Margaret O'Brien came to the Wasserman Cinematheque Sunday to pick up a SunDeis Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of her career as one of the best-loved child stars of classic Hollywood. To mark the occasion, a 35mm screening was held for Meet Me in St. Louis, the 1944 MGM musical in which O'Brien played Tootie Smith, the five-year-old sister of star Judy Garland's character Esther. "You never start out to make a classic," O'Brien chirped during the Q&A after the film. "We never realized [St. Louis] would be shown for years to come ... If you have that in mind, I think it would make you nervous!"

Meet Me in St. Louis' nostalgic portrait of 1903 American family life charmed viewers upon its release, and O'Brien won a special Outstanding Juvenile Performer Oscar for her performance.

The audience was fascinated by her personal accounts of her legendary directors and co-stars, from Orson Welles ("he was very nice [but] would [shoot] a lot of takes") to Garland herself, whom O'Brien described as "like a big sister to me."

Interestingly, O'Brien is indirectly responsible for the success of the Christmas standard "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which Esther sings to comfort Tootie when their family is to leave St. Louis for New York City. Garland was reluctant to sing the song as originally written, worried that lines such as "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas / It may be your last" would frighten young Margaret. As a result, Garland ended up helping to rewrite the song with composer Hugh Martin, and the rest is history.

O'Brien is proud of her status as a Hollywood icon, if only because the films she starred in were so terrific. "If there are some students out there who are studying theater, know your history of the theater and film," she said. "[You can] learn from these movies!