pop charts for the second straight Christmas with “Too Much.” That’s a streak bettered only by the Beatles, whose “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “I Feel Fine” and “Day Tripper”/”We Can Work It Out” were the top yuletide tunes in 1963-65.
There’s a ‘Santa’ hidden inside every ‘gangsta’
Rapper Coolio switched his vocal repertoire to traditional Christmas music on Tuesday as he toured his hometown of Los Angeles handing out gift bags to needy families. “We sing a few Christmas songs, ‘Jingle Bells,’ things like that,” he said. “There’s lots of good rap Christmas songs but nobody knows the words.”
Sounds like this guy didn’t pay his jingle bills
On a more sour note, several people have filed civil claims against the estate of the late Bobby Helms, claiming he owed them thousands of dollars. The singer-songwriter, who penned the 1950s classic “Jingle Bell Rock,” died in June at age 63.
But is there gold and frankincense on Mir?
Feeling sorry for yourself because you’re far from home this holiday season? Think of David Wolf, the last in a series of seven American astronauts to spend time on the trouble-plagued Russian space station Mir. “We’ll enjoy the light show on the Earth instead of our own Christmas light,” said Wolf, who is Jewish. “Actually, our consoles here look a lot like Christmas lights a lot of the time.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino