Tracing the Roots of a Holiday Classic

“It’s a Wonderful Life” will be on TV several times this week: today at noon, the USA channel; 3 p.m. today and 1 a.m. Monday, the Disney Channel; 4 p.m. today, Cinemax; 9:30 p.m. today, WGN; 7 a.m. Monday, 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and 4:30 a.m. Thursday on Z Channel.

What would the world be like if you’d never been born? That’s the question posed in the beloved perennial, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

But a more pragmatic question might be: What would holiday movie viewing be like if Philip Van Doren Stern had never been born?

Stern wrote the short story that became the basis for the classic 1946 Frank Capra film. And thereby hangs a story of its own.

Philip Van Doren Stern was a successful author of books whose subjects ranged from art to Lincoln and the Civil War. He edited the 863-page “Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln.”

While shaving on the morning of Lincoln’s birthday in 1938, Stern (then age 38) must have been imagining how the world would have been different had Lincoln never lived. A story idea came to him in which an ordinary man wished he had never been born and then was allowed to see how different the world would be without his presence.

After he finished shaving, Stern wrote a two-page outline. But he didn’t complete the story, titled “The Greatest Gift,” for five years.

When no magazine would publish it, Stern printed 200 copies in pamphlet form and sent them out in 1943 instead of Christmas cards.

“I remember when I received mine,” Miriam Stern recalled during a conversation in her New York City apartment. Miriam, now age 76, is the youngest sister of Philip, who died in 1984.

“I was road manager for Sammy Kaye’s orchestra,” she said. “We were in California in 1943, and it was the first time in my life I was homesick. When I received Phil’s story, I cried like a baby.

“It was a totally original idea. At that time, nobody had ever thought of doing a story about somebody who wishes he’d never been born, and has it come true. Nobody had ever thought of that.”

Another pamphlet recipient, the author’s Hollywood agent, also was struck by its originality and soon sold the story to Cary Grant’s agent for $10,000.

“At the time, $10,000 seemed like a lot of money,” said Miriam Stern, now an agent and consultant for composers. “I didn’t know anything about rights then, so I didn’t know what Phil was giving away. And what he was giving away was basically everything.”

The story, which of course was not filmed by Cary Grant, was traded and resold “to about 10 different people. Howard Hughes at RKO had it for a while,” she said. In 1946 Capra obtained the rights, and the story was adapted into “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The film starred James Stewart and Donna Reed.

For decades, Miriam Stern said, composers have been interested in making the film into a musical. “I sent Phil’s story to Oscar Hammerstein back in the ‘50s,” she recalled. “He was mad about it, but Richard Rodgers said, ‘No, it’s too much like everything else we’ve done.’

“Alan Jay Lerner went to two showings of the film. He loved it, but eventually nothing came of that either.

“Right now, there is a completed musical version by Jerry Bock (“Fiddler on the Roof”) and Joe Raposo (“Sesame Street”). I saw a workshop production three years ago, and it was good. CBS said they’d invest $3 million in a Broadway production.

“The problem is that MCA, which currently owns the (remake) rights to the Capra film, will allow the film to be done as a musical but will not allow that musical to then be done as a film. So CBS backed out. Obviously no one is going to invest big money in a musical stage play unless they can also obtain that musical’s film rights.”

Which means that Capra’s film is going to be the definitive version for some time to come. (Miriam Stern dismisses the 1977 remake for television, “It Happened One Christmas,” as “monstrous, horrible.” The Marlo Thomas / Wayne Rogers movie was made by MCA’s Universal TV.)

“Sometimes,” she said, “Phil would get mad at Frank Capra for trying to take all the credit for the movie, including the idea. But he would always concede that as a director Capra did a marvelous job. (Now 91, the film maker lives in La Quinta, near Palm Desert.)

“I think I’ve seen that picture 40 or 50 times. When I watched the new colorized version, just to check Phil’s credit, I got hooked all over again. I cried at the end the same as I did the very first time I saw it.”

She remembers that first viewing vividly:

“It was 1946 in Atlanta. I was still with Sammy Kaye’s orchestra. We were doing stage shows at a movie theater. The owner offered to screen upcoming movies to the band late at night after the theater was closed to the public.

“I asked if he could get ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ which hadn’t opened yet, and he did. So we were among the first people in the country to see it.

“The next day I was talking to Sammy Kaye. I said, ‘Most people can’t even conceive of the idea behind this film. Just ask yourself, ‘Suppose Sammy Kaye had never been born. How would the world be different?’

“Sam thought for a minute and then replied, ‘Guy Lombardo would have made a helluva lot more money.’ ”