“George Bailey, I’ll Love You ‘Till The Day I Die”
I was sad to read that Bob Anderson, the actor who played the young George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” died today, at the age of 75. I thought he did such a wonderful job of playing a young Jimmy Stewart, and made you care about the character from the get-go.
Here’s an interesting tidbit about the filming of the scene where he gets his ear boxed by a very drunk and saddened Mr. Gower, the druggist, played by H.B. Warner:
Warner took the role seriously and on the day of shooting had been drinking and was “pretty ripe,” Victoria Anderson said. The scene called for Warner’s character to slap the boy.
Anderson told the Los Angeles Times in 1996 that the scene and its rehearsals were painful.
“He actually bloodied my ear,” Anderson told the paper. “My ear was beat up and my face was red, and I was in tears.”
“At the end when it was all over, he (Warner) was very lovable. He grabbed me and hugged me, and he meant it,” Anderson said.
Ouch! Poor kid. Rest in Peace.
5 Comments
starshine
Wow! I can’t believe he actually boxed the poor kid’s ear. So much for stage combat! 🙂 I agree that he did a great job of making you feel empathy for the character from the beginning of the film.
Thank you for a nice tribute to a talented actor.
Ted
Man, talk about method acting in that scene!
momnan
yikes…makes me not want to look at that scene again-even though it’s my favorite movie ever!
Linda Atkins
That’s a great movie, and Anderson was just darling in it.
Lalunas
That is a hard scene to watch at least for me. More power to him. Good man. Oh was that a bell I heard ring? Yeap an angel just got his wings… Maybe it was Bob Anderson.