In a critical moment of the Academy Award-winning film, "The Best Years of Our Lives," amputee Homer Parrish reaches for a wedding ring with his hook prosthetic, grasps it and then delicately slides it onto the finger of his childhood sweetheart, Wilma Cameron.
In an era when the public was much less exposed to people with disabilities, the wedding of Homer and Wilma was an unusual affirmation of hope for injured combat veterans, and for everyone emerging from the trials of World War II.
Homer was played by 32-year-old Harold Russell, a real-life double amputee who had never acted professionally before and had lost both hands in a demolition training exercise, when sticks of TNT he was holding blew up.
Even though the accident had occurred only two years before, Russell displayed amazing dexterity in the film with his two "hook and harness" prosthetics, from pouring himself a glass of milk to fishing a cigarette out of a pack and lighting it.
His performance may have astounded viewers, but his daughter, Adele Russell, took his skills for granted while growing up in their home in Massachusetts, she recalled in a recent interview.
For her, it was routine to watch him make a sandwich or brew coffee. He also had a basement workshop where he made her wooden horses to ride and built a ping-pong table, made the paddles and then played the game with her.
"I never knew he was handicapped," she said. "You just took it for granted. It wasn't until I was older, and then I realized, 'Wow!' "
Russell died in 2002 at the age of 88.
After his hands were blown off in the training accident, doctors amputated four inches from each of his arms to make room for the hook prostheses, which he operated with a harness around his shoulders. By moving his shoulders back and forth, he could open and close the hooks.
He was the only person in Academy Awards history to win two Oscars for the same role. Because he had never acted before and faced strong competition, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences arranged for him to receive a special Oscar for inspiring his fellow veterans. Then he was voted the Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor anyway.
Russell rarely acted again, but spent his life championing the rights of people with disabilities. He served for several years as the chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped.
He would often spend five days a week in Washington and then come home on weekends, his daughter said. He would speak on disability issues at any time, usually for free, and when he was in public, he wasn't the least bit shy about acquainting people with his prosthetics.
"He would stick his hook out for people to shake it, and a lot of people would pull back, but he'd say, 'Go ahead, take it, it won't bite.' If there were kids there, he'd say, 'You know, an alligator bit it off.' "
Adele Russell remembers that her father used his popularity and influence to support a law passed in Massachusetts requiring accessibility for disabled people in restaurants.
But most of her memories are more personal.
Russell didn't obtain his driver's license until he was in his 40s, and when he came home, she recalled, his license had a special notice on it saying "must wear both hooks to drive." He just laughed over that.
"How the hell else am I going to do it?" he said.
Looking back on his abilities, she is more impressed today than when he was alive.
His control of the hooks was so precise, she said, that "he could pick up the ash off the end of a cigarette without crushing it."
(Mark Roth can be reached at mroth(at)post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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