ITEMS OF INTEREST
Reporting from Minneapolis, Minn – Louis Zamperini from USC today set a new National Collegiate Association record for the mile run – 4:08.3 [Two years prior Zamperini had qualified for the American Olympic team, and made a good showing in Berlin in the long distance event. He would later serve in the USAAF during World War 2 and was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. After the war, Zamperini experienced the forgiveness of God at a Billy Graham campaign, became an evangelist and sought out and offered forgiveness to his former captors. A biography about him and his experiences by Laura Hillenbrand – Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption came out in 2010, and in 2014 a film followed (Unbroken) directed by Angelina Jolie and produced by the Coen brothers].
Author Lloyd C Douglas arrives in his home town of Columbia City, Indiana to attend the world premiere of ‘White Banners’ – a film based on his novel of the same title. (See May 16 and June 2). [Lutheran pastor Douglas retired from the ministry in 1933 and concentrated on his writing, often with religious themes. For 1939, Paramount released a film based on his novel Disputed Passage. Besides his famous publication ‘The Magnificent Obsession’ written in 1929 and filmed in 1935 (and again in 1954), he went on to write The Robe and The Big Fisherman, which were also turned into successful films].
Spokesmen for Howard Hughes say he will take up his intended around-the-world flight as soon as he renews certain lapsed permits to fly over European countries. [After a heavy involvement in filmmaking in the early 30s, Hughes turned his attention to the aviation industry].
PER ED SULLIVAN
The columnist strings together some stories related by celebrities, centering around their experiences or memories when time either stood still or melted away.
- From actor George Brent – he pegs 8/25/1922 as his longest day – “I’d fled to Glasgow, Scotland, via Belfast, with a reward of 100 pounds on my head. Mike Collins had been killed, and they were closing in on all of us who had served under him. A trawler was to pick me up at 10 o’clock that night, and I was hiding out in a room in a cheap boarding house waiting for darkness. The landlady was sour and suspicious, and once when I opened the door, I found her peering through the keyhole. If she went to the police, it was all up. Each hour became an agonizing interval, agonizing because there was nothing I could do. It seemed the sun would never go down. When darkness fell, I sent the landlady for some pipe tobacco and when she left, I skipped and hid in a lumberyard. Don’t tell me that June 21 is the longest day of the year, because I know differently.”
- From actor Humphrey Bogart – he can’t recall the exact date, but knew it was in the first week of March 1917 – “Shortly after dawn, I started a four-hour trick at the helm of the troop transport USS Olivia, carrying 1200 soldiers from New York to Marseilles. We were in waters infested with U-boats and the day previous they had sunk a hospital ship. Twenty minutes after I took the helm, the boat slowed up and then stopped. The pipe which fed oil to the engines had broken. After three hours, the engineers rigged up a temporary oil feed-pipe and we started to limp along at six knots an hour. At 9 o’clock that night, two British destroyers picked us up and convoyed us in, but that was a long, long day believe you me.”
- Actress Barbara Stanwyck remembers her shortest day. Her father had passed away in Panama, and she was living with another family. “At 9 o’clock, at breakfast, the father of this family, meaning to be kind, told me that they couldn’t keep me any more, as they were to have a child of their own. He suggested that perhaps it would be better for me to go to some orphans’ home and live. That day went past so quickly that I’ve never yet ceased to marvel at it.”