It’s story for the ages. The man who brought iconic classics to the big screen, including his three Academy Award winners—It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can’t Take It With You—has a life story that’s as remarkable as any movie he ever made, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and his 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life.
Frank Capra’s origin story is itself a classic American story. And a classic love story, too. Not just his love of people and the medium he would come to master—film—but his love of America. His love of the country that adopted him.
Indeed, Capra so loved his country that he served, at the height of his career, directly under Chief of Staff General George Marshall (the most senior officer commanding the U.S. Army) to help bring to life the seven-episode documentary series Why We Fight during World War II.
The films were commissioned by our government to boost the morale of Americans in the fight overseas. And millions of Americans at home. One film in the series—Prelude to War—won the 1942 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. By 1945, the year Capra was discharged as a colonel, 54 million Americans had seen the films. Capra, for his service to his country, was awarded the Legion of Merit and Distinguished Service medals.
Francesco Rosario Capra’s love affair with America began not too many years after he was born in 1897 in Palermo, Sicily. Capra was named for his grandfather, who had built and designed churches for a living. The youngest of seven children, his parents—Roman Catholics both—immigrated to the United States in 1903, ending up in Los Angeles. Like millions of immigrants before and after, the Capras didn’t come here to change America: They came to have America change them. And change the Capras lives for the better America did.
How much did Capra love his country? In 1982, while being honored in Los Angeles by the American Film Institute (AFI) with the Lifetime Achievement Award, Capra seized the opportunity to thank the American people—and America itself—for the opportunities and freedom his adopted country afforded him.
In a speech in front of the titans of the movie industry, Capra started by thanking the many people who guided him along the way—great writers, actors and executives alike. He then explained the secret to his success as a storyteller.
“The art of Frank Capra is very, very simple,” he said. “It’s the love of people, and add two simple ideals to this love of people—the freedom of each individual and the equal importance of each individual—and you have the principle upon which I based all my films.”
This was not mere sentiment Capra was expressing, and he knew more than most how to summon sentiment in his storytelling. Those words sprang from a deeper well: from his Catholic worldview, and the ideals, and governing principles, of the country he loved.
But Capra wasn’t finished, saving the best part of his speech—and the most personal part of his speech—for last. It started humbly and evocatively.
“An occasion like this, when we all get together to pay homage to our craft, forces me to think, ‘How the hell did I get up here?’” Capra said, followed by laughter from the crowd.
Capra continued: “Nearly 79 years ago, I celebrated my sixth birthday in the black dark hole in a creaking ship, crammed with retching, praying, terrorized immigrants. Thirteen days of misery, and then the ship stopped. And my father grabbed me and carried me up the steep iron stairs to the deck and then he shouted, ‘Chico, look at that!’ At first, all I saw was a deck full of people crying on their knees, crying and rejoicing. My father cried, ‘That’s the greatest light since the Star of Bethlehem.’ I looked up, and there was a statue of a great lady [Statue of Liberty]. Taller than a church steeple, holding a lamp over the land we were about to enter. And my father said, ‘It’s the light of freedom, Chico. Freedom.’”
The audience was mesmerized as Capra recounted this pivotal moment in the life of his family in vivid detail, putting the audience on that ship as only a master storyteller can do. Capra continued, with stars like Bob Hope and Bette Davis on the edge of their seats, and the edge of tears.
Capra closed things out looking up to the heavens to address his deceased family members, and this time, it was Capra himself who was on the edge of tears:
“So, finally, there is something I must say to some other members of my family, and I believe they will hear me. Mama, Papa, big brother Ben, Josephine, Tony, little sister Ann, remember the day we arrived at the Southern Pacific Station here in Los Angeles, and Papa and Mama kissed the ground? Look, the American Film Institute has given me their Lifetime Achievement Award, and for that, I am thanking them and all my friends who’ve come here. But for America—just for living here—I kiss the ground.”
When Capra received his AFI award, President Ronald Reagan said: “You have recognized and helped us recognize all that is wonderful about the American character.”
Capra’s films also helped us recognize the character of Jesus.
“Movies should be a positive expression that there is hope, love, mercy, justice and charity,” he said in a 1960 interview. “A filmmaker has the unrestricted privilege of haranguing an audience for two-hour stretches—the chance to influence public thinking for good or for evil. It is, therefore, his responsibility to emphasize the positive qualities of humanity by showing the triumph of the individual over adversities.”
Capra died peacefully in his sleep at his home in La Quinta, California, in 1991 at age 94 in the country he loved, surrounded by the people he loved. And the God he loved, too.
They say that art mirrors life, but life sometimes mirrors art. That at least was Capra’s hope. The headline to his New York Times obituary said it best: Frank Capra, Whose Films Helped America Keep Faith in Itself, Is Dead at 94.
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