Jack Zilly's days in Hollywood

Hollywood apparently saw stars when Jack Zilly came to town to play for the Rams.

Zilly, who died Friday at age 88, was in several Times stories during his professional football career in Southern California from 1947 to 1951. But not all of the mentions were about sports.

A 1949 story headlined "Rams Turn Hams During Off Season" explained how Zilly had been bitten by the acting bug.

"Zilly, the blond giant from Notre Dame, is the only Ram yet to attain the status of a bit player and he has his pals pea-green with envy," the paper reported.

"Jack's lines in 'War Bride' [actually the 1949 film 'I Was a Male War Bride'] hardly rank with Hamlet's soliloquy, either in length or content, but he did get to speak 14 lines as a sailor. Zilly spent one whole night practicing how to say 'Ship ahoy!' and he was letter perfect before the cameras the next day."

His first speaking part, according to the paper, was in 1949's "Twelve O'Clock High." He also was in (but not credited for) "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," a 1949 movie that included Jim Thorpe as an assistant football coach.

Not all of Zilly's headlines were about acting, however.

In 1948, Zilly caught a touchdown pass from Bob Waterfield with only 30 seconds to play, helping the Rams finish a furious rally to tie Philadelphia, 28-28. The copy editor writing the headlines for the story couldn't resist having some fun with the Ram hero's name:

"Zilly Dilly Against Philly."

You can find Zilly's obituary here.

-- Keith Thursby

Photo: Jack Zilly in an undated photo. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Mike Dudnikov]

Thanks for including some musings about Jack Zilly and giving me the opportunity to comment. Jack Zilly was drafted by Cleveland, but never played there, beginning his career in southern California as you noted. So how did that occur. Well, somewhat like the story of my grandfather Reuben. He told me that he was born in Austria and later emigrated to this country from Poland. When I asked him when he moved to Poland, he told me, "Oh, I never moved, the countries just moved around me. I lived in the same town all of my life before coming to America." Well in the case of Zilly, he was drafted by the Cleveland Rams, but by the time he would report for duty the team had moved two thousand miles west.

However, Jack Zilly would inspire one of the most famous lines in sport. When I heard this story some years ago, I thought the names seemed so unusual that they might have been made up, but with the passing of Mr. Zilly, I see that they were perfectly true. The moment in question occurred in a 1946 football game played by Notre Dame. That year Notre Dame would go on to win a national championship. Two of their best players were wide receiver Zilly and college football Hall of Fame halfback, Emil "Red" Sitko. Both men were heroic figures, not for their football deeds, but as each had returned from service in WWII to play college football. Zilly had interupted his college career and Sitko had postponed his.

This particular game was being broadcast to the public by another Hall of Famer, sportscaster Bill Stern. Stern was a wonderful talent, but made some very famous mistakes along the way. In this game he relayed as to how Zilly had taken the ball and made a great 80 yard run slashing through opposing would be tacklers, only to lateral the ball to Emil Sitko close to the goal line, with Emil then scoring the touchdown. Zilly's extraordinary generosity seemed almost beyond comprehension, and it was.

In this time before television, the game was presented to the public on radio. Stern described Zilly's incredible run in glorious terms, only to suddenly realize, he had misidentified the runner. Suddenly as the runner crossed the five yard line, Stern yelled out, "Zilly's just thrown a lateral to Sitko!" Without the benefit of television viewers, it was some time before Stern's subterfuge was uncovered. But, there's more.

The next year in 1947 another very fine sportscaster made a much more embarrassing, and apparent error. The great Clem McCarthy called the wrong horse as the winner at the Preakness. Late in the race patrons standing on a platform had partially obscured McCarthy's view as two horses ridden by jockeys wearing similar silks exchanged positions in the race. Despite his own error of the year before, Stern kidded McCarthy for years about that, a situation that caused another very talented member of the profession, Ted Husing, to harbor some animosity toward Stern. In 1949 when Stern and Husing were both working for the same radio station, and Stern had been given the assignment of calling races from Belmont Park, Stern asked Husing, who was more experienced in calling horse races, if he had any advice. Husing tersely replied, "I can't help you, Bill. There's no way to lateral a horse."

So thank you Mr. Thursby for musing and giving me the chance to share with others one of the classic lines in sports.