373: Amelia with Chris Williamson

00:00:00:25 – 00:00:17:26
Dan LeFebvre
Before we dig into some of the key plot points from 2009. Amelia, let’s take a step back and look at the movie from an overall perspective and how it captures Amelia Earhart story. If you were to give it a letter grade for its historical accuracy or what it get.

00:00:17:29 – 00:00:46:03
Chris Williamson
Start off with the hard questions. Dan. You know, that’s a tough one. Maybe a C+ or B-, if I’m feeling really generous. It really depends on the day. You know, the film covers the basics. It covers the Atlantic flight, covers her marriage to Putnam. The election, her disappearance. Wow. It was only cover the disappearance, but it kind of like, preludes it in kind of a precursor for the disappearance and kind of ends on that, which is kind of, you know, haunting, it kind of simplifies who Earhart was.

00:00:46:03 – 00:01:00:02
Chris Williamson
You know, her heart was a very complex person. She’s a very complex woman. She had a lot of different, you know, sides to her. And, some of the events are sort of, according to me, sort of a little bit overly tweaked and overly analyzed and maybe kind of a little bit of movie magic is kind of thrown in there.

00:01:00:02 – 00:01:18:27
Chris Williamson
And they’ve taken some liberties, which you can’t really, but it is a historical piece, but you can’t really, you know, there’s there’s there’s so much of a mystery to this. It’s hard to not take some kind of historical liberty a little bit here and there, especially when it comes to some of the characters that came in and out of her life, specifically toward the end, like Fred Noonan and stuff, which I’m sure we’ll get into, as we get further in the conversation.

00:01:18:27 – 00:01:21:27
Chris Williamson
But, yeah, you know, a c-plus maybe a B-minus.

00:01:21:29 – 00:01:38:29
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, that’s I mean, like you said, I mean, again, it is movie and entertainment, but, you know, every movie makes different changes and the creative decisions that they do to, to tell a historical story. So I’m always curious just kind of get that overall general sense. Where is the ballpark here on this.

00:01:39:01 – 00:02:02:21
Chris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. They they did a they did a good job with it. You know overall I mean it wasn’t again historical accuracy is is picked apart I think in every film. I think it’s very rare that that film gets it like you know spot on or pretty close to spot on. This one, obviously, Amelia’s life was, one of our guest, Laurie, who just has a book out, currently said, you know, Amelia’s first few years of her career was like the first reality show.

00:02:02:21 – 00:02:21:12
Chris Williamson
She was like, cast, you know, cast in this and this part, which will, of course, get into probably the next few questions. But yeah, it’s it’s it, you know, when you have stuff like that, it takes a lot of creative liberty to sort of tell the story, especially when you have limited sources and limited time. And, and her movie studio that I’m sure wants to put certain things into the film and all that.

00:02:21:12 – 00:02:45:19
Dan LeFebvre
So you mentioned what my next question is going to be, because at the very beginning of the movie, we learned that a man named George Putnam, he published Charles Lindbergh book in 1927. And then George gets financing from a socialite named Amy Guess to find a woman to be the first to fly across the Atlantic. And there’s a contract here that we learn about in the movie to tell this woman’s story in The New York Times and also to write a book about it.

00:02:45:25 – 00:03:13:00
Dan LeFebvre
But all that money is going to go back to Mrs. Guest as the financier. And then George finds Amelia Earhart, and that’s how she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928. Although the movie shows Amelia being a passenger, the pilot is a man named Bill Stultz and navigator is Slim Gordon, but according to yeah, according to George in the movie, the pilot signed a deal to say that Amelia is the commander, so it kind of makes it sound like she was the one in charge.

00:03:13:00 – 00:03:23:20
Dan LeFebvre
Although when we’re riding along in the movie, it also shows that Amelia is pretty much just along for the ride. How well does the movie do? You set up Amelia Earhart Trip across the Atlantic in 1928?

00:03:23:22 – 00:03:43:00
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it gets it gets a lot of the again, a lot of the basic foundational stuff. Right? I mean, Putnam was involved with with Lombard’s book prior, he had made a name for himself prior to Earhart walking into his office. Annie Guest is a really interesting woman. Amy. Guest. You think about the time, you know, this is 20, 27, 28.

00:03:43:02 – 00:04:07:26
Chris Williamson
This woman was a billionaire with a B. So at that time, you know, she was she really wanted to go on the flight herself. The whole vehicle was, was initially meant to be for her. Amy Phipps guest wanted to be the first woman across the Atlantic. And her family or kids specifically said, hell no, you’re not going to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic because so many people have already died, women included, trying to attempt this.

00:04:07:28 – 00:04:25:28
Chris Williamson
And so credit to Amy Gast, who didn’t poo poo the entire who saw the bigger picture. It didn’t poo poo the fly just because she wasn’t going to be the star of the show. She, you know, asked George Putnam and and to come up with, you know, the right American pilot or the right woman, you know, to to do this.

00:04:25:28 – 00:04:45:03
Chris Williamson
And and Earhart at the time was in 28. You have to understand, she wasn’t, you know, her flights and she was flying for the fun of it, but she was flying a lot of that time to promote, you know, the the Dennison house and the social work that she was doing in Boston. And she wasn’t really about the she wasn’t looking for her next big step.

00:04:45:05 – 00:05:02:10
Chris Williamson
But when it came, it was kind of out of left field. And, you know, there’s a lot of a lot of infamous, interactions between, you know, her first interaction with George Putnam wasn’t very positive. She thought he was a pompous. You know, I can’t know if I can cuss on the show, but she thought he was a pompous asshole, you know?

00:05:02:10 – 00:05:30:01
Chris Williamson
And she really didn’t. You know, she really didn’t feel like he was, you know, a very, very, a very good guy, calling her the commander. Yeah, it definitely was a PR move. They wanted. They wanted Earhart, though, to feel like she had some power in the flight. And she did exercise that power. You know, there she had a lifelong issue with alcoholism and drinking, and she despised really people that did and, you know, went all the way back to her father when she was a little girl.

00:05:30:03 – 00:05:48:16
Chris Williamson
It will appear again with Fred Noonan as we get further into this conversation. And it appeared here in the, in the 28, the friendship flight. And, you know, they were drunk, these guys were drunk. And she was just, you know, she was beside herself and she really took it seriously because to her, this wasn’t just another flight to her, this was her chance at making history.

00:05:48:23 – 00:06:04:13
Chris Williamson
And these guys were kind of sort of, you know, not taking it as seriously as she would have liked it. But yeah, that’s that’s all fairly accurate. I mean, Putnam, you know, he comes her husband later, he plays a big role in her public image. Obviously. We talk about that a lot today. But calling her the commander wasn’t.

00:06:04:15 – 00:06:11:19
Chris Williamson
It wasn’t about deception, necessarily, but it it definitely was a PR move to help sort of launcher into the stratosphere, which, you know, he was right.

00:06:11:21 – 00:06:42:17
Dan LeFebvre
I think we do see a little clip of that in the movie. There’s a scene I remember even before they took off, one of the guys was drinking and and Mayo comes in and basically tells him off. You know, she clearly doesn’t like that he’s drinking and he’s, you know, and when I was watching that, I guess I if I think she remember she mentioned something about her father, but the impression that I got was, also like, you’re going to be flying this plane and my life is on the line here, and, you know, do your job, and they.

00:06:42:18 – 00:06:59:24
Chris Williamson
Say, I don’t want to die. Yeah, I don’t want to be another statistic. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, she was very serious about it. She had dreamed about this moment, but she had kind of put it away, you know, and then it kind of came roaring back into her life and, in a very earth shattering way, and, you know, in the form of the 28 flight.

00:06:59:24 – 00:07:04:21
Chris Williamson
So, yeah, it changed everything for her. And she took it very seriously. She was not happy with them drinking on that flight.

00:07:04:24 – 00:07:20:19
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned earlier, kind of being cast in and in the movie, George basically tells Amelia that he picked her to be the pilot, not because of her skills, because, as the movie puts it, pretty girls command more attention. So is it true that Amelia was recruited for basically her looks over experience like the movie suggests?

00:07:20:21 – 00:07:36:02
Chris Williamson
Yeah, I think so. I mean, at first she definitely was, you know, they wanted an American girl. Like I said earlier in the chat, I mean, it was a reality casting it was an early phase of reality casting. That’s really what it was. They were looking for somebody that would fit the bill. That would look the part.

00:07:36:08 – 00:07:55:27
Chris Williamson
You know, the whole Lady Lindy thing was a real thing. He wanted to he wanted to basically copy Charles Lindbergh. And just make a female version of Charles Lindbergh. And, you know, he was definitely successful at that. The man, you know, was brilliant when it came to PR and kind of, you know, what he was doing.

00:07:55:27 – 00:08:12:15
Chris Williamson
He knew exactly where he wanted to go with Amelia. And I think, you know, she sort of had that tunnel vision that a lot of people maybe didn’t around him, other than maybe Amelia herself. Once they got together, that was like a whole nother, whole nother thing. He kind of supercharged her career, so. But, yeah, I would say it’s it’s it’s largely right.

