Saturday, December 7, 2013
Louis Zamperini at 96, Is Still ‘Unbroken’ After All These Years
Now the story of this living legend is being made into a movie directed by Angelina Jolie
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
HOLLYWOOD HILLS, CA
(ANS) – I have interviewed some extraordinary people in my more than 44 years as a journalist, but some time back I was able to meet with one of the most inspiring men I have ever met. His name is Louis Zamperini, a true living legend who, at the age of 96, is still serving the Lord.
Louis Zamperini lights the Olympic torch he carried at the 1984 Olympic Games
(Photo: Brad Graverson)
And now has come the news that Angelina Jolie has teamed with Joel and Ethan Coen to make a movie based on Laura Hillenbrand’s book, “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption,” which tells the inspiring story of Olympian track star Louis Zamperini’s determination to survive imprisonment as a World War II prisoner of war.
Embarking on a career as a film director, Jolie chose “Unbroken” to direct and, while filming in Australia, Jolie was quoted as saying she and Zamperini have grown to be “close friends.”
The 38-year-old actress-turned-director, has been busy directing scenes for the movie in Glebe, Australia, surrounded by actors dressed in World War II uniforms, and was recently spotted by the media battling the heat while filming scenes in a fake POW camp on Cockatoo Island in Sydney.
Angelina Jolie with Louis Zamperini
This is her second directorial feature, and she says, “[Zamperini] is a true hero and a man with an immense humanity, faith and courage. I am deeply honored to have the chance to tell his inspiring story.”
The film is scheduled for release in December 2014.
My wife Norma joined me as we drove up through a winding road in the star-studded Hollywood Hills to the home of Zamperini, where he had lived at the time for 56 years and I was able to interview this incredible man shortly after the “Unbroken” book came out. The best-seller chronicles the extraordinary early life of this former Olympic athlete, POW, and now a committed Christian.
When we arrived at his picturesque home, Louis was sitting at a desk with a marvelous view of downtown Los Angeles, wearing a red University of Southern California (USC) cap, and was busy signing scores of books for his many fans from around the world.
Angelina Jolie directing during the filming
in Australia
(Photo: MatrixPictures.co.uk)
As I began my interview for my “Front Page Radio” program on the KWVE Radio Network (www.kwve.com) in Southern California, I learned that Zamperini, who despite his advanced age, remains active and full of life, lecturing to audiences around the world about how to deal with stress, the meaning of the Olympic movement and the freedom he has found through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
During the interview he told me that he was born in Olean, New York to Anthony and Louise Zamperini. The Zamperini family, he said, moved to Torrance, California in the 1920s, where Louis attended Torrance High School.
The son of Italian immigrants, Louis spoke no English when his family moved to California, which made him a target for bullies. His father taught Louis how to box for self-defense. Pretty soon, according to Louis, he was “beating the tar out of every one of them… But I was so good at it that I started relishing the idea of getting even. I was sort of addicted to it.”
Before long, he went on, he was picking fights “just to see if anyone could keep up with me.” From juvenile thug, he progressed to “teenage hobo.” Hopping a train to Mexico, he courted danger for the thrill of it.
Dan Wooding interviewing Louis Zamperini
Louis said that he had a “knack for getting into trouble,” so his brother got him involved in the school track team. In 1934 Louis set a world interscholastic record in the mile, clocking in at 4 minutes and 21.2 seconds. The record would last for over twenty years, until broken by Dennis Hansen in 1959. That record helped Louis win a scholarship to the University of Southern California, and a place on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team.
In the Olympic trials at Randall’s Island, New York, Louis finished in a dead heat against world-record holder Don Lash, and qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Unfortunately, Louis ruined his chance at gaining the gold by gorging himself on the free food that was provided to the Olympic athletes during the trans-Atlantic cruise. He shared a cabin with the great Jesse Owens who achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and as part of the 4×100 meter relay team.
