A Dallas clothing manufacturer made the most important movie of all time. Abraham
Zapruder set out to record a visit from John F. Kennedy and ended up chronicling a
national catastrophe. For 35 years his 18-second color film -- jerky, soundless, devastating -- has fueled, refuted, or confirmed a hundred assassination
theories. Zapruder was deeply shaken by his role as an eyewitness to the tragedy.
Says his son, Henry Zapruder, of Washington, D.C.: "He felt the loss of the president foremost, but the black mark on Dallas hurt him very deeply
too." Adds his daughter, Myrna Ries, of Dallas: "In spite of that horrible event, he loved Dallas till the day he died."
- He was born in 1905 in Kovel, Russia. His only education was four years of Hebrew school.
- In 1920 he immigrated to Brooklyn and went to work as a patternmaker. He married Lillian Shapovnick in 1933. Eight years later, he moved to
Texas to work for Nardis of Dallas and later established two labels of his own, Chalet and Jennifer, Jr.'s.
- On November 22, 1963, Zapruder was at work, awaiting the presidential procession. His employees persuaded him to return home and fetch his
8-mm Bell and Howell movie camera. His secretary, Marilyn Sitzman, accompanied him down to Elm Street, where they climbed atop a concrete
structure to get a better view.
- Zapruder later testified before the Warren Commission: "I heard the first shot, and I saw the president lean over and grab himself ... For a moment I
thought it was, you know, like you say, 'Oh, he got me,' when you hear a shot ... but before I had a chance to organize my mind, I heard a second
shot, and then I saw his head opened up and the blood and everything came out ... then I started yelling, 'They killed him, they killed him ... '"
- He sold the rights to his film to Life magazine for $150,000. After his death on August 30, 1970, Life sold them back to his family for $1. Since
1978, the original has been stored at the National Archives. The Zapruder family allows scholars to use it for free but charges for commercial use;
Oliver Stone, for example, paid $40,000 to include snippets of it in JFK.
- Last year the federal government declared the original film the property of the American people. Zapruder's survivors requested $18.5 million in
compensation. Although private appraisals place its value as high as $70 million, the Justice Department's first offer was only $750,000. Negotiations
are still under way.
|
