By Elizabeth Segal
Louis Zamperini is 86 years old. His doctors at the VA say they’ve never met a man quite like him. “I’ve got 110/60, a 60 pulse, 185 cholesterol,” he says, grinning as he rattles off the enviable stats. “I’m told I have the vitals of a 35-year-old. And with all I’ve been through, they thought I’d be dead by 55! I almost did lose a kidney after being dehydrated on that raft and fighting those sharks. But the kidney bounced back.”
Zamperini is, of course, referring to the time when, as a World War II bombardier, he crashed over the Pacific and drifted for 47 days on a life raft, only to be taken captive by the Japanese for more than two years. And then there’s the episode during the 1936 Olympics when he was singled out for a handshake by Adolf Hitler, and the time he lifted a swastika-emblazoned banner off a Reichstag flagpole. His death-defying life of derring-do sounds like something out of a book – so, obligingly, he’s compiled these and other remarkable chapters into Devil at My Heels: A World War II Hero’s Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness (William Morrow / HarperCollins 2003). Released in February, the memoir “contains the wisdom of a life well lived, by a man who sacrificed more for it than many people would dare to imagine,” writes Sen. John McCain in the foreword. Nicolas Cage may soon be playing “Lucky Louie” in the Universal Pictures film version. And don’t be surprised if Zamperini has still more adventures up his sleeve – despite his advanced years, he’s got energy in spades (not to mention those great vital signs). When he isn’t writing and traveling to speaking engagements, he still skis regularly and flies stunts in his World War II-era plane.
Lou Zamperini’s life could have taken a whole other path, given its hard-scrabble start. “My parents really loved me, but I kept getting into trouble,” he says contritely. The son of Italian immigrants, he spoke no English when his family moved to Torrance, Calif., a trait that quickly attracted the attention of neighborhood bullies. His father taught him how to box in self-defense, and pretty soon “I was beating the tar out of every one of them,” he says, chuckling. “But I was so good at it that I started relishing the idea of getting even. I was sort of addicted to it.”
Louis Zamperini is 86 years old. His doctors at the VA say they’ve never met a man quite like him. “I’ve got 110/60, a 60 pulse, 185 cholesterol,” he says, grinning as he rattles off the enviable stats. “I’m told I have the vitals of a 35-year-old. And with all I’ve been through, they thought I’d be dead by 55! I almost did lose a kidney after being dehydrated on that raft and fighting those sharks. But the kidney bounced back.”
Zamperini is, of course, referring to the time when, as a World War II bombardier, he crashed over the Pacific and drifted for 47 days on a life raft, only to be taken captive by the Japanese for more than two years. And then there’s the episode during the 1936 Olympics when he was singled out for a handshake by Adolf Hitler, and the time he lifted a swastika-emblazoned banner off a Reichstag flagpole. His death-defying life of derring-do sounds like something out of a book – so, obligingly, he’s compiled these and other remarkable chapters into Devil at My Heels: A World War II Hero’s Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness (William Morrow / HarperCollins 2003). Released in February, the memoir “contains the wisdom of a life well lived, by a man who sacrificed more for it than many people would dare to imagine,” writes Sen. John McCain in the foreword. Nicolas Cage may soon be playing “Lucky Louie” in the Universal Pictures film version. And don’t be surprised if Zamperini has still more adventures up his sleeve – despite his advanced years, he’s got energy in spades (not to mention those great vital signs). When he isn’t writing and traveling to speaking engagements, he still skis regularly and flies stunts in his World War II-era plane.
Lou Zamperini’s life could have taken a whole other path, given its hard-scrabble start. “My parents really loved me, but I kept getting into trouble,” he says contritely. The son of Italian immigrants, he spoke no English when his family moved to Torrance, Calif., a trait that quickly attracted the attention of neighborhood bullies. His father taught him how to box in self-defense, and pretty soon “I was beating the tar out of every one of them,” he says, chuckling. “But I was so good at it that I started relishing the idea of getting even. I was sort of addicted to it.”
