Norton insisted that Zanuck be enrolled at a military academy. The boy was eight years old. Zanuck was so bored and lonely there that he began running away. On the streets of Los Angeles he ran into his father, who convinced him to return to the academy and began taking him to movies twice a week. But one day his father failed to show up for their visit. Zanuck never saw or heard from him again.
Wandering the streets of Los Angeles looking for his father, Zanuck was picked up by the police and brought to his mother. She made it clear she did not want her 12-year-old son around and shipped him back to Nebraska to be raised by his Torpin grandparents. When he was 15, Zanuck lied about his age and joined the U.S. Army. There he began boxing as a flyweight, but never saw battle. Returning to Nebraska after the war, Zanuck told his grandmother that he was going to California to rejoin his mother. She bought him a bus ticket and gave him a hundred dollars for emergencies. At the age of 17, Zanuck arrived in Pasadena with no intention of seeing his mother.
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