00:08:12:15 – 00:08:27:09
Chris Williamson
I mean, looks played a role in it. She looked like, you know, she was a pretty woman. You know, she, had all these jobs. She had all this top, these ties into the backbone of America. Like, it just made a lot of sense and a lot of different ways. But I’d be lying if I said looks wasn’t a big part of it.

00:08:27:09 – 00:08:28:15
Chris Williamson
Of course. Yeah, yeah.

00:08:28:17 – 00:08:49:27
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that leads right into my next question. Because in the movie, after after the successful trip across the Atlantic, when Amelia returns to the U.S., she instantly becomes a celebrity and in addition to the book deal, now we start to find out that George seems to have turned the trip into other moneymaking opportunities. You mentioned the Lucky Strike Cigarets that he kind of snuck in there, and not to get too far ahead of where we are in the movie’s timeline.

00:08:49:27 – 00:09:18:09
Dan LeFebvre
But about halfway through the movie, we also see Amelia doing things like commercials for her own brand of luggage and clothing. And we see then George talking about how he convinced Purdue University to pay 80,000 for the electric plane that Amelia flew around the world. That, of course, we’ll talk about later in our discussion. But the impression that I got then was, as I was watching the movie here was basically Amy guess financed the first flight, but then after that it was kind of George Putnam, who basically secured sponsors to finance both himself and Amelia’s career.

00:09:18:11 – 00:09:21:27
Dan LeFebvre
Is that really how Amelia Earhart earned money for her flying career?

00:09:21:29 – 00:09:39:00
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it’s pretty spot on. Earhart don’t, you know, worked a lot of jobs, worked a lot of jobs before she became famous. And that didn’t change when she became famous. Just the job type changed. That’s all it was. You know, he was obviously, you know, the the best of the best of publicity. He wasted no time.

00:09:39:00 – 00:09:56:04
Chris Williamson
He got into, like, as you mentioned, speaking gigs, endorsement deals, magazine features, the Lucky Strike ad that you mentioned. She wasn’t happy with that. She kind of later regretted that, you know, tying her her face and her her likeness, her name to cigarets. But, you know, that was all sort of part of, like, this, this large branding effort.

00:09:56:04 – 00:10:16:15
Chris Williamson
I mean, they wanted to explode her into the stratosphere. They wanted to make her paste her face everywhere. It’s really not unlike what they do with, you know, celebrities today when you see certain names and they’re just they’re everywhere. All of a sudden they’re advertising for everybody. You know, it’s a I compare kind of very different, but I compare it to when Patrick Mahomes were, you know, around Kansas City here when he became really big.

00:10:16:23 – 00:10:35:24
Chris Williamson
I mean, he was he’s advertising everything out here in Kansas City. It’s everything banks and Whataburger and like just all kinds of things, you know, you name it. So it’s not like it’s not very different. I think, George, I’m just kind of was, was doing it in the 20s, you know, and doing it in the 30s, up until Amelia disappeared.

00:10:35:26 – 00:10:55:08
Chris Williamson
But she wasn’t just along for the ride. I mean, I think she, you know, she we’ve talked about this a lot on the show. She helped shape her own image. She was a very, strong woman. She had a lot of goals. You know, she had no problem, you know, doing what she needed to do to to achieve those goals.

00:10:55:10 – 00:11:12:25
Chris Williamson
You know, she had her own luggage set, her own clothing line. She was a editor for cosmopolitan. I mean, this woman was everywhere. And, you know, the Purdue connection to to just kind of wrap it up. It’s legit. She was brought in by the then president, Purdue. I’m forgetting Eliot. I forgot his name for a second.

00:11:12:27 – 00:11:33:00
Chris Williamson
He saw her. She had already been speaking on the lecture circuit, and he saw her, and he was like, Holy shit. This woman is, like, amazing. You know, this woman is amazing. She’s she’s garnering, you know, all of this following and all these people are just mesmerized by her, I think to to Eliot’s credit, he saw that and brought her into to Purdue, and helped her fund her.

00:11:33:00 – 00:12:00:16
Chris Williamson
You know, her electric. They even called it the the flying laboratory. She was given a special designation, a career counselor for women, if I’m not mistaken, or something along the lines of that. This is a woman who was in classrooms in Purdue in the 20s, 100 years ahead of her time talking about things like Stem, you know, science, technology, you know, engineering mathematics, trying to get a lot of women and men really, for that matter.

00:12:00:18 – 00:12:18:12
Chris Williamson
But women specifically to say, look, you don’t have to get a general degree and go back into the home, and, well, now you got to go get married. No, you can fly. You can do, you know, you can get in mathematics, you can be an engineer, you can be a mechanic, things like that. So a lot of that is very, the groundwork that the movie lays is, is very good, is very solid.

00:12:18:12 – 00:12:21:13
Chris Williamson
And, it hits a lot of the big strides. You know.

00:12:21:16 – 00:12:41:03
Dan LeFebvre
I can understand in the movie, you know, just not getting into that side of it, you know, there would be a lot of time to, to get into her, promoting that kind of stuff. But it’s fascinating that she. You’re talking about you on reality show ahead of the time, but it sounds like she was really ahead of her time, too, like in and what she was promoting there with, women in Stem and stuff like that.

00:12:41:03 – 00:12:44:20
Dan LeFebvre
I can imagine that was very popular back in the 1920s.

00:12:44:22 – 00:13:06:29
Chris Williamson
Yeah. And it was very important to her, very important to her. She was a champion of of women. She was a champion of aviation. You know, she wanted to be on the front line. She saw no problem with, really the fame that she, you know, she was a sort of a double a walking, double edged sword. I mean, she loved to, she loved her privacy.

00:13:07:01 – 00:13:19:07
Chris Williamson
I think there was a man that she dated to go to take it back a little bit, and I know we’re jumping around, but to take it backwards a little bit before she met George, there was a man and I. I’m remiss if I didn’t say this, that she, that she met, that she was engaged to. His name was Sam Chapman.

00:13:19:09 – 00:13:41:06
Chris Williamson
And Sam Chapman was, in my opinion, was really the love of her life. And he was, you know, if you look him up, he was fiercely private. He protected that privacy. There were, moments in the middle of Earhart’s career, early in her career, where they were still together. This is before she, you know, got engaged and started having an affair with George and Mary.

00:13:41:06 – 00:14:05:09
Chris Williamson
George, where they would spend time together, they would drive up the coast after she got back from a flight. And it spent 3 or 4 hours together before she had to be rushed back to her, her schedule, you know, the rest of her stuff. But she was very much in love with Sam, to the point that if she had trusted him, specifically with, you know, what to do with everything after she died, if she didn’t make it across, you know, the transatlantic flight or her solo.

00:14:05:09 – 00:14:24:22
Chris Williamson
I mean, she was really. She really loved him, really trusted him. So Sam was, I think, the love of her life. But George Putnam was just a natural fit. And it, you know, it just kind of worked out for for Amelia, when it comes to the publicity side of things that she happened to be with, you know, have somebody in her pocket that was, probably the best she could have at the time.

00:14:24:25 – 00:14:45:13
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I wonder if some of that leads into my next question. Because if you go back to the movie, we see George and Amelia, it’s it their relationship transitioned from a strictly professional one to a romantic one as well. And he’s the one that seems to be more entirely smitten with her and wants to get married. And even though she does seem to eventually love him, she doesn’t want to commit to a marriage.

00:14:45:13 – 00:14:59:07
Dan LeFebvre
And maybe some of what you were just talking about kind of alluded to that. But then skipping ahead in the timeline of the movie a little bit later on, George eventually does convince her to marry him. Do you think the movie does a good job telling the true story of George and Amelia’s relationship?

00:14:59:10 – 00:15:26:11
Chris Williamson
It gets the broad strokes right. You know, it’s such a deep relationship. There’s a book, I will promote it. It’s not mine. It’s you’ve probably heard of it. It’s called The Aviator and the showman. It’s by Lori King Shapiro. It just dropped. We just had Lori was the most current episode of our show, and, you know, that relationship, if you really want to know the the the gritty, nitty gritty details, you know, read that book because it there’s so much more to that relationship.

00:15:26:13 – 00:15:46:24
Chris Williamson
And Lori did a fantastic job of uncovering some new information that hadn’t been previously known, historically, but it does get the the broad strokes, for the most part, fairly accurate. He was very persistent. He pushed. I mean, I can appreciate that. I, as soon as I saw my wife, I, I told my friend like, that’s my wife, she doesn’t know yet, but I’m going to marry her.

00:15:46:24 – 00:16:23:10
Chris Williamson
And it took me a little while, but I was very persistent. So I can I can admire that persistence, in Mr. Putnam. But she was obviously much more hesitant. She, you know, she valued her independence, really, above anything else, her flying, her public life, all her private relationships and things of that nature. And, and, you know, she wrote a really famous letter to George, and I’m paraphrasing, but she talks about her reluctance to marry him, and, you know, that marrying him sort of shatters any chances, in work and her work, which really meant, more than anything, getting women in aviation out there.

