Donna Reed wrote "I have wonderful memories of 'It's a Wonderful Life'!" on a promotional photograph of the film before she signed it for a fan, and James Stewart wrote under her note, "And I have wonderful memories of Donna Reed and 'It's a Wonderful Life'."
Two years after making "It's A Wonderful Life", Donna Reed was cast as "Ethel Stratton" for "The Stratton Story". In 1984, she recalled, "Van Johnson was cast as Stratton, but something happened and they cast Jimmy. I liked Van but I was thrilled when they announced Jimmy was going to do it. I thought we were pretty good together in 'Itâs a Wonderful Life'. But Jim asked that they take me off the picture too, and they replaced me with June Allyson [Allyson and Stewart were once an item]. When I asked why, I was told that Jimmy was fighting for his professional life. I said, 'What do you think Iâm fighting for?' And I was. I didnât work for MGM again. The pictures I made got worse, except for 'From Here to Eternity' [for which she won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress], and my career never did recover. So Iâm mad at Jimmy for wrecking my career... I was at Metro for eight years. When they were stumped with me, they did one of three things: They put me in a 'B', they loaned me out, or they let me sit."
Stewart admitted to biographer Michael Munn that it was his choice to replace Reed, saying: "I had to have a hit, and as much as I liked Donna Reed... And as good an actress as she is... Which she proved in 'From Here to Eternity'... The sad fact is that on 'It's a Wonderful Life' we just didnât have any chemistry... On screen or off. We just didnât hit it off. And I think the film suffered... It was one of the weaknesses in the film. Capra thought so too. He once said to me, 'Jim, if only we could have had someone like Margaret Sullavan or Ginger Rogers, but your wife in the picture has to be so ordinary, and you canât cast Margaret or Ginger to play ordinary women.' I felt just so bad about Donna not being in the [Stratton] film... But I needed someone who was going to play a woman who was going to be a hundred and ten per cent supportive of her husband... And I wasnât convinced Donna could pull that off, because we just didnât hit it off. Things like that show up on the screen. And I feel guilty."
According to Paul Petersen, who played Reed's son on "The Donna Reed Show", James Stewart was thrown by the casting of Donna Reed. Referring to her, Stewart told him, "She turned out to be the embodiment of goodness, and got me so disconcerted that I kept putting off that kiss scene, you know, when weâre in that tight two-shot on the telephone? We put off doing that scene for weeks. I was so nervous. There was real electricity in the air. I asked Donna if she wanted to rehearse and she said, âWhy donât we just do it?â and Capra, knowing what was going on, agreed. So there we were, cheek to cheek, no rehearsals, hormones out of control, and Capra says, âAction!â Well, we did it in one take. One of the best things Iâve ever done."
Actor Robert Osborne, who was sitting next to Reed at the AFI's tribute to Frank Capra in 1982, revealed that when both Capra and Stewart praised her about how great she was in "It's A Wonderful Life" during their speeches, Reed eventually turned to him and said: "Isn't this interesting? At the time I was blamed for the failure of the film and now they're saying how wonderful I was in it."
After Reed's death in 1986, James Stewart was one of the few celebrities to attend to her funeral. While giving an eulogy, he said: "Iâll always remember her as a wonderful woman and as my wife in 'Itâs a Wonderful Life'. I donât know of anybody who could have played the role better. She was absolutely marvellous."