Aviatrix Style in Life and Fiction

In the 1920s and ‘30s, women aviatrixes made headlines and were greatly admired – for their pioneering efforts in a field that was still new, even for men; for their bravery and dare-devilry; and for their dash and style. These ladies were so glamorous, there was not much even Hollywood could do to improve on them. We only mention a few; there were many others. A reading list follows.

Below: Amelia with her trademark pearls

Hillary Swank plays Miss Earhart in the 2009 movie Amelia.

Amy Johnson, above, flew solo from England to Australia in 1930. Her insouciance and remarks to the press about having to powder her nose mid-flight, and the fact that she always flew with a tennis racket and an evening gown, endeared her to the Mayfair smart set. She and her playboy husband, Jim Mollison, were known as “The Flying Sweethearts” (until they divorced). Her plane went down (over the Thames Estuary) in 1941, and her body was never found.

Florence Lowe “Pancho” Barnes, who grew up a privileged child in Pasadena, California, began training horses and flying stunt planes for Hollywood in the 1920s (she worked with Howard Hughes on Hell’s Angels). She operated a notorious nightclub in the Mojave Desert, The Happy Bottom Riding Club.

Pancho Barnes (left) and Amelia Earhart (center) along with other ladies of aviation. Image: U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.

Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman, from the segregated American south, had to overcome racial as well as gender barriers to become a flyer. Nicknamed “Queen Bess” and “Brave Bess,” she earned her pilot’s license in France in 1921, a time when it was still considered daring just to ride in a plane, much less fly one. She thrilled crowds when performing at “barnstormer” air show events. Tragically, she was killed preparing for one in 1926. Image below: L.A. Public Library Digital Photo Collection.

The Flying Ace (1926) features actress Kathryn Boyd as a "female daredevil" pilot. The character is based on Coleman. This rarity will be screened at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, July 17, 2010.

Read more at the Indiana University’s Black Film Center Archives.

Above and below: the beautiful Beryl Markham. Raised in East Africa, she became a bush pilot, and in September 1936 was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. In addition to her flying, she is famous for her affair with Denys Fitch Hatton.

Dust jacket art for Wings of Love, the Love Story of a Girl Aviator (1934).

Above: Myrna Loy as an aviatrix in Wings in the Dark (1935) with Cary Grant, now on DVD. Below, Myrna's pants from the movie, below were up for auction.


Will the real aviatrix please stand up? (or sit down?): Myrna, Cary, and Amelia Earhart, probably around the time of Wings in the Dark. Image from the Happy Thoughts Darling film blog.

Above: Breaking cultural and gender barriers was Katherine Sui Fun Cheung, the first Chinese-American woman to be a licensed pilot (1932), who was inevitably called "The Chinese Amelia Earhart."

Below, Lee Ya-Ching, "China's First Lady of the Air" in 1939, the year she played herself (more or less) in Frank Borzage's film Disputed Passage. The gorgeous aviatrix was a natural for Hollywood, having been a silent film star in China already, but she was actually in the U.S.A. on a mission of mercy - seeking assistance for Chinese refugees.

Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran, a contemporary of Amelia Earhart. The subtitle of her autobiography, Jackie Cochran: the Autobiography of the Greatest Woman Pilot in Aviation History gives you an idea of her ego (recent publications have shortened it to simply "An Autobiography'), but it is not without basis: she set women's speed records and established (and commanded) the Women's Airforce Service Pilots during World War II. She also created a cosmetics company with the motto "Wings to Beauty."


Kay Francis (above with Sheila Bromley) as an aviatrix competing in a women's air derby in Women in the Wind (1939), her last picture for Warner's. Image from the Kay Francis blog. Kay does a fine job with the material she's given. Cast member Eve Arden mentions this film in her autobiography, referring to a scene in which her plane nosedives and goes down in flames. When the camera cuts to a close up of Eve being carried off the field, her makeup is perfect, not a hair out of place. "The audience howled,' she remembers. The film was based on a book by Francis Walton. "Powder Puff Derbies" were very popular.

Real-life champion air racer Louise Thaden. From the website Breaking Through the Clouds - visit them to see more photos and information about the first women's national air race.

Above: Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Though overshadowed as Wife of Charles, Anne (born Anne Spencer Morrow) was an aviatrix in her own right, as well as the author of several non-fiction books and novels. Her North to the Orient, for example (1935) is an account of the couple's flight to the Orient in 1931, for which she served as co-pilot and navigator.

If you can't do a floor show, do an air show! Ladies on the wing in Flying Down to Rio (1933).

Phryne Fisher, she of the Dutch-doll bob in Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher mystery series (set in 1928), shows off her flying skills in the series' second installment, Flying Too High (2007 edition).

Katherine Hepburn plays a famous aviatrix in Christopher Strong (1933), based on the novel by Gilbert Frankau. The slender Hepburn looked great in her flying clothes, but her most memorable costume from this film (from any film) is the infamous silver moth get-up. In real life, Miss Hepburn learned how to fly from one of the best: her beau, aviator Howard Hughes.

Flora (Kate Beckinsale) gets set to go flying in Cold Comfort Farm (1995). Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel is set in the “near future” when, apparently, planes would be as common as automobiles.

For Further Reading, a selected bibliography:

Amelia Earhart:

The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart by Mary S. Lovell.

The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation. By Amelia Earhart.

East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart by Susan Butler.


Amy Johnson:

Amy Johnson by Constance Babington Smith

Amy Johnson, Queen of the Air by Midge Gillies.

Sky Roads of the World: Amy Johnson’s Story About Her Adventurous Flying Career by Amy Johnson.


Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life by Susan Hertog.


Beryl Markham:

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

Straight on Till Morning: A Biography of Beryl Markham by Mary S. Lovell.


Bessie Coleman:

Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator by Doris L. Rich.


Jacqueline Cochran:

Jackie Cochran: An Autobiography by Jacqueline Cochran, with Maryann Bucknum Brinley.

Jackie Cochran: Pilot in the Fast Lane by Doris L. Rich.

Jacqueline Cochran: First Lady of Flight by Marquita O. Fisher.


Lee Ya-Ching and Katherine Sui Fun Cheung:

Sisters of Heaven: China’s Barnstorming Aviatrixes: Modernity, Feminism and Popular Imagination in Asia and the West by Patti Gully.


Louise Thaden:

High, Wide and Frightened by Louise M. Thaden.


Pancho Barnes

The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes by Lauren Kessler.


General:

Power Puff Derby: Petticoat Pilots and Flying Flappers by Mike Walker.

The Powder Puff Derby of 1929: The True Story of the First Women’s Cross Country Air Race by Gene Nora Jesson.

Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation by Eileen F. Lebow.