00:16:23:10 – 00:16:41:21
Chris Williamson
And really, the mission, the cause was the most important thing to her more than anything else. And, you know, she tells him famously in that letter, you got to let me go in a year. If if we don’t find happiness, you know, even though it’s an attractive cage, I can’t stay in a cage. And you got to promise you’ll let me go in a year.

00:16:41:23 – 00:17:06:16
Chris Williamson
I won’t hold you to any medieval, you know, marital obligations. And you don’t hold me to any marital obligations, either. And she was again, what, 100 year? I mean, people, I mean, this is way off topic, but if you look at like the the status of like marriage, now, you know, just how much open marriage is there, how much that, you know, this is in the Jazz age, a hundred years ago almost.

00:17:06:18 – 00:17:34:18
Chris Williamson
And, you know, open marriage. It’s weird how it comes around in circles like that was a very common thing at that time, and it just wasn’t really talked about. But the people that were really well known that were sort of in those circles, like Amelia Earhart and George Putnam, I once those things started to get out, I mean, people were like, well, of course, you know, it was because it was the Jazz Age and it was everybody was having affairs and everybody was sleeping around and everybody was, you know, had the sort of loose lips kind of look at marriage and long term relationships.

00:17:34:18 – 00:17:42:02
Chris Williamson
So, you know, people could argue that she was way ahead of her time or people could say that, well, just everybody was doing that at the time. That was just kind of the way the world is.

00:17:42:02 – 00:18:01:12
Dan LeFebvre
Since we are on the topic of Amelia’s personal relationships, another one that we see in the movie is Jean Vidal, who also works with Amelia for a little bit while, and we don’t really see them sleeping together in the movie, although there is a scene where we see Jean and Amelia kissing in an elevator. So the impression that I got was that Amelia probably had an affair with Jean while she was married to George.

00:18:01:15 – 00:18:05:28
Dan LeFebvre
Was there a romantic relationship between May and Jean?

00:18:06:00 – 00:18:24:17
Chris Williamson
Maybe. You know, we don’t have we don’t have any there. So I will tell you this. There’s no definitive proof. So the film does take liberty there with the elevator kiss I, which I’d forgotten about. I just remember that, as you told me, was like, oh, yeah, she did. Yeah, she did sneak a kiss in the elevator. There’s no definitive proof that they ever had a relationship.

00:18:24:17 – 00:18:52:15
Chris Williamson
They were friends. They were close as a you know, she was with a lot of people. He was Jean was obviously, he was the, the father of of, Gore Vidal, the who was a writer. And Gore is, really the one that sort of, kept this rumor alive, for lack of a better phrase. But, you know, Gore was a fantasy writer, and he was a kid, you know, when he would have seen Amelia with with Jean.

00:18:52:22 – 00:19:08:24
Chris Williamson
And, you know, doesn’t mean that if we’re, you know, six, seven years old, we don’t remember things that we see, you know, definitively. But, you know, you sort of take that into consideration that in combination with there never being a physical or any any kind of proof or any letters between the two of them, then that would, that would say, you know, hey, we were romantic together or anything like that.

00:19:08:27 – 00:19:23:09
Chris Williamson
There’s just no, there’s to use a term from the disappearance. There’s no smoking gun for that. So, you know, it’s it’s rumor and innuendo to to which there is an awful lot, when it comes to Amelia Earhart, both pre death and certainly post death.

00:19:23:15 – 00:19:44:28
Dan LeFebvre
So it sounds like maybe the movie and a movie do this a lot. You know, you have this one little, little fact you’re talking about, open relationships being a bigger thing. And then this other element of it and they’re like, okay, we’re just going to connect these dots and just kind of fill in some of those gaps, even if there’s not, a dot in the middle of of proof that we know, but it’s a movie and we have that creative license to do that.

00:19:44:28 – 00:19:46:07
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like that’s kind of what they’re doing there.

00:19:46:14 – 00:19:51:08
Chris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s that’s kind of what Hollywood does with a lot of. So yeah. Yeah.

00:19:51:08 – 00:20:18:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, speaking of Amelia Earhart, supporting other women, one of the other women aviators in the movie that we see is Eleanor Smith. And the movie shows Amelia being very supportive of Miss Smith and really, any other women fighters that she comes across. But when Amelia isn’t around, George tries to convince Eleanor to purposely let Amelia win a derby flight from Santa Monica to Cleveland to as the movie puts it, benefits women fliers everywhere.

00:20:18:26 – 00:20:41:26
Dan LeFebvre
And of course, the sponsorships that the movie shows, I’m sure would also benefit him financially too. But then we see Amelia coming in third behind Louise Hayden and Gladys O’Donnell. Anyway, so the movie is really unclear if George’s influence had any effect on that outcome. Does the movie accurately portray the different perspectives that Amelia Earhart and George Putnam had on other women fighters, like Eleanor Smith?

00:20:41:29 – 00:21:16:18
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it does. So I will tell you, it’s it does portrayed accurately. Amelia, you’re right 100%. Amelia was very friendly with all of her compatriots, the people that, you know, fellow 90 nines people that she was flying with, people in the air, dirty races, other female aviators. She was very sweet. And I think if you look at any of the, documentation that’s out there, you’re going to be hard pressed to find, an instance where Amelia ever, like, cussed another female aviator out or any or anything like that, or, you know, she showed more than minor frustrations, you know, of of things.

00:21:16:21 – 00:21:37:04
Chris Williamson
But it wasn’t with anybody in particular. Eleanor Smith was an absolute animal when it came to fly. She was one of the best fliers ever. She was a fantastic aviator, and she was technically a much more skilled pilot. Admitted by Amelia herself. Amelia has said several times on record that, you know, she’s not the most talented pilot.

00:21:37:04 – 00:22:03:13
Chris Williamson
If you talk to, a lot of aviation history historians, they’ll tell you about people like Pancho Barnes. They’ll tell you about Florence Clayton Smith. I’ll tell you about Ruth Elder Ruth Nichols, Eleanor Smith. I mean, there’s dozens and dozens and dozens of women, that were incredible fliers. George, while that particular event, with the the, the Air Derby race with Eleanor Smith, that particular event was fictionalized.

00:22:03:13 – 00:22:22:25
Chris Williamson
It was more of a representation of kind of what he would do. So, you know, yes, he did, try to influence negatively and pressure a lot of the other women and try to tell them things, like, you know, they wouldn’t have a career if, you know, they didn’t allow Earhart to do dot, dot, dot or whatever.

00:22:22:27 – 00:22:40:17
Chris Williamson
Now, Earhart and, and, and Putnam were sort of at odds with that. But Earhart obviously didn’t know a lot of a lot of that stuff. I think that, you know, or that were instances where Earhart found out that George Putnam was pressuring people and she would go talk to George and tell them, like, look, this is important. You know, you can’t be talking to women like this.

00:22:40:17 – 00:22:59:21
Chris Williamson
You can’t be, you know, talking to my compatriots like this. So, yeah, I mean, that particular moment. No. But did that stuff happen all the time? Absolutely. I mean, George was fiercely competitive and wanted Earhart to be the woman, the face of aviation. And, you know, to his credit, we’re still sitting here talking about her.

00:22:59:21 – 00:23:01:27
Chris Williamson
And so he must have done something right.

00:23:02:00 – 00:23:15:25
Dan LeFebvre
I guess sometimes. Yeah. When you’re, in PR like that, you got to kind of do what you got to do, and he’s doing his job. But then Amelia being, you know, married to her job, it sounds like, you’re going to but has an end be at odds. Sometimes it seems.

00:23:15:27 – 00:23:32:11
Chris Williamson
Yeah, sometimes I mean, it it’s it’s, you know, he was he was brutal, but I don’t I don’t think George had a problem being the bad guy. You know, when it came to that, if it if it resolve the mission and if it got them to where they needed to be, I, I really don’t I don’t think he had a problem with that.

00:23:32:11 – 00:23:36:05
Chris Williamson
He just wasn’t the kind of guy that had a problem with that. You know, it was just business. It was a personal.

00:23:36:11 – 00:24:02:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie after being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger, the movie then shows Amelia wanting to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. And that happens in 1932. We see her leaving new Jersey with the plan to arrive in Paris, and then there’s some issues with the storm and icing along the way, and the movie shows her landing successfully in Gallagher’s pasture, which just seems to be a random farm in Ireland, as she’s greeted by Shepherd and his sheep.

00:24:02:09 – 00:24:19:00
Dan LeFebvre
But still, it’s a successful flight across the Atlantic and makes history for the first nonstop solo flight for a woman. And the only. This movie mentions the second person, following Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight. How well does the movie do? Showing Amelia Earhart historic flight across the Atlantic in 1932?