“I was a Depression-era kid who had never even been to a drugstore for a sandwich,” he said. “And all the food was free. I had not just one sweet roll, but about seven every morning, with bacon and eggs. My eyes were like saucers.” By the end of the trip, Louis confessed that he had gained 12 pounds.
Hitler Shook His Hand
Hitler during the 1936 Berlin Olympics
As a consequence, Louis only finished eighth in the 5000 meter distance event at that Berlin Olympics, but his final lap was fast enough to catch the attention of Adolf Hitler, who insisted on a personal meeting. As Louis tells the story, Hitler shook his hand, and said simply ‘The boy with the fast finish.’”
I then asked Louis if he had been a Christian at that time, would he have witnessed to Hitler. He smiled and replied, “I would share about Jesus Christ with anyone.”
Two years later, in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record which held for 15 years and his speed earned him the nickname of “The Torrance Tornado.”
Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in September 1941, and after being commissioned a second lieutenant the following August, he was deployed to Hawaii as a B-24 bombardier. After flying a number of missions, his aircraft went down due to mechanical failure on May 27, 1943. After 47 days adrift in the ocean, Zamperini and the only other surviving crew member (pilot Russ Phillips) were rescued by the Japanese Navy.
Louis was held in captivity through the end of the war and his family thought he had been killed in action, but he eventually returned to a hero’s welcome. Zamperini was held in a Japanese Navy camp for captives not labeled as Prisoners of War at Ofuna. Major Greg “Pappy” Boyington was held at the same camp and in Boyington’s book, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” he discussed Zamperini and the Italian recipes he would write to keep the prisoners minds off of the food and conditions.
Zamperini then spoke about how, after his return home, he would have horrific nightmares because of what had occurred in the prison camps and one night he awoke to find his hands around the neck of his wife. It was then that he realized he was in deep trouble.
His wife, he told me, went to Billy Graham’s historic 1949 Los Angeles Crusade and there she found the Lord. She then persuaded him to go along with her and he said that was very upset with having to attend, but eventually, he too made a personal commitment to Christ, and his whole life turned around in the right direction.
Billy Graham with Louis Zamperini
He said that he has since become close friends with Billy Graham and said that it was Mr. Graham who helped him launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker. One of his favorite themes is “forgiveness,” and he has visited many of the guards from his POW days to let them know that he has forgiven them. Many of the war criminals who committed the worst atrocities were held in the Sugamo prison in Tokyo.
In October 1950, Zamperini went to Japan and gave his testimony and preached through an interpreter (a missionary called Fred Jarvis). The colonel in charge of the prison encouraged any of the prisoners who recognized Zamperini to come forward and meet him again. Zamperini threw his arms around each of them. Once again he explained the Christian Gospel of forgiveness to them. The prisoners were somewhat surprised by Zamperini’s genuine affection for those who had once ill-treated him. Most of the prisoners accepted copies of the New Testament which had been given by The Gideons.
For his 81st birthday in January 1998, Zamperini ran a leg in the Olympic Torch relay for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. In March 2005 he returned to Germany to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the first time since he competed there and met Adolf Hitler.
Torrance High School’s home football, soccer, and track stadium is now called Zamperini Stadium, and the entrance plaza at USC’s track & field stadium was named Louis Zamperini Plaza in 2004. In his 90s, Zamperini continues to attend USC football games and befriended star freshman quarterback Matt Barkley in 2009.
Zamperini was in October 2008, inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago, IL.
What a morning and what a joy to be able to meet with Luis Zamperini and we left with an autographed copy of “Unbroken” which we both have since read and marveled at this amazing story.
And now we are anxiously awaiting the Hollywood movie about the life of this extraordinary man who still remains “Unbroken”.
Note: To listen to the radio show, go to: http://www.assist-ministries.com/FrontPageRadio/FPR01.09.11LouisZamperiniMono.mp3
I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.
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Dan Wooding, 72, is an award-winning journalist who who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 50 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is a novel about the life of Jesus through the eyes of his mother called “Mary: My Story from Bethlehem to Calvary”. (Click to order)
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<!–BYLINE:By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries–>