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A true story!

Discussion in '2004 Archive' started by Daniel, Mar 15, 2004.

  1. Daniel

    Daniel New Member

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    Radio commentator Paul Harvey recently passed on this true story...

    Years ago a hardworking man took his family from New York Sate to to Australia to take advantage of a work opportunity there. Part of this man's family was a handsome young son who had aspirations of joining the circus as a trapeze artist or an actor.

    This young fellow, biding his time until a circus job or even one as a stagehand came along, worked at the local shipyards which bordered one of the worst sections of town.

    Walking home from work one evening this young man was attacked by five thugs who wanted to rob him. Instead of just giving up his money the young fellow resisted; however, they bested him easily and proceeded to beat his body brutally with clubs, leaving him for dead.

    When the police happened to find him lying in the road they assumed he was dead and called for the Morgue Wagon. On the way to the morgue a policeman heard his gasp for air. They immediately took him to the emergency unit at the hospital. When they placed him on the gurney a nurse remarked to her horror that this young man no longer had a face. Each eye socket was smashed, his skull, legs, and arms were fractured. His nose was literally hanging from his face. All of his teeth were gone, and his jaw was almost completely torn from his skull.

    Although his life was spared, he spent over a year in the hospital. When he finally left, his body may have healed, but his face was disgusting to look at. He was no longer the handsome youth that everyone admired. When the young man again started to look for work he was turned down by everyone on account of the way he looked. One potential employer suggested to him that he join the freak show at the circus as "The Man Who Had No Face." He did this for a while. He was still rejected by everyone and no one wanted to be seen in his company. He had thoughts of suicide. This went on for five years.

    One day he passed a church sought some solace there. Entering the church he encountered a priest who had seen him sobbing while kneeling in a pew. The priest took pity on him and took him to the rectory where they talked at length. The priest was impressed with him to such a degree that he said that he would do everything possible for him that could be done to restore his dignity and life. All the young man had to do was to promise to be the best Catholic he could be and to trust in God's mercy to free him from his torturous life.

    The young man went to mass and communion every day. And after thanking God for saving his life, simply asked God to give him peace of mind and the grace to be the best man he could be in His eyes.

    The priest, through his personal contacts, was able to secure the services of the best plastic surgeon in Australia. There would be no cost to the young man as the doctor was the priest's best friend. The doctor, too, was impressed by the young man whose outlook on life was filled with good humor and love, even though he had experienced the worst.

    The surgery was a miraculous success. All the best dental work was also done for him. The young man became everything he promised God we would be. He was also blessed with a wonderful, beautiful wife, and many children. He was also accorded success in an industry which would have been the furthest thing from his mind as a career had it not been for the goodness of God and the love of the people who cared for him. This he acknowledges publically.

    For, you see, this young man is and was Mel Gibson.
     
  2. Jailminister

    Jailminister New Member

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    Sorry Daniel, this is not a true story. Now for the real story:

    To be sure, the great Paul Harvey has propagated more than a few urban legends in his time, but this particular bit of codswallop was not his doing. It's a spoof, passably mimicking the style and format of Harvey's radio commentaries. (I'm told Mr. Harvey did do a 2000 story on Mel Gibson in which he recounted a minor incident in the actor's youth — a violent bar fight that left him battered and bruised — which may have inspired this Internet tall tale. But the words you just read were not his.)

    As for Gibson himself, his real life story, interesting though it may be to his fans, is not the stuff of which high drama is made. Born in 1956 in Peekskill, New York, he indeed moved to Australia with his family at the age of 12, but the teen-aged Mel, far from having aspirations to join the circus or become an actor, was, by his own admission, a loner and a heavy drinker with no particular direction in life.

    It was his older sister, Mary, who set Gibson's future career in motion by submitting an application in his name — and without his knowledge — to the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney. Having nothing to lose, he auditioned and was accepted. He proved to be a talented actor and lived theatrically ever after. "I woke up in the bloody hospital with head stitches, a busted nose, my jaw off the hook, peeing blood..."


    His first big break in the movies occurred in 1979 when he landed the starring role in a low-budget Australian flick called "Mad Max," which soon attracted a cult following. There's an anecdote surrounding this early triumph which presumably inspired our apocryphal email story.

    About a week before the big audition, he got drunk at a party and wound up in a fistfight with three other men. And lost. "I woke up in the bloody hospital with head stitches, a busted nose, my jaw off the hook, peeing blood," he recalled in a 1995 Playboy interview. He was "still a mess" on the day of the audition, but ironically it was his busted-up face (he claims) that caught director George Miller's attention and won Gibson the part as the film's post-apocalyptic antihero.

    Be that as it may, he did not require a year in the hospital to recover, nor was he left permanently disfigured, nor did he join a circus freak show and spend five years wandering and horribly depressed. On the contrary, he healed quickly, shot Mad Max that same year and went on — within the same span of time our email story tells us it took him to hit bottom, find God and undergo plastic surgery — to become one of the world's most sought-after leading men.

    He did, in fact, later direct and star in "The Man Without a Face," the 1993 film adaptation of Isabelle Holland's novel of the same name. In it, he played a reclusive teacher whose face had been horribly scarred as a result of an automobile accident. But the script wasn't based on Gibson's own life, not even remotely. As a matter of fact, the novel (as in a work of fiction) from which the film was adapted was first published in 1972.

    Mel Gibson was 16 years old at the time.

     
  3. USN2Pulpit

    USN2Pulpit New Member

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    Jailminister, I'm afraid you're right. A quick visit to snopes.com will confirm. This would be a great story though if it were true.
     
  4. Daniel

    Daniel New Member

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    Oh, well. It sure told well. I wasn't aware of how Paul Harvey passed on urban legends. I always thought we has trustworthy. Thanks for the clarifications.
     
  5. Jailminister

    Jailminister New Member

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    Daniel, The problem if you read the right story is that Paul Harvey never said it. I still think Paul harvey is correct most all the time.
     
  6. Daniel

    Daniel New Member

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    Is he high on the correctness meter like Rush Limbaugh? (Rush gets about a 98.4%)
     
  7. Artimaeus

    Artimaeus Active Member

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    What an amazing coincidence, I agree with Rush 98.4% of the time. [​IMG]
     
  8. er1001

    er1001 New Member

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    I got hit with that same story,but when checking it out,learned what Jailminister posted.
     
  9. Daniel

    Daniel New Member

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    I now know how NOT to fall for internet stories with the snopes.com checking system...thanks for showing me that!
     
  10. Forever settled in heaven

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    so what if it was only an urban legend?

    where r all the defenders of Mel Gibson? if God cld use nun Anne Emmerich's "urban legend," surely he cld do so w Paul Harvey's.

    hmm, maybe we REALLY shd produce such a harmless n uplifting biographical movie of Mel's life after all ... then we'll need to tear down our churches n build bigger!

    ;) :D
     
  11. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
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