00:24:19:03 – 00:24:44:28
Chris Williamson
Yeah. It’s pretty it’s pretty accurate. For the most part. As far as everything you laid out, where she landed, where she started from, you know, the inclement weather, to say the least. I mean, she was in an open weather cockpit, so. I mean, that Vega. So, I mean, you weren’t in an Electra like she was, you know, in 37 where she had some cover, so she was just getting dumped on with everything that, you know, the good Lord was throwing at her, while she was going across the Atlantic.

00:24:45:00 – 00:25:06:02
Chris Williamson
And, you know, so this is this is the the this is the flight that if the French friendship flight made her world a world star, this shot her into the stratosphere. It earned her the Distinguished Flying Cross. You know, she was obviously, as you mentioned, the the, you know, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic right after, Lindbergh.

00:25:06:04 – 00:25:33:19
Chris Williamson
But the the the historical accuracy of of sort of like what she dealt with and kind of, you know, how she, handled the flight and the things that she sort of encountered was, was largely accurate. And, yeah, she did. The weather was so bad, it did blow her way off course. And she did end up in an Ireland in a cow pasture and, and, you know, it’s, you know, it’s one of those really famous stories that sort of makes her, America’s sweetheart, you know, keeps, gives, gives her that status of America’s sweetheart.

00:25:33:19 – 00:25:49:05
Chris Williamson
You know, she arrives, you know, in Ireland and, and the guys, like, you know, when you come far and she’s like, come from America. You know, she she knew she was she knew what she was doing. She knew she had made it. I can’t imagine whether you land in the right spot or not just to touch ground.

00:25:49:05 – 00:26:04:22
Chris Williamson
After what she went through, I got to imagine you. She made it technically, even though she didn’t end up on the same spot that she planned out to be. She did, you know, make it across the Atlantic. And I can’t imagine the weight off her shoulders and really the vindication, right, that she probably must have felt, internally at that time.

00:26:04:22 – 00:26:20:27
Chris Williamson
You know, maybe we’ll never know because she never really talked about herself in a, in a really, like, a pompous way or anything. If she talked any kind of business at all, it was just about women in general, women in aviation. And women can do the things that men could do, and all that jazz. But yeah, I mean, it largely gets it, right.

00:26:20:27 – 00:26:27:09
Chris Williamson
I mean, for the most part, again, broad, broad strokes, but pretty accurate for what she had to endure.

00:26:27:11 – 00:26:48:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I could imagine what that would be like, especially because that first flight she was mostly a, I mean, a passenger you mentioned, you know, she did have some some control there too, but not she wasn’t the pilot, which is what she wanted to do. And then I can imagine with, people like Eleanor Smith who was actually a great pilot, and I, I could imagine internally, you’re starting to feel like, can I actually do this?

00:26:48:22 – 00:26:57:23
Dan LeFebvre
Like, is this something I could actually do, starting to have some of those doubts. So just imagine. Yeah, that has to be a huge weight off. Like, yeah, I, I can do this.

00:26:57:26 – 00:27:22:18
Chris Williamson
You can do it. And in that Vega which is a gorgeous planet. And the Smithsonian, I’ve stood underneath it. It’s such a beautiful plane. And, you know, a very strong plane for its time. But by today’s standards, it’s, you know, very basic, very unforgiving, very loud. Imagine navigating a flight like that with, you know, no GPS, no modern instruments, you know, near freezing temperatures, rain dumped on your face and then doing it alone.

00:27:22:18 – 00:27:38:18
Chris Williamson
Right? I mean, doing it alone. You have nobody you can really talk to. You have no one to lean on. It’s just you and that ocean. And, it must have been horrifying. But she was, you know, she she loved it. It’s all she ever wanted to do from the first moment she saw it. And it clicked for her.

00:27:38:18 – 00:27:55:27
Chris Williamson
It was what she wanted. And I think, she just didn’t see, you know, she saw the fear. But I don’t know. I can’t really explain her fearlessness. It was kind of different, which makes her very final moments historically recorded, that much more haunting, which we’ll get to toward the end. Yeah.

00:27:55:29 – 00:28:16:25
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I love that you mentioned, you know, as you were saying, I was like, I gotta I gotta use GPS to get to the grocery store, right? I mean, these days we just rely on it, right? It’s just so right. You just comin. You just doesn’t matter. You just get used to that and just follow that line. Or, you know, when you’re falling asleep while you’re driving, I’m gonna roll the window down a little bit and be a little cool, but that’s a whole other level of just an open cockpit and and altitude and.

00:28:16:25 – 00:28:17:21
Dan LeFebvre
Oof! Yeah.

00:28:17:23 – 00:28:27:22
Chris Williamson
How loud? Yeah. And how loud. It must have been the whole time. And you’re, you know. Yeah. All that, just all that together would have been very difficult to overcome at that time.

00:28:27:25 – 00:28:47:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, in the movie there are a few achievements that are really just mentioned only briefly. There’s a headline that says Amelia took an auto gyro of 19,000ft to set a new altitude record. There’s another one that mentions her being the first to achieve a solo flight from Hawaii to California. These are all just kind of headlines that we see passed by very quickly in the movie.

00:28:47:04 – 00:28:54:13
Dan LeFebvre
But can you fill in some more historical details around some of the aviation records that Emily Earhart set in the movie, that it doesn’t really show us?

00:28:54:16 – 00:29:15:20
Chris Williamson
Yeah. The Autobots, I mean, I can flesh it out a little bit. The auto gyro is one of my favorite stories. It was sort of like this. It was sort of like a helicopter. It was like a like a prototype helicopter kind of aircraft. She took it up. 19th hour. Not quite nice about it was a little over 18,000ft, but pretty close to 19,000ft, you know, promptly crashed it.

00:29:15:22 – 00:29:34:26
Chris Williamson
You know, came down after the crash was fine. It was like. Yeah. You know, your auto gyro needs some improvements. But she said. But she set a record in it. So, you know, she did that, obviously. Big one. First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 32. We talked about that. You know, it was the Distinguished Flying Cross was a big deal across of the night of the Legion of Honor.

00:29:35:02 – 00:29:56:15
Chris Williamson
From France. I want to say, and, you know, she received a lot of awards for that, a lot of accolades. You know, first person, as you mentioned, a fly from Hawaii to California, a much, much funner flight than going across, the Atlantic. But, you know, it’s still very dangerous, 24,500 miles of ocean, I’m not mistaken.

00:29:56:18 – 00:30:11:23
Chris Williamson
And, you know, not even Lindbergh had done it, you know? So, like, she was, she was now. So she had done what Lindbergh had done. And she’s like, all right, now I’m going to take this five steps forward now, and I’m just going to make the history books, not forget about Charles Lindbergh, but I’m going to dwarf Charles Lindbergh.

00:30:11:25 – 00:30:28:18
Chris Williamson
You know, she really I felt that she really wanted to do that because she wanted to do it for women. She, you know, I mean, it was the. I think that was the first. It was the first flight from the from the mainland US to Hawaii, if I’m not mistaken. I could be wrong, man or woman, but I think it was the first flight.

00:30:28:21 – 00:30:46:17
Chris Williamson
She flew across the, in 32. She also flew across the US, the United States, the continental United States, a Los Angeles to New Jersey, which is soon, which is interesting when you look at the the, disappearance stuff and some of the theories, and, speed records, you know, lots of speed records and other distance records.

00:30:46:24 – 00:31:10:10
Chris Williamson
She won some races, you know, she really boned up her navigation skills over time. And the for in those couple of years, you know, from 28 to like 32, 33, 34, 35, really try to get better. She flew from Mexico City to New Jersey, I believe, as well, and Los Angeles to Mexico City, like, so a bunch of, like a little, little flights, not little flights, but a bunch of smaller flights.

00:31:10:13 – 00:31:38:08
Chris Williamson
But she was just racking up records and racking up altitude records and speed records and all these things all along the way, and just becoming a better, you know, pilot. And then she sort of shifted into becoming sort of, this bigger than, bigger than just a pilot face, for women in aviation, for women in general, not just in aviation, but, aviation was sort of the, a launching pad for, for women to do things in general that she felt, they should be already doing.

00:31:38:10 – 00:31:59:17
Dan LeFebvre
I’m curious how much of that was pressure from George as PR because you think, you know, with PR, it’s s easier to to sell our new record a new something. And you know how much of that was her wanting to push, beyond Lindbergh and and promote women in aviation? How much of that was George B like, oh, we gotta top what we did last time.

00:31:59:17 – 00:32:01:18
Dan LeFebvre
Make a new record, do this?

00:32:01:21 – 00:32:25:22
Chris Williamson
Yeah. Both. Both. Sure. She she had her own reasons, certainly, for doing it. You know, don’t get me wrong, she, she loved, the fame, but I think she loved the fame for different reasons. I really think she saw the fame as a catalyst to get what she ultimately wanted, which was a women into the forefront of, you know, what would become modern day aviation at the time.

