Frank Capra did not find the idea for the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life through a moment of divine intervention or an encounter with a mysterious stranger. The real story is quieter, stranger in its own way, and rooted in a sequence of small accidents that changed film history. It began in 1939, with a frustrated writer named Philip Van Doren Stern, who couldn’t get his short story published. He had written a tale called “The Greatest Gift,” the story of a man who wishes he had never been born and is shown the value of his life by a supernatural visitor. Magazine after magazine rejected it. Editors praised the charm and message, but they didn’t know where to place it. Stern found himself holding a story he believed in, but with nowhere for it to go.
So he did something unusual. He printed 200 small copies of the story as a Christmas booklet and mailed them to his friends and colleagues. What he couldn’t have predicted was that this humble, homemade gesture would eventually shape one of the most beloved films ever made. One of those pamphlets passed from hand to hand until it reached RKO Pictures. The studio bought the rights, then immediately got stuck. They tried multiple drafts, none of which captured the emotional core of Stern’s story. The project stagnated. The booklet sat on a shelf—quiet, unassuming, forgotten.
Everything changed when Frank Capra returned from World War II in 1945. He came home physically drained and emotionally shaken, unsure whether Hollywood stories could still matter after everything he’d witnessed. He admitted, “I needed a story that meant something. Something human.” When RKO, eager to clear unused properties, handed him Stern’s forgotten booklet, Capra read it in a single sitting. The effect was immediate. “I knew right away—this was the story,” he later said. “It was simple, profound, and spiritual without telling anyone what to believe.”
The angel was already present in Stern’s original story, but only as a shadow of what Clarence would become. Stern’s figure was more mysterious, less humorous, and served mainly as a narrative device. Capra saw potential in this character, but he wanted someone warmer, gentler, more disarming. He said, “I didn’t want an angel out of marble.
I wanted an angel with wrinkles, with worries, with a heart.” This became the defining insight. Capra felt that the message of the story—that every life touches countless others—would land more softly and more powerfully if delivered by a flawed, earnest, almost childlike guardian.
Working with his team of writers, Capra reshaped the angel into Clarence Odbody: a lovable, slightly bumbling spirit who still hadn’t earned his wings. He believed audiences would trust Clarence more if he wasn’t perfect. “An angel who needs help,” Capra joked, “is often the right one to help us.” When Henry Travers was cast as Clarence, Capra felt an immediate calm. Travers brought a humble sweetness that perfectly matched the director’s vision. Capra later said, “He gave Clarence something the script had no words for—kindness.”
As he built the character, Capra infused him with his own post-war emotions. He had seen despair, seen men lose faith in themselves, and he wanted Clarence to stand as a quiet rebuttal to that darkness. The angel wasn’t just a plot device. He was the embodiment of Capra’s belief that no life is meaningless, no matter how ordinary. “The world had too much cynicism,” Capra said. “I wanted to put a little hope back into it.”
Though the film struggled financially upon release, Clarence quickly became one of the most beloved angels in cinema. It wasn’t because he was grand or powerful, but because he was gentle. He represented the small voice people rarely hear—the reminder that they matter. Capra often credited Stern for planting the seed. “Philip Van Doren Stern gave me the gift,” he said. “I only unwrapped it.”
In the end, the idea of Clarence didn’t descend from heaven. It traveled through mailboxes, rejection letters, studio drawers, and one director’s aching heart before becoming the angel who would save George Bailey, and countless viewers, for generations to come.
Psssssssssssssssssssssssst. . .
Maybe there’s a little CLARENCE in all of us
with a George Bailey waiting to be saved. . .
(with the best gift of all awaiting to not be given but continually unwrapped:
K I N D N E S S)
Leave a Reply