Unit 3 language work.docVIP

My Stroke of Luck She keeps saving my life. Better still, she keeps giving me reasons to live. Kirk Douglas It happened on the way home from a meeting in Fillmore, 40 miles north of Los Angeles. My friend Noel Blanc, a helicopter pilot, offered to give me a ride back to the city. We were 50 feet in the air when we collided with a small plane flown by a flight instructor and his young student. Noel and I survived, but the men in the plane died instantly. I don’t remember being pulled from the wreckage or the ambulance trip to a nearby hospital. But I do remember my wife, Anne, staring down at me on my gurney. After hearing of the accident, Anne took a helicopter to reach me. She insisted on moving me to our neighborhood hospital in L.A., Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Another helicopter ride. Just what I needed! But Anne was right. In L.A. I could get the best care for my spinal injury and start seeing psychiatrists for my very real “survivor’s guilt”1. Anne has such good judgment and intuition, she rarely makes a wrong decision. After all, she first saved my life in 1958, when she refused to let me join film producer Mike Todd on his fatal flight. She saved me again after my stroke in 1995, when I became depressed and suicidal.2 Anne’s secret is that she learns from life, then moves on. Born in Hanover, Germany, she fled to Belgium to escape fascism as a teenager. She then moved to Paris, surviving the occupation by putting her linguistic ability to work. Fluent in French, English, Italian and her native German, she supported herself by placing German subtitles on French films. We met in 1953 when I was in Paris to star in Act of Love. I was looking for an assistant, and Anne Buydens showed up at my dressing room for an interview. She wore a blue suit with a white collar, and had very delicate wrists and ankles. Quite striking. I explained the position and she politely said, “I don’t think this job’s right for me.” I was miffed. Here I was, an A