00:32:25:24 – 00:32:49:23
Chris Williamson
So, you know, George certainly pushed for more records, more flights, you know, it bumped up her lecture costs. It bumped up her, you know, more books. It bumped up, you know, more appearances. She was everywhere christening the cars. I mean, doing all kinds. I mean, the blimps, you know, she’d come out, she’d make an appearance somewhere, like a planned appearance.

00:32:49:25 – 00:33:07:24
Chris Williamson
And, you know, there would be 10,000 people there to see her. I mean, you know, insane for this is, you know, in the 20s and the 30s. So this is, you know, you think, you think this would be someone that was modern, but this was like a Taylor Swift before Taylor Swift. This was like, you know, think pick any real famous female celebrity now, and you think I’m a celebrity.

00:33:07:24 – 00:33:24:04
Chris Williamson
Really? And it’s really she is that before them, which is really kind of interesting. She kind of set the groundwork for it. And then, you know, I think that kind of rolls into her role with Purdue kind of to kind of take it back to Purdue. I mean, that was when she really started speaking a lot more in the lecture circuit.

00:33:24:04 – 00:33:46:29
Chris Williamson
That’s when Edward Kelly comes along, sees her speaking, brings her into Purdue. You know, she’s, the first woman to receive a National Aeronautic Association license. You know, she’s one of the now, not the but one of the very first female instructors in aviation at her role at Purdue. Like, really amplifies that. And not to mention, she’s the president and the co-founder of the 99, which was is still going right now.

00:33:47:03 – 00:34:08:07
Chris Williamson
So, I mean, it’s, you know, not bad for someone whose career. But when you think about this, when she met George Putnam was 1928. She was gone in 37. So not even ten years later, she was gone. And, what’s really interesting about Earhart and what they try to maybe I’ll touch more on this at the end is, you know, we never really got to see her age.

00:34:08:10 – 00:34:29:27
Chris Williamson
We never got to see her become like this old, feeble woman. We didn’t see her die. And, you know, as an old lady in a bed, we just kind of saw her fly off into the sunset, and we don’t have a period on the end of that sentence, which is what makes films like 2009. Amelia was, you know, the one we’re talking about today and and flight for freedom and all those other films that that have been made over the years that have tie to Earhart in one shape, one way or another.

00:34:30:00 – 00:34:40:01
Chris Williamson
You know, it makes them very significant. And, you know, Amelia is one of those films I think that probably did it, probably did it best, you know, so far out of all the films. But, you know, there’s always room for improvement. Of course.

00:34:40:03 – 00:34:58:28
Dan LeFebvre
What were her lectures like? Was she teaching more like, teaching how to be a pilot? Because also we learned earlier, like her experience as a pilot was she admitted, was not as great as some others. Or was she more just kind of recounting her adventures? Well, I call them adventures, but, you know, terrifying adventures in some of them.

00:34:58:28 – 00:35:04:04
Dan LeFebvre
But, you know, these flights was was it more just kind of here’s what I’ve done or is it more teaching?

00:35:04:06 – 00:35:21:22
Chris Williamson
I think it was a little bit of both. She talked on the lecture circuit for sure. For sure. She was talking about her, her adventurous, great work. I mean, that’s exactly what she would probably have used. And, you know, but when it came to being in the classroom, I mean, this is a woman who, you know, gritty was in the classroom, spent time, you know, she ate at Purdue.

00:35:21:23 – 00:35:49:04
Chris Williamson
She lived, you know, she stayed at Purdue. I mean, she was there. She was all in, and in the classrooms. I think it was more of a, you know, talking to women, motivating women, being in the classroom, being one on one, with female students, male students, they also had built she had also gotten Purdue to build a, a mechanics lab, an aviation mechanics lab that was going to be there, that was going to be, was going to sort of take the spotlight when she returned from the world flight.

00:35:49:09 – 00:36:19:18
Chris Williamson
And it was just, a lab that, you know, anybody, male or female, could go in there and tinker with engines and could, you know, look at the ins and outs of the mechanics of how airplanes worked. And not just airplanes, but just, you know, other things. They called her the Electra, the flying laboratory, because she was going to take, you know, air samples, water samples, land samples from all around the world and bring those back to Purdue, so they can sort of study maybe parts of the world that hadn’t really been heavily traveled yet, or at least by modern people.

00:36:19:21 – 00:36:36:09
Chris Williamson
And, you know, that, again, ties into some of the theory and some of the some of the disappearance ideas and stuff. But, you know, she was definitely she was lecturing, broad spectrum, broad strokes, talking about her adventures. And then in the classroom, it allowed her to get into the more nitty gritty and get, you know, one on one with people.

00:36:36:09 – 00:36:40:04
Chris Williamson
And she did both very well to a very, very high degree.

00:36:40:06 – 00:36:47:06
Dan LeFebvre
That ties right into what you’re talking about, you know, her wanting to push women in Stem, I mean, lead by example, right? It seems like that’s exactly what she was doing.

00:36:47:09 – 00:37:06:16
Chris Williamson
Absolutely. She was the definition of like, you know, the say like a real leader is, is going to be there with you. They’re not going to be shouting instructions. They’re going to be doing it. And she she was doing it. I mean, she wasn’t you know, this is a woman who had God, I couldn’t even tell you how many different jobs that she had to, to, to support her flying.

00:37:06:18 – 00:37:25:28
Chris Williamson
Now again, there has been some new information that’s come out, that would, maybe make you look at things a little bit differently. But, you know, I would say that wasn’t in the movie, for instance, it’s part of Laurie’s book. I it’s it’s kind of a big spoiler, but the book’s out now, so people can kind of can read it for themselves.

00:37:26:01 – 00:37:48:10
Chris Williamson
But Laurie’s one of Laurie’s big revelations in the book is that Amelia Earhart had, And this is her word, not mine. Had a sugar daddy. I had a much wealthier, older guy who actually bought her cars and bought her, you know, some of her plane. Not not her Electra, of course, but early in her career. And, so, you know, the whole idea of her having all these jobs and everything, that certainly did happen.

00:37:48:10 – 00:38:12:13
Chris Williamson
But, you know, she was a woman, and she knew how to use her, you know, her feminine wiles to use a term I hate. A but I just don’t have anything else to say, to kind of come up with. That’s better. I would say that she knew how to how to sort of flip that switch. I compare her a lot, to a Marilyn Monroe type figure where if you look at Marilyn’s history, Marilyn, and in the films and books and all that stuff, Marilyn could turn it on like a switch.

00:38:12:16 – 00:38:32:13
Chris Williamson
You know, she was very, very kind of a quiet, private person. But when she was in front of the media, it’s like, you know, okay, got to turn it on, got to go to work. And that’s kind of what what Earhart did. But she had, you know, she used everything in her power that she had to be able to acquire again, mission first, more than anything else, she had a she had a dream and she wanted to achieve it.

00:38:32:13 – 00:38:34:25
Chris Williamson
And damn, whatever she had to do to do it.

00:38:34:25 – 00:38:52:28
Dan LeFebvre
Well, we’ve talked a lot about the events, but something we haven’t really talked about much, a little bit here, but obviously everybody. Well, spoiler alert, we know what’s going to happen. But throughout the movie interspersed, we see Amelia’s flight around the world with Fred Noonan, and it’s not really till the end of the movie that it starts to focus on that flight.

00:38:52:28 – 00:39:13:07
Dan LeFebvre
So there’s a lot we can talk about with that. But according to the way it’s set up in the movie, it starts in Miami, June 1st, 1937, and that’s when Amelia meets Fred for what looks like in the movie. The first time. The movie suggests that he was hired for the flight because he’s the best celestial navigator of that time, and for Amelia’s flight around the world to be successful.

00:39:13:09 – 00:39:30:07
Dan LeFebvre
There’s one part that she’ll really need his help with, and that’s finding this tiny island called Howland Island, which is positioned roughly halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. The problem, according to the movie, is that Howland Island is less than two miles long, no, no taller than 18ft, making it next to impossible to see in the expanse of the ocean.

00:39:30:14 – 00:39:48:03
Dan LeFebvre
But that’s why it’s important to find, because, according to the movie, again, refueling mid-air is something beyond Amelia’s skill level. So they’d have to land to refuel and then finish the journey. Does the movie correctly set up the reasons why Fred Noonan joined Amelia Earhart as her navigator for the flight around the world?

00:39:48:05 – 00:40:06:26
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it doesn’t go into a lot. It touches on certain aspects of of Noonan’s character and who he was. You know, you put it perfectly. I couldn’t put it better myself. I say this all the time in media. If you were going to do a flight of that magnitude, that would be the guy that you would want to have on board the flight with you.

00:40:07:00 – 00:40:29:21
Chris Williamson
No question. If you look at his history, he was a big, big reason why Panam was was able to map so much of the Pacific that they were able to map, in the Atlantic as well. He was, a skilled, skilled celestial navigator, and he was the best in the world. And she believed in him. And, you know, it was it was important for Noonan.

