Aviatrix Style

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 Austrailia 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 Sweathearts” (until they divorced). Her plane went down (over the Thames Estuary) in 1941, and her body was never found.

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

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.

From Indiana University’s Black Film Center Archives:

“The Flying Ace, released in 1926, starred Lawrence Criner and Kathryn Boyd, two established Black actors. Criner played a World War I fighter pilot who returns home a hero. Peg Reynolds was Criner’s side kick and together they rescue Boyd and her father from railroad thieves. The film played off the headlines of “colored aviators” including Bessie Coleman who wanted Norman to make a picture about her stunt flying exploits. Unfortunately she was killed in a plane crash before Norman released The Flying Ace. Ace boasted death defying feats in “the greatest airplane thriller ever filmed, but in reality, Norman shot all the airplane scenes with the plane on the ground. Even so, the film was a sensation and grossed close to $20,000 through Norman’s distribution efforts.”

Above and below: the beautiful Beryl Markham. Raised in East Africa, she became an 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: Breaking cultural and gender barriers was Katherine Sui Fun Cheung, the first Chinese-American woman to be a licenced 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 navigtor.

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.