Harold Russell: Oscar winner, veterans activist
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One of the most unusual and affecting chapters in the history of Hollywood ended last week in a Massachusetts nursing home.
Harold Russell, who died Tuesday of a heart attack at 88, never was a professional actor. Yet he won not one but two Academy Awards for his performance in his first motion picture, "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) — and then didn't make another film for more than three decades.
Instead, Mr. Russell became a champion for the rights of the disabled, serving as chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped under Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
As Mr. Russell told the story, he "got into an argument with a block of TNT and lost" in an accidental explosion while training Army paratroopers at Camp Mackall, N.C., in 1944. Both of his hands and about six inches of his arms above his wrists were destroyed in the blast; Mr. Russell was fitted with artificial limbs, complete with metal "hooks" that he learned to use with extraordinary dexterity. He could write, hold dinner utensils, carry almost anything. Indeed, Mr. Russell liked to call himself the "best no-handed pool player in the United States," and he often joked that he could do anything but pick up a dinner check.
After director William Wyler saw an Army Medical Corps documentary about Mr. Russell's rehabilitation, he was so impressed that he persuaded Robert Sherwood to write a part for an amputee in a project he was developing for film producer Samuel Goldwyn. There was never any doubt who would play Homer Parrish.
"The Best Years of Our Lives" was the most successful film of the year and swept the Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Director (Wyler), Best Screenplay (Sherwood), Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell) and Best Score (Hugo Friedhofer). Mr. Russell not only won Best Supporting Actor but also a special statuette for "bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans." He was the only actor ever to receive two Oscars for the same role.
The film explores the lives of three World War II veterans as they attempt to re-enter life in a country that has changed vastly while they were away. The title is both appropriate and ironic: All three men were facing new and intricate battles at home — whether marriages gone bad, awkward and alienated children, or simply a sudden, jarring demotion from hero pilot to soda jerk.
There were references to the threat of nuclear holocaust, the advance of communism, inflation and shortages. "The Best Years of Our Lives" is one of those rare works that bring their times and places to vivid, haunting life.
Homer has the worst of it — he is returning to his family and his childhood sweetheart, Wilma, convinced that he never will be accepted with his handicap. The scene in which Wilma sees, for the first time, the extent of Homer's injuries leads to one of the most achingly tender affirmations of unconditional love ever captured on film.
"We got lucky with Harold Russell," Wyler later said, "because he was an absolute natural." Affable, uncomplaining, with a warm and self-deprecating sense of humor, Mr. Russell effectively played himself, with unforgettable results.
After "The Best Years of Our Lives," Mr. Russell received offers from other studios. "So I asked Wyler if I should take them," he recalled. "(Wyler) told me 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 told me. He was absolutely right. I left the movie industry. And I have no regrets because of it."
Mr. Russell returned to Cambridge, Mass., where he had grown up, attended business school at Boston University and then started an advertising and public-relations firm. He later ran an insurance company. But he devoted much of his energy to veterans affairs, serving as one of the founders of AMVETS in 1950 and thereafter as a tireless advocate for veterans rights.
He returned to the screen in 1980, playing a small but effective part in "Inside Moves," starring John Savage as a veteran suffering physical and emotional problems after the Vietnam War. Mr. Russell later appeared in the television series "China Beach" and had his last film role in "Dogtown" (1997).
Mr. Russell found himself in the news in 1992 when he sold one of his Oscar statuettes to an anonymous buyer for $60,500. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences opposed the sale and offered to lend him a smaller sum.
But Mr. Russell went ahead with the sale, citing his difficult financial situation and the need to pay his wife's medical expenses. "My wife's health is 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. In it, simply and eloquently, he stated his credo: "It is not what you have lost but what you have left that counts."