00:40:29:21 – 00:40:52:14
Chris Williamson
He. This is a guy who was newly remarried at the time of of the flight, and he had dreams of his own. I think he he wanted to ultimately wanted to set up a navigation school post-World flight. I think he again, not only Amelia, but Fred and of course, and George Putnam, they were all looking at this flight as a way to basically set their life, for the back half of their careers.

00:40:52:16 – 00:41:16:21
Chris Williamson
And so, you know, it largely gets, you know, Noonan accurate. He did have a drinking problem. We talk about this all the time on the show. We’ve debated it heavily, unvarnished. A lot of experts now will tell you that a drunk Noonan is was probably better than 90% of sober navigators at the time. And, that Noonan was sort of a functional alcoholic.

00:41:16:21 – 00:41:39:04
Chris Williamson
So he could drink. You can get kind of plastered the night before, and he could show up for work and do his job, you know, to a very high ability, the next day. Now, Erhard didn’t like that. He drank. Clearly, it takes us back to the friendship flight. Takes us back to her. You know, her days with her father when you know they want to play cowboys and Indians and, you know, he would stumble in the house drunk, obviously, and they wouldn’t be able to, you know, play with them.

00:41:39:04 – 00:41:59:15
Chris Williamson
And he had to go pass out and, you know, so she really I mean, the alcoholism ran really deep, with her when it came to, you know, men and alcoholism. So, you know, Noonan, was a very excellent navigator, but he, you know, he had some demons. He had some issues. He respected Earhart. Earhart respected him.

00:41:59:18 – 00:42:17:13
Chris Williamson
I think they respect each other’s professional abilities. And, there’s even a quote somewhere in Oakland. I think early, or maybe even it was in Miami. And maybe I had him thinking about it where she was asked, about Fred Noonan, about navigation or about being lost, you know, making sure that Howland was something that they could hit.

00:42:17:15 – 00:42:37:27
Chris Williamson
Excuse me, could hit. And her response, I’m paraphrasing, was, I brought the best navigator in the world to make sure that that doesn’t happen, that, you know, we hit Howland, that we make it, we we finish our flight and we come home. She believed in him. Very much so. Yeah. How he met her, how he convinced her, you know, sort of the way they they talked and had their conversations.

00:42:38:00 – 00:42:47:20
Chris Williamson
He he was her best bet, and she knew it, and, she took a gamble, and it turns out it didn’t work out, you know? So, but, yeah, she believed it 100%.

00:42:47:27 – 00:43:02:28
Dan LeFebvre
So. Well, you touched on something briefly that we see in the movie, because the last stop in the movie that we see before Howland Island is in Papua New Guinea. And while they’re there, Fred and Amelia grab drinks a little bar to rest for the evening before taking off the next day. And then, of course, watching the movie.

00:43:03:01 – 00:43:24:24
Dan LeFebvre
We know what’s going to happen. It’s like watching the Titanic. You kind of know how you know what is going to happen at the end. But as I was watching this scene, I couldn’t help but pick up and at least two red flags that seem to suggest that there’s a problem. And one is that the movie implied Fred had a drinking problem, although he did flat out tell Amelia at one point in the movie that, his drinking has never affected his work.

00:43:24:24 – 00:43:44:04
Dan LeFebvre
Which kind of goes back to what you were talking about being a functional, alcoholic. But then secondly, after Amelia and Fred take off from Papua New Guinea, the guy at the airfield, a guy named Mr. Balfour, radios George Putnam to say that the headwinds were stronger than a million. Fred thought. So their plane had to use about 9% more fuel than they calculated.

00:43:44:06 – 00:44:00:22
Dan LeFebvre
And then on top of that, Mr. Balfour tries to hail them on the radio to let them know about this, but he’s not successful in doing that. So that tells me that perhaps a million Fred would be surprised by running out of fuel faster than they expected. Is there any truth to these potential problems as they left Papua New Guinea?

00:44:00:25 – 00:44:20:09
Chris Williamson
Oh yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot, the, the, Tom Detweiler, who was on our show, who was the operations manager for Titanic. And his resume is insane. He told me something that’s always stuck with me. And I say it every time I get the chance to say. And a lot of these accidents. It’s not. It’s never just one thing.

00:44:20:09 – 00:44:46:25
Chris Williamson
It’s the sum of a lot of little things that lead up to the end result. What we have. Right. One of those, surely. We’ll talk about a few of them. One was. Wait, they were really, really concerned about the aircraft. Amelia, was it has been quoted in papers leading up to that takeoff in particular. They have the take off in life or Howland she kept saying she was flying it weighted capacity, which is an interesting way to say it.

00:44:46:27 – 00:45:13:00
Chris Williamson
And they were throwing out everything you can imagine, including the raft, including some things that you would. That kind of boggles the mind. She left her pistol there. There’s a lot of things. They were counting the ounces, essentially, because they knew that, Lockheed’s specs, were meant that the the plane couldn’t weigh, more than a certain amount on a paved runway with a certain length to take off.

00:45:13:00 – 00:45:27:25
Chris Williamson
And they were they weren’t on a page from the way they were on a grass runway. As a matter of fact, there is footage of that last takeoff. You can see it on YouTube of them, actually. People at least shooting them, taking off, getting up onto the aircraft and taking off. By the way, Fred Noonan does not look drunk.

00:45:27:25 – 00:45:46:15
Chris Williamson
Not in the slightest. When they do that, and I will say, and I did mean to say this, I apologize. This is my fault. The the you did ask earlier, the movie does indicate that they met on, in Miami. They had flown previously together, so they that that is inaccurate. Technically, they had met each other and they he would he had been involved earlier in the flight.

00:45:46:15 – 00:46:04:22
Chris Williamson
They had the whole ground loop incident had a reverse course. That’s kind of a whole nother thing. But again, some of a lot of little things. Right. So, the headwinds certainly, the fuel certainly. That’s a big, big, big point of contention when it comes to theory. How much fuel did they actually leave late with?

00:46:04:24 – 00:46:27:04
Chris Williamson
Everything you’re talking about when it comes to Harry Balfour is 100% accurate. He tried to get in touch with them. He tried to, couldn’t receive the the, the Earhart. Noonan couldn’t receive his transmissions. They finally did receive his transmissions. And, they seemed to sort of, you know, make the adjustments and necessary adjustments needed to, to combat headwinds and things of that nature.

00:46:27:04 – 00:46:43:03
Chris Williamson
But, you know, we don’t know what was going on in the aircraft, essentially. That’s kind of the that’s kind of the rough part. And yeah, you’re right. If they had not anticipated those headwinds, now, a lot of people would say that the headwinds were, well, well known, in that in that part of the world at that time.

00:46:43:06 – 00:47:15:02
Chris Williamson
And there’s about half the people that would say that they weren’t discovered. Those headwinds that had been shipped wasn’t discovered until like five years after they were in the area. So headwinds would have been a big, factor in the end result and so would have obviously fuel and the lack of fuel. Which brings us to sort of, you know, the end of the of the film when there, you know, she’s saying all these really well known, historically famous lines, like we must, you know, we must be on you, but I cannot see you were on one five, seven, three, three, seven flying north and south, you know, all that stuff.

00:47:15:02 – 00:47:24:21
Chris Williamson
And her last word that she ever spoke on record was the word wait, which is an interesting, interesting word to choose as your last word.

00:47:24:23 – 00:47:44:02
Dan LeFebvre
Obviously the weight has would factor into the fuel, but would it also factor into speaking of of Howland? Just being a smaller island, being able to take off when you, as you were saying, that was part of the concern of weight, not as much getting there, but being able to take off from the island again.

00:47:44:04 – 00:47:58:19
Chris Williamson
Yeah, I think so. Taking off, in both cases from not only from Lee, but, you know, trying to anticipate Howland. Howland would have given him a little bit more run, a little bit more room to to run, to kind of get up off the ground and take off. And as you said, it was 18ft off the ground.

00:47:58:19 – 00:48:17:13
Chris Williamson
You know, lay was certainly not if you look at, them taking off and lay a lot of the, the bystanders, the witnesses said that it looked like they just the flame just went right off the cliff. And luckily she was able to like, you know, pull that stick and there was able to bear I mean, they barely they were in circles over the water until they were able to get enough, you know, between them on the water to get up off of it.

00:48:17:13 – 00:48:46:25
Chris Williamson
They almost died right there. You know, so Howland would have been a different situation because it’s obviously not the same, topography. And it’s not the same, you know, high three thing. But they had they also had the Itasca there, you know, off the coast of Howland, that’s also portrayed in the film. The Itasca was there and that they were there to do their job, which was to bring them in, help assist, bring them in, help them with R&R, get them, you know, rested up, refueled, and get them off to Hawaii to finish the last leg of the flight.

00:48:46:27 – 00:49:12:26
Chris Williamson
And, even with the Itasca there, you know, and the Itasca pulling the signals that they were pulling and all that stuff like they talked about at the end of the film, or that they show you at the end of the film. It’s it’s one of history’s greatest mysteries when it comes to why they couldn’t communicate with each other and why they couldn’t see each other, and why when Leo Ballard stepped outside the radio room expecting to see her coming right over on top of the Itasca, he didn’t see them anywhere.

