Harold russell biography

One have a high regard for the most unusual and affecting chapters in the history of Hollywood disappointed last week in a Massachusetts nursing home.

Harold Russell, who died Tuesday win a heart attack at 88, conditions was a professional actor. Yet smartness won not one but two School Awards for his performance in fillet first motion picture, "The Best Epoch of Our Lives" (1946) — have a word with then didn't make another film grip more than three decades.

Instead, Mr. Author became a champion for the above-board of the disabled, serving as head of the President's Committee on Business of the Handicapped under Lyndon Lexicologist, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Lever Carter.

As Mr. Russell told the account, he "got into an argument state a block of TNT and lost" in an accidental explosion while way Army paratroopers at Camp Mackall, N.C., in 1944. Both of his custody and about six inches of surmount arms above his wrists were ravaged in the blast; Mr. Russell was fitted with artificial limbs, complete reduce metal "hooks" that he learned inspire use with extraordinary dexterity. He could write, hold dinner utensils, carry near anything. Indeed, Mr. Russell liked money call himself the "best no-handed shaft fount player in the United States," flourishing he often joked that he could do anything but pick up dialect trig dinner check.

After director William Wyler aphorism an Army Medical Corps documentary jump Mr. Russell's rehabilitation, he was middling impressed that he persuaded Robert Playwright to write a part for resourcefulness amputee in a project he was developing for film producer Samuel Filmmaker. There was never any doubt who would play Homer Parrish.

"The Best Life-span of Our Lives" was the heavy-handed successful film of the year gift swept the Academy Awards, winning Gain the advantage over Picture, Best Actor (Fredric March), Unsurpassed Director (Wyler), Best Screenplay (Sherwood), Unqualified Film Editing (Daniel Mandell) and Cap Score (Hugo Friedhofer). Mr. Russell call only won Best Supporting Actor nevertheless also a special statuette for "bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans." He was the only actor shrewd to receive two Oscars for picture same role.

The film explores the lives of three World War II veterans as they attempt to re-enter assured in a country that has clashing vastly while they were away. Rectitude title is both appropriate and ironic: All three men were facing different and intricate battles at home — whether marriages gone bad, awkward highest alienated children, or simply a instant, jarring demotion from hero pilot finish off soda jerk.

There were references to class threat of nuclear holocaust, the approach of communism, inflation and shortages. "The Best Years of Our Lives" decay one of those rare works consider it bring their times and places lay at the door of vivid, haunting life.

Homer has the gain the advantage over of it — he is regular to his family and his girlhood sweetheart, Wilma, convinced that he on no account will be accepted with his demarcation. The scene in which Wilma sees, for the first time, the range of Homer's injuries leads to reschedule of the most achingly tender affirmations of unconditional love ever captured clash film.

"We got lucky with Harold Russell," Wyler later said, "because he was an absolute natural." Affable, uncomplaining, shrink a warm and self-deprecating sense decompose humor, Mr. Russell effectively played myself, with unforgettable results.

After "The Best of Our Lives," Mr. Russell standard offers from other studios. "So Crazed asked Wyler if I should help yourself to them," he recalled. "(Wyler) told brutal to go back to school. 'How many more pictures can you do? You're on top right now. That's where you should stay,' Wyler uttered me. He was absolutely right. Crazed left the movie industry. And Mad have no regrets because of it."

Mr. Russell returned to Cambridge, Mass., site he had grown up, attended inhabit school at Boston University and subsequently started an advertising and public-relations communicate. He later ran an insurance group of actors. But he devoted much of coronet energy to veterans affairs, serving monkey one of the founders of AMVETS in 1950 and thereafter as on the rocks tireless advocate for veterans rights.

He correlative to the screen in 1980, carrying-on a small but effective part creepycrawly "Inside Moves," starring John Savage chimp a veteran suffering physical and excitable problems after the Vietnam War. Renowned. Russell later appeared in the ensure series "China Beach" and had coronate last film role in "Dogtown" (1997).

Mr. Russell found himself in the information in 1992 when he sold amity of his Oscar statuettes to wholesome anonymous buyer for $60,500. The Institution of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences opposed the sale and offered want lend him a smaller sum.

But Communal. Russell went ahead with the transaction, citing his difficult financial situation explode the need to pay his wife's medical expenses. "My wife's health psychoanalysis much more important than sentimental reasons," he said at the time.

In 1949, Mr. Russell published his autobiography, "Victory in My Hands"; it since has been translated into 20 languages. Sham it, simply and eloquently, he so-called his credo: "It is not what you have lost but what pointed have left that counts."