Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [102]
Newspapers dug out my old track records, gave them new importance, and speculated about my competitive future. Sports editors—even those who had openly expressed disappointment with me before the war—again filled their columns with my exploits. Radio commentators and luncheon groups extended invitations to appear. I made a broadcast with my old coach, Dean Cromwell. I officiated at track meets. I even handed out gold cups to horse-race winners at the Santa Anita racetrack.
In 1944 Torrance had renamed its army airstrip Zamperini Memorial Field, but when I came back alive they changed it to just plain Zamperini Field. A couple of Academy Award actresses and generals from Washington came down for the big luncheon and ceremony.
In February 1945 a track meet in New York had begun featuring the annual Zamperini Memorial Mile. They changed the name on that one, too.
I also joined the Sea Squatters Club, whose ranks were open only to “United Nations airmen forced down at sea who used a rubber life raft, no raft, or stayed with their plane and survived.”
Jack and Harry Warner—they ran the movie studio—told the Los Angeles Times, “When Louis gets home, we’re throwing an all-studio party for him.” They held it at the John Ford ranch. I danced with Maureen O’Hara and other lovely young actresses.
Many Warner stars belonged to the Lakeside Golf Club near the studio, and that soon became my hangout. I didn’t play golf; I just walked around the course with the celebrities, and they seemed to like it. One day I stood at the bar with Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Forrest Tucker, and Bob Hope when a guy ran out of the dressing room and said, “Captain Zamperini, Oliver Hardy wants to see you. Come with me.” I found Hardy, one of my heroes, in the shower. He walked out stark naked and hugged me. Then he started crying. “Louis,” he said with a sniff, “I prayed for you every day you were missing.” Hardy was Catholic; I’d been Catholic Athlete of the Year the year after DiMaggio got the award. Later Hardy told Lakeside’s manager, “Whenever Zamperini comes in, all the food, liquor—whatever he wants—is on my tab. Unlimited.” I’m not sure why, but I never took advantage of his generosity.
Nightclubs around town also threw open their doors to me. Of that I took advantage, in part because I didn’t know how long it would go on. Postwar celebrations were everywhere, and my old college friend Harry Read and I could be found almost any night of the week at the Florentine Gardens in Hollywood, at the world-famous Earl Carroll Theater and Nightclub on Sunset, or in any of the area bars. (Carroll’s place opened in 1938 and included technical innovations like a sixty-foot-wide double revolving turntable on the eighty-foot main stage, three swings that lowered from the auditorium ceiling, an elevator, a revolving staircase, and a rain machine. Out front was a twenty-foot-high painting in neon of Beryl Wallace, one of Carroll’s “most beautiful girls in the world,” and Sunset Boulevard’s Wall of Fame, preserving, in cement, the personal inscriptions to Earl Carroll of more than 150 of Hollywood’s most glamorous stars.)
Sometimes Phil joined us and we did the town. The war was over and we kept the nostalgia to a minimum—though occasionally we shared a private look full of amazement and gratitude that even though we’d lost two crews, and gone through hell, we’d still survived.
Once, Fred Garrett and his wife joined Harry and me at Earl Carroll’s. Fred had been fitted with a prosthetic leg. Recalling how he’d anticipated yet dreaded his homecoming, I looked first at Mrs. Garrett’s face, then searched Fred’s. I knew Fred hated the Japanese so much that he would never let rice touch his lips again, and depression followed him like a lost dog. Of course, I had both my legs, so although I hated the Japanese, too, I couldn’t honestly compare our treatment in the war. All I knew was that hate was as deadly as any poison and did no one any good. You had to control and eliminate it, if you could. Fred, who went on to work for years in the control tower at Los Angeles