00:49:12:26 – 00:49:23:10
Chris Williamson
And that was kind of mind boggling to the radio room operators, you know, as especially when they were pulling consistent signal strength and, like they were at the end of the film.

00:49:23:12 – 00:49:43:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I want to ask you about some of the details that we see in the movie, because we do see the Itasca, US Coast Guard cutter, anchored at Howland. And then they can hear Amelia’s transmissions, but she can’t seem to hear the replies. The attempts for Morse code don’t work either. According to George Putnam in the movie, they didn’t even take the receiver in a way, perhaps because of the weight thing.

00:49:43:24 – 00:50:09:15
Dan LeFebvre
So, it’s mostly a one way conversation. But then, to make matters worse, in the movie, someone accidentally left the direction finder on the Itasca on overnight. So the battery is dead. That means they can’t pinpoint her plane’s location. And then after a few communications from Amelia to Itasca, there’s a there is a brief moment where Amelia does seem to hear something back from Itasca, along with Itasca, is blowing smoke in an attempt to send a visual signal for their location.

00:50:09:18 – 00:50:27:10
Dan LeFebvre
And then the final radio transmission to Itasca in the movie says they’re on position line 157337 and they’re running north South. Itasca hears this and immediately radios back. If she can receive their transmissions and the radio is silent, is that really how Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappeared?

00:50:27:12 – 00:50:49:01
Chris Williamson
That’s right. Yeah. The some of a lot of little things. Right. I mean, it really it really ended up being, just a very unfortunate set of events. You know, Leo Belle Arts was, flabbergasted by it. And he was, you know, he kept that with him his whole life. He was the last real eyewitness. You know, he was talking.

00:50:49:01 – 00:51:05:06
Chris Williamson
He wasn’t making, as you mentioned, two way radio communication with them, but he was speaking to them and he could hear her speaking. So they, you know, they just couldn’t hear each other. You’re right. And, you know, again, to take it all the way back to the ground loop, you know, it wasn’t always just Earhart and Noonan.

00:51:05:08 – 00:51:21:19
Chris Williamson
It was actually going to be a larger crew. And one of the people on the crew was a man by the name of Harry Manning, who there was also remember that Earhart had slept with and had an affair with earlier in her career. But he was an expert at Morse code, and he could have given them a lot more options.

00:51:21:23 – 00:51:40:09
Chris Williamson
You know, he could have Noonan could have done the navigations while he took the radios. You know, that’s kind of what they did on the flight over from Oakland to Hawaii, which was the first leg of the original flight. This is prior to March 20th of 37, when she ground loops of the aircraft in Hawaii, and they have to change directions and rebuild the aircraft and all that jazz.

00:51:40:11 – 00:52:03:21
Chris Williamson
But she, you know, if they had had Manning on board, we might not be sitting here having this conversation right now. It might be a very different historical you know, piece right now. Right now, though, we have really no oil slick, no wreckage, no, no evidence of of anything other than the had the original Itasca call logs.

00:52:03:23 – 00:52:28:25
Chris Williamson
My co-host for vanished, Jen Taylor. You know, I love she says this, and I love it. If this is a modern day domestic violence murder case, the Itasca call logs are the final text messages between the couple. Like, that’s that’s basically kind of what we’ve got. And then we’ve got, about 88 years, almost 90 years, some couple of years now, of theory, of theory, all over the world.

00:52:28:27 – 00:52:54:03
Chris Williamson
That puts them in all kinds of different, you know, situations all over the world. And so, you know, the film kind of. So the film is largely based off of, a book or the work of a gentleman by the name of Elgin Long, who was a, a pioneering aviator and, one of the really if there was going to be a mount Rushmore of of Earhart researchers, he would be one of the four for sure.

00:52:54:05 – 00:53:23:01
Chris Williamson
And it was based a lot on his work. And in the his theory was that they did just run out of gas. And they did they did just fall short of Howland. And they are somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, 16 or 18,000ft down. And, that it will be it will be recovered one day, whether it’s by one of these people that are out here searching for it specifically, or whether it’s by some, like fiber optic cable company that’s going to map the underwater ocean and just kind of stumble across the aircraft one day, you know, but it was largely based on Elgin’s, Elgin’s, research.

00:53:23:01 – 00:53:44:19
Chris Williamson
And they posit that she ran out of gas. A lot of people agree with that. And, a lot of what we have in that, some of a lot of little things kind of adds up to them running out of gas and just ending up on the water. The question is, you’re looking for, an aircraft that’s got a 55.5ft wingspan, 39.5ft long in an area that’s roughly the size of Texas at about $2 million a day.

00:53:44:21 – 00:53:53:20
Chris Williamson
So it’s it’s very, very difficult to to search an area of that big, and, you know, that’s kind of where we are now, you know, 88 years later.

00:53:53:22 – 00:54:09:07
Dan LeFebvre
Which is even more I mean, in the movie, they’re talking about how hard it would be to find Howland, and that’s an island that’s, you know, miles long. I mean, just a couple of miles. But, that’s more than an airplane in the same expanse. Right? So that was the whole difficulty. Yeah, I can imagine.

00:54:09:07 – 00:54:31:15
Chris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of people, a lot of the theories, you know, whether that you believe in Japanese capture or crash and sink, you know, they believe the plane’s a buka, or do you believe the plane’s never going to be found? It’s under a runway in Taipan. Or, you know, whatever you subscribe to. You know, everybody kind of kind of tends to agree on on on that point, you know, they, they, they, they just ran it a lot of, a lot of bad stuff that day.

00:54:31:15 – 00:54:49:13
Chris Williamson
And, you know, we just don’t have an ending to it. So that’s kind of that’s kind of what leaves us, to this point leads us to this point rather 88 years later. And then all the the fallout around her disappearance and their disappearance, I should say, you know, in 1937, July of 1937. So just a few weeks ago, we just had the anniversary now.

00:54:49:13 – 00:55:11:06
Dan LeFebvre
So what the movie does end with the disappearance. But as you as you mentioned before, I mean, the 2009 version might be the best one, but let’s say you’re that’s still like 16 years ago as of this recording. So let’s say you’re in charge of directing the next biopic about Earhart’s life. What’s something you want to make sure got included that we don’t get to see in the 2009 movie?

00:55:11:08 – 00:55:51:27
Chris Williamson
You know, there is a so there’s a presentation, I just attended. It’s and it’s I’m biased because it’s by a really good friend. Her name is Doctor Margie Arnold, and, she does a presentation, and, we just attended at the Earhart Birthplace Museum, during the Earhart Festival. And it her presentation concentrates on the four years leading up to the moment that she is selected for transatlantic, and that she, in Margie, gives incredible detail about not only her relationship with Sam Chapman, who I kind of teased about earlier in the conversation, but everything that Amelia was setting herself up to be and do and maybe an alternate career as a social worker,

00:55:52:04 – 00:56:14:26
Chris Williamson
Margie states. And I tend to believe her that she would if she really had a chance at being like the next Jane Addams. Like she really could have been. I, you know, I think that, Earhart was a woman that, you know, she was pre-med at one point at Columbia. You know, she was a nurse’s aide and World War one, she was a photographer, a truck driver, also, obviously an aviator.

00:56:14:26 – 00:56:37:27
Chris Williamson
I mean, she did, you know, all kinds of stuff. And, you know, that’s just the kind of woman that we’re dealing with, you know, here at the center of of all this. But I would probably concentrate, I would build that that film, and concentrated on those four years I would cast as Sam Chapman, would do all of that stuff, and I would look into the nitty gritty details of the moment before, and I would end the film.

00:56:37:29 – 00:57:00:23
Chris Williamson
On her walking into Platinum’s office and being selected for the transatlantic flight, because everybody kind of knows from 28 on to 37, you know, it’s there’s always more room to cover, but that that nine year period is like really covered, aggressively. This four years, not so much. So I think that would be really fun. How Laurie’s book did a great, great job of diving into some of that as well.

00:57:00:23 – 00:57:05:06
Chris Williamson
But I think a real hard concentration on that would be would make a really fun film.

00:57:05:09 – 00:57:17:18
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I have a couple of follow ups on that one. From everything you’ve learned about Millie Earhart, how well do you think Hilary Swank did bringing her movie to life and for your biopic, who would you cast in that role?

00:57:17:21 – 00:57:36:07
Chris Williamson
I would cast a young Amelia. Her name is Sophia Lillis. I don’t know how old she is now. She is 23 now. And I, I found her, I saw her first in the it films, the remake, the when they did the, you know, back in 20. Oh, I don’t know when I was 2017 or something like that.

00:57:36:09 – 00:57:51:29
Chris Williamson
And she was excellent on those films. And I thought, man, that’s an Earhart. Like, if you wanted to take a young Earhart like a younger version of her and make, you know, kind of build to that 28 flight or, you know, take her through her, her young or her late teenage years and maybe her early 20s. That would be a really she would be perfect for it.

