Louis Zamperini and a Certain Preacher

By Neil Earle

Louis Zamperini with up and coming evangelist Billy Graham.

The long-awaited movie “Unbroken” opened on Christmas Day. It is an Angelina Jolie production that relates the inspiring story of Californian native Louis Zamperini, who died on July 2 at age 97. Zamperini rose from unexpected origins to become an Olympic runner and a survivor of a cruel Japanese prisoner of war camp from 1943 to 1945. The Japanese guards were determined to try and “break” Louis with extra torture and humiliation but they could not crack his tough inner spirit of self-reliance, hence the name of the movie.

This is all very well so far as it goes but…there is a part of the story Hollywood did not explore that Laura Hillenbrand recounted in “Unbroken,” her 2010 biography of Zamperini. As church historian Grant Wacker relates in the Wall Street Journal of January 2, 2015, Louis did suffer grievously from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and full-blown alcoholism after the war. His lovely wife was awakened one night with Louis’ hands around her throat. He believed in his debauched nightmarish state that she was the prison guard who had persecuted him so horribly.

Director Angelina Jolie with Louis Zamperini, who passed away July 2nd.

It got worse. Louis’ wife was thinking of divorce as the only way out when the unexpected occurred. A neighbor invited her to the 1949 Billy Graham Crusade that was then going on at Washington and Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles. This was the young Graham’s real debut as a powerful advocate for people’s turning to the Lord Jesus for a fresh start in life. Mrs. Zamperini implored Louis to visit the preaching services which were very successful – drawing nearly 350,000 attendees to result in 3500 “decisions” for Christ.

Louis showed up highly skeptical but Hillenbrand’s biography relates that the charismatic Billy Graham made an impression. Billy was only two years his junior and so refreshingly different from the country preachers he had heard in his early life.

“Devil at my heels”

Billy Graham’s preaching convicted the lost young ex-Olympian and POW. This was the turning point in his life, a fact attested too not only by the Wall Street Journal but also by Franklin Graham (Billy’s son) with his comments on BillyGrahamTV on December 28. The Pasadena Rose Parade for January 1, 2015 was supposed to feature Louis as Grand Marshall but even with his decease his float displayed a picture of Louis and Billy Graham together as it moved down Colorado Boulevard. Once again the national media were largely silent about the Graham-Zamperini connection, but as Professor Grant Wacker relates, a real healing had taken place:

Jack O'Connell plays Louis Zamperini in the movie Unbroken.

“Yet Zamperini himself believed that the religious event was the pivotal moment of his long journey. In his 2003 memoir – titled like the one he published in 1956, ‘Devil at My Heels,’ Zamperini recounts the tent-revival experience in detail and thanks Billy Graham in the acknowledgments ‘for his message that turned my life around.’”

Yes, Billy Graham had closed another “deal” as his team would put it, but Zamperini tossed out the booze and cigarettes and embraced a lifetime of selfless Christian service. This included a trip to Japan to forgive his tormentors. That in turn affected many Japanese veterans who were also looking for peace of mind as the perpetrators of mass horror. Hollywood rumor has it that at one crucial moment in the filming of “Unbroken,” Angelina Jolie prayed for good weather to finish the scene because “that’s what Louis would do.”

“In the mouth of two or three witnesses” every truth should be established says the Bible. The evidence is thus good that the “unbroken” Louis Zamperini, in the language of Christian preachers, had to come to spiritual and psychological brokenness before a miraculous healing could be his. In that he was so much like the rest of us. The song that came out of another Billy Graham Crusade makes a good summary: “It is no secret what God can do.”

(Neil Earle is a Los Angeles based pastor and occasional contributor to the Hollywood Prayer Network.)