[TIGHTEN]

You know what, Paul Harvey can say whatever he wants. I personally, specifically remember him telling the story over the AM dial. It was at least a year, maybe two years ago. I only remember two of his stories, one about Lucy Ball being chained as a child and that Mel Gibson story. No way in the world PH gave a different account (ie bar fight). I've never heard the story anywhere else, and it made me reflect at the time.

If it was an internet rumor, it made it onto his show. If it didn't happen (which seems now to be the case), I apologize for spreading rumors.

[Ghengis]

You know what, Paul Harvey can say whatever he wants. I personally, specifically remember him telling the story over the AM dial. It was at least a year, maybe two years ago. I only remember two of his stories, one about Lucy Ball being chained as a child and that Mel Gibson story. No way in the world PH gave a different account (ie bar fight). I've never heard the story anywhere else, and it made me reflect at the time.

From WWW.Snopes.Com or the dirsct url:
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/noface.htm

Mel Gibson did direct and star in The Man Without a Face, a 1993 film about a man who became a recluse after his face was disfigured in an automobile accident, but the movie was based upon a novel by Isabelle Holland, not Mel Gibson's life.

Many of our readers have sworn to us they heard Paul Harvey recite this piece, exactly as reproduced above, on one of his broadcasts. He did offer a "Rest of the Story" segment about Mel Gibson on 24 June 2000, and it was a typically (for Paul Harvey) exaggerated version of the truth, but it didn't come close to the glurge reproduced here. What Paul Harvey said, verbatim, was this:

In all his years as a cop, Ollie Gerrick had never seen a beating case like the one before him. The boy's face was smashed in. His partner say he wouldn't survive. The ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital and when he came to, the doctors told him the rest of the story. He was in the hospital and then he remembered that night in the bar. It was late the next night that the young man remembered he had an important appointment. He realized it was tomorrow. He struggled to get out of bed but the nurse restrained him. The next morning, he got out of bed and looked in the mirror and he didn't recognize himself.

Nevertheless, he went on to the job interview. Despite the bar fight in October of 1977. He showed up for a role in a movie and the producers were looking for someone unknown who was really tough looking. He got the role they were casting for. They were looking for someone to play the rugged role of Mad Max and this Australian with the beaten up face went on to become one of our best modern-day actors. We know him as Mel Gibson, and now you know the rest of the story.