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Ian Charleson died just a few years after Chariots of Fire was made. He was only 40 and he passed away from AIDS. Coincidentally, the real Eric Liddell passed away in his early 40s from brain cancer in a concentration camp, so they both died young.
The reason that Chariots of Fire was successful was because it had heart. The music was great, but that's not enough. I first saw it in the mid 90s when I was 10 years old, and it has been my favorite film since because it inspired me. Eric Liddell became one of my heroes, and he changed my life. I even became a high school and college runner, and his example as a devout Christian stayed with me throughout the years. Now that I have studied him in depth, I know that his real story is even more inspiring than in the film.
Eric Liddell married Florence Mackenzie in 1934 (ten years after his Olympic gold medal). They married in Tientsin, China. Sadly, he was separated from Florence and the children in 1941. She and the children went to live with her parents in Canada because China had become too dangerous during the war, but Liddell stayed in China, believing God was calling him to continue to help the Chinese. He felt one with the Chinese people, and he told his dear wife that he couldn't abandon them when they needed him the most. He only expected to be separated from his family for a year, but after the bombing of Pearl Harbor everything changed. By then, he was not allowed to leave the concessions, and was forced from his home by the Japanese. The Japanese forbade him from interacting with his Chinese friends. He was placed under house arrest and required to wear a bracelet to show that he was a British "enemy alien." Fourteen months later, he was ordered into the Japanese-run Weihsien internment camp. On February 21, 1945, he tragically died in the internment camp from untreated and undiagnosed brain cancer. He had been malnourished, emaciated, and very ill during his last few months in the camp. There are countless quotes from survivors about Liddell's selfless and loving acts in the camp. They called him "Jesus in running shoes" because his kindness, compassion, and love embodied Christ's teachings in The Sermon on the Mount. He even taught fellow prisoners to love and pray for their Japanese captors.
Some say Eileen Soper was Liddell's first girlfriend during his university and Olympic days. They seemed to have been close, and she said they held hands. Liddell apparently wrote their initials on a tree trunk during one of their walks. Liddell was very modest -- opposed to vanity, and for that reason, he didn't like to have his portrait drawn or many pictures taken. Eileen is the only person he allowed to paint a portrait of him. She loved him until the day she died in the 1980s.
I'm 36 now, but Chariots of Fire has been my favorite movie (tied with The Elephant Man) since I was 10 years old back in the mid 90s (yes, I saw both of these films when I was 10). After seeing the film, Eric Liddell became a major inspiration to me. I even ran track in high school and college because of it (and also because I'm Jamaican American, and we Jamaican Americans love to run). As a devout Christian, I really connected with Liddell. Now that I'm older and I've learned Liddell's entire story (the real story, including his selfless work in China), I find him even more inspiring (although his story is also tragic).
Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams were definitely rivals, except it was one-sided. It was Abrahams who was obsessed with Liddell . . . he continuously dismissed Liddell's records, and he consistently avoided competing against him because he was afraid he would get beaten again; yet Liddell was the runner he always focused on and dreamed of beating. Even when he was older, Abrahams pondered in interviews whether he could have beaten Liddell in the 100 meters in Paris, and then he concludes by claiming he would have beaten Liddell.
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