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Amelia

Hilary Swank, Richard Gere

It might be the biggest mystery of the 20th century. She is easily the world's most famous missing person, more famous than Teamster chief Jimmy Hoffa, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, rich playboy Michael Rockefeller, or mystery man D.B. Cooper. Dressed in a leather jacket, tall, lanky, her short auburn hair blowing in the wind, with a faint resemblance to Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart is a feminist icon and American hero. She was Lady Lindy, Queen of the Air, and Amelia captured the imagination of a nation in the grips of the Great Depression and broke every stereotype of what a woman could achieve. In an era when air travel was exotic, at just 25-years-old, she soared to the record setting altitude of 14,000 feet and her freckle face was slapped across the front page of every newspaper across this country. Following the lead of Lindbergh, she amazed the public by flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean, then flying solo from Hawaii to the mainland. With those feats and others under her belt, Earhart decided to accomplish the one feat no one had achieved. While several pilots had flown around the earth, no one had ever done it by flying around the equator. Backed by her husband's p.r. machine (some claim the real reason for the failure of her last flight was that she spent more time doing publicity for it, and not enough time preparing for it), if she succeeded, she would enjoy wealth and celebrity few could ever imagine. Instead, she became a legend.

On March 17, 1937, the 35-year-old aviator took off from Oakland, California, accompanied by her navigator, Fred Noonan, and two others in her Lockheed L-10E Electra purchased for her by Purdue University, for whom she had recently been a visiting faculty member for what was supposed to be the longest flight ever, 29,000 miles. In an omen of things to come, their trip to Honolulu, Hawaii was marked with mechanical problems, lubrication and galling issues with the propeller. After three days of repair work at the Navy's Luke Field, during takeoff, the plane ground looped and crashed. While Amelia blamed a blown tire, others believe it was pilot error. The plane was loaded onto a ship and sent back to the Lockheed plant in California to be repaired. While waiting for the plane to be serviced, it was decided to reverse their flight plan because of changing weather and wind conditions, going east instead of west and that only Noonan would accompany her this time. On June 1st, they took off from Miami, making numerous stops in South America, Africa and Asia as they zigzagged the equator for a month, covering 22,000 miles. Yet, this last 7,000 was the most dangerous because they would be flying over the Pacific Ocean and have only three chances to refuel. The longest leg of their journey was from Lae, New Guienea to the Howland Island. What they did not count on was 26 mph head winds which caused them to burn fuel faster than they thought they would. No one panicked because the USS Itasca was anchored off the Howlands to talk them in and if they had to ditch could rescue them in short order. Two hundred miles away from the island, Earhart was having problems. Not only were they running low on fuel, but they could not get an accurate fix on the island. Flying blind in poor visibility, she radioed the ship that she could not find land and was circling but for some unknown reason could not hear the Itasca (probably the antenna on the belly of the plane had been torn off in the grassy sod of the Lae strip). At 8:43 a.m., Amelia tried one last time to contact the ship. One hour later, the Itasca began search and rescue operations. It was soon joined by a number of ships from the US Navy. Despite conducting the largest search and rescue operation in the history of this nation to that point, costing $4 million, and an unofficial search commissioned by her husband afterward, not a trace of the two aviators or the Lockheed was ever found.

Who was Emelia Earhart and what happened to her. The first part is easy to answer. She was born a Kansas daughter of privilege (and later lived in Des Moines, IA, and a suburb of Chicago). Her grandfather, a former federal judge and bank president. Her father a lawyer for the railroad. Things were not easy in the Earhart household. Her two sisters and she had to put up with her father's alcoholism and the lasting effects of her parents' deteriorating marriage. A tomboy, she was equally unpopular with her classmates. A picture of her in her high school yearbook carried the caption, "A.E. - the girl in brown who walks alone." When not escaping into nature, she dreamt of flight and saw her first aircraft at the Iowa State Fair. Amelia dreamed of being a success at something, even keeping a scrapbook of newspaper clippings of successful women to inspire her. As a young woman, she became interested in aviation and quickly became only the sixteenth women to get her pilot's license. Although not a great pilot, not even the best female aviator at the time, due mainly to her youth and looks, the press fell in love with her and began covering her stunts (especially with the later help of her husband). Advertisers and corporations loved her and she soon became the face of items that fit her "active living" lifestyle.

So what happened to Amelia? In all probability, the airplane simply ran out of gas and crashed into the ocean off of Howland. Given the sheer amount of area, the limited land masses, and the fact that they had no clue where they were, this seems the most likely scenario. Given the primitive search and rescue techniques of the time, without a specific location, finding a small plane in a huge ocean of blue would be near impossible. Another theory is that Earhart was so far off target, that they actually crashed on one of the Phoenix Islands, 350 miles southeast of Howland. A British colonial officer, Gerald Gallagher, claimed three years later, that he found the skeleton of a woman and a sextant box under a tree on one of the islands. Although the remains were misplaced in Fiji, later searches of the island uncovered some improvised tools, an aluminum panel that looked like it came from an airplane, some odd pieces of Plexiglas, and a size 9 Cat's Paw heel, the same size and kind of footwear she wore. Yet, there is no clear evidence that any of these items were Earhart's. Another crash site of interest to those seeking to solve the mystery is Rabaul. Others claim that Earhart and Noonan were spies for America and had survived their crash and been executed by the Japanese in Saipan. Another theory claims that the Japanese did not kill her instantly, but rather she was one of the numerous individuals who were Tokyo Rose and was later executed when her usefulness disappeared, or died in captivity. Maybe the wildest theory put forth about what happened to Amelia is that she survived the flight, moved to New Jersey, changed her name to Irene Craigmile Bolam, became a banker, remarried, and lived a peaceful life until she passed away in 1982. (A forensic expert studying photos of the two women concluded that they are not the same person.) What happened to her? Who knows? That is part of the fun of a mystery. Maybe she is playing cards with Jim Morrison, John Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe and reading this column for all I know.

To me, the most interesting mystery about Amelia Earhart is that Hollywood ignored her until the mid-1970s and until this movie only on the small screen. 1970s television cutie Susan Clark portrayed her in a self-titled 1976 biopic. In 1994, Diane Keaton, who is the embodiment of 1970s feminism, although a little long in the tooth at that point, did another tv biopic that focused on the final flight. Why no one suggested in the 1970s or 80s that she do a silver screen version is beyond me. The only one who would have been more perfect in the part would have been a young Katherine Hepburn. Both Keaton and Hepburn were the living embodiment of Earhart's ethos. The only actress in today's cinema who I can picture in the part is Hilary Swank, and thank goodness Hollywood has finally got around to making this picture. Although she has never become an A-list leading lady, she has two Academy Awards for Best Actress for Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby. Much like Hepburn before her, Tinseltown has never quite known how to cast her. Her looks are too boyish and athletic to fill the traditional lead actress mode. The television sitcom "The Office" even devoted a show as to whether she is hot or not. It was not until PS I Love You that the major studios even saw her as a bankable star. 2009 is her year to scream that she wants a third Oscar and she will certainly be nominated for this or Betty Anne Waters. Swank is perfect as Amelia and the movie is decent enough for a biopic to merit this discussion. Ewan McGregor and Richard Gere help fill out the background of this pic.

Verdict: Oscar Nomination For Swank