00:57:52:01 – 00:58:09:10
Chris Williamson
As far as Hillary, you know, I think she did it. I think she did a fantastic job. I also thought Diane Keaton did a really good job in her film. I mean, I think everybody sort of brings something to Earhart specifically. She’s got a lot of little nuances and things. I think Earhart got a lot of the ticks down, I think.

00:58:09:10 – 00:58:25:04
Chris Williamson
I’m sorry. Hilary Swank got a lot of the ticks down. For Earhart. I think she got a lot of her. Her cadences down, her nuances. Just, you know, some of her facial expressions were pretty on point, like a few, because there’s a lot of video and a lot of pictures of Earhart out there. So it’s it’s not somebody that we don’t have anything.

00:58:25:04 – 00:58:39:14
Chris Williamson
She’s not a ghost. She was at the time she disappeared. The most photographed person on the face of the earth. So, yeah, I think Hilary Swank did a good job. I mean, she’s a two time Oscar winner. I mean, I, I when I saw that she was being, you know, she was going to do the role, I thought it was a good fit.

00:58:39:16 – 00:58:52:08
Chris Williamson
I’ve seen. And the Earhart Birthplace Museum has a bunch of her outfits, as a matter of fact, the the one on the poster with the A.E., the jumpsuit that she has, which she never really had, but it was a it was a jumpsuit that they put her in for the movie and just for the promo and stuff.

00:58:52:08 – 00:59:05:28
Chris Williamson
That’s in the Birthplace Museum. The one that Hilary Swank wore in the film and stuff. And so that’s kind of cool. We got to, you know, shoot a bunch of our documentary stuff on that backdrop of her, her suits and her stuff that she wore in the film. So, but I liked it. I thought, I thought they did a good job.

00:59:05:28 – 00:59:12:28
Chris Williamson
I thought Richard Geer was great as platinum. Richard Gears got that really great. He can he can be charming, but he could also be, you know, a jerk.

00:59:13:00 – 00:59:18:28
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Sounds like George Putnam being interviewed. You got. You decide. Yeah.

00:59:19:00 – 00:59:41:27
Chris Williamson
Yeah. There’s a there’s a there’s a double. There’s two sides to that for sure. But, you know, I thought she did a great job. Hilary Swank is a fantastic actress. I mean, her catalog is really great. And, you know, it’s a hard role to play. She’s a very, Earhart’s a very complex person. And, I so if I was directing, I would love to bring somebody in, like, Sophia Lillis and just have her just go to town on it and just do a young version of it.

00:59:41:27 – 00:59:59:07
Chris Williamson
You know, when she was when she was a social worker, when she was doing all that stuff. And because I think she forms a lot of those relationships that that end up being, valuable to her, you know, seven to 8 or 9 years later. Right? Right up until the point she disappears. That are really formed and built foundationally in those four years leading up to the transatlantic flight.

00:59:59:07 – 01:00:00:25
Chris Williamson
So I would focus on that.

01:00:00:27 – 01:00:19:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well, the 2009 Amelia movie ends with the disappearance, but I know there have been numerous times where people have claimed to have found Amelia Earhart plane, so correct me if I’m wrong. As far as I know, it hasn’t been found yet, but I know you’ve been doing years of research for the Chasing Earhart project, so I have a two part question for you as we wrap up our discussion today.

01:00:19:06 – 01:00:28:13
Dan LeFebvre
First, can you share an overview of the current status of finding Amelia Earhart plane? And can you tell my audience more about the chasing Earhart Project and where they can learn more about your work?

01:00:28:15 – 01:00:47:12
Chris Williamson
Oh, yes, I’d love to. So just a very, very quick, quick, the short, short version, there are several active investigations, all over the world, right now going on. I just got off the phone yesterday with, with our group, that’s going to be looking at this aircraft out in Boca, to try to rule it, rule it out and get it out of the way, or maybe, maybe roll it in.

01:00:47:12 – 01:01:18:23
Chris Williamson
We’ll see. There are deep ocean searches going on. There was a there’s a search going on, with, the Archeology channel and Doctor Rick Pettigrew. That has made a lot of headlines lately because Purdue got involved in that expedition, and they’re going out to Nick Morocco. I want to say in November, they’re going to go out there and they’re going to look at something called the Soraya object, which is an object that was found by brothers Mike and Robert Ashmore several years ago via some satellite imagery in a lagoon on the island of Nikumaroro.

01:01:18:26 – 01:01:35:17
Chris Williamson
Now, the folks at Tiger, a lot of the folks on what put words in their mouth. But I’m just basing this off sort of like media and things I’ve seen and watched and people I’ve talked to. Of course, there is a kind of a divide within, you know, the international Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery there. It’s part of Tiger.

01:01:35:17 – 01:01:53:23
Chris Williamson
Ric Gillespie and his and those those folks believe that, you know, hey, we’ve kind of we’ve kind of gone over this already. It’s not there. But Doctor Pettigrew and his team believe it’s it’s certainly warrants being looked at, and, Purdue’s in tow. That’s a big feather in their cap. And, they’re going out in November, so they’re going out in November.

01:01:53:29 – 01:02:11:24
Chris Williamson
We’re trying to go out sometime around that time as well for Buka. So hopefully we have some good final finality and clarification on two major theories at the end of this year. You never know though, with their heart stuff because it’s, it’s it’s all about money. It’s all about funding. It’s all about what Earhart was doing back in the day with her new funding and trying to get dollars raised.

01:02:11:27 – 01:02:33:12
Chris Williamson
So excuse me. So, there’s three different acting investigations going on right now. And there’s also, a lot of work going on for Japanese capture behind the scenes. It’s a little bit more of a slow burn, but that is is something that’s going to be, you know, uncovered in archives and things like that. It’s not going to be you’re not going to go out on some island and find an aircraft or anything.

01:02:33:14 – 01:02:49:18
Chris Williamson
If you believe in Japanese capture, you likely believe that the aircraft was destroyed and is buried under a runway in Sai Pan and is on a billion pieces that will never be found. So if that’s the case, then, you know, you’re you’re never going to find it. You’re just going to find some kind of, anecdotal or, documentation, you know, evidence.

01:02:49:18 – 01:03:08:23
Chris Williamson
So that’s being worked on. And then, you know, there’s always a few other things that are going on when it comes to Earhart. I’ve got projects coming out. Regarding some really exciting things I can’t talk about publicly yet. Really, I wish I could, but like, in a couple months, they’ll be released. But I would say just watch the Chasing Earhart podcast space and you’ll you’ll have all you need there.

01:03:08:25 – 01:03:29:11
Chris Williamson
As far as the show, just to wrap it up here, we’ve been going for, gosh, 140, 50 episodes ish right now. And, Lori, Gwen Shapiro’s our most recent episode just came out a couple of weeks ago. You can you can catch that on any pod catcher, any anywhere you listen to your podcast or, you know, we’re everywhere, pretty much.

01:03:29:13 – 01:03:48:00
Chris Williamson
And, the podcast aims to just sort of give a platform to everybody. That’s in the Earhart case, whether they’re on the disappearance side or the legacy side, whether they’re an author or a scientist or a historian or whatever it is, I, I don’t care. I want to hear from all of them. And, we’ve talked to pretty much everybody who’s anybody.

01:03:48:00 – 01:04:05:25
Chris Williamson
There’s a few notables that we haven’t talked to for specific reasons. But we will keep going. It’s it’s, you know, something? I rebranded this thing like 30 episodes or 40 episodes ago, and I was only trying to do 3 or 4 episodes, you know, back. And we just kept people kept coming forward and new stuff kept breaking, as it tends to do in this case.

01:04:05:25 – 01:04:23:25
Chris Williamson
And, I think that’s what we’ll have until the cases ultimately resolved, satisfactorily. That’s the big key question. Is it going to be satisfactory to everybody who has an idea about what may have happened to Earhart or Noonan on July 2nd? So that’s what the podcast is all about. I’ve also got a book out called Rabbit Hole The Vanishing of Amelia Earhart.

01:04:23:25 – 01:04:47:04
Chris Williamson
Fred Noonan, which was basically season one of our podcast, vanished. It’s unlike any book you’ve ever read on the case. I can guarantee you that it’s the format’s different. We’ve got over 60 collaborators all over the Earhart case in that book and in that podcast. It’s the largest collective, effort ever. On the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan, and that’s in bookstores right now, and it’s on Amazon and then Barnes and Noble and all that stuff.

01:04:47:04 – 01:04:52:02
Chris Williamson
So you can pick that up or listen to the podcast, or you can go check out Chasing Earhart.

01:04:52:05 – 01:04:58:13
Dan LeFebvre
Fantastic. I’ll make sure to add all those links in the show notes for this for anybody who’s watching. Thanks again so much for your time, Chris.

01:04:58:15 – 01:05:00:04
Chris Williamson
Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Dan. Appreciate it.