Hilary Swank & the Kiwi who flew before the Wright Bros

For Hilary Swank, at least one thing about portraying the enigmatic aviator at the center of the new film “Amelia” was certain. This according to the LA Times Rachel Abramowitz.

And before you can say “She was certain she’d be in a hyper-animated dew-droppy Hallmark Card which ticks all the right feminist touchstones but still makes damn sure the lead actress looks absolutely fabulous, darling, for every single moment of the film,” what she actually said was:-

“You can’t play Amelia Earhart and not learn how to fly. That would be a huge flaw. I’d be fired immediately.”

She certainly sounds like a spirited lass to me.

Apropos of nothing, the Jet-Set Hobo was at one time trying to get a bit of money up to do a film about Jean Batten. She was also ’said by some’ to be the most famous woman of her times. Batten was a New Zealand aviatrix, and the first person to make the direct flight from England to New Zealand.

This is a journey the Jet-Set Hobo has made many, many times himself, and let me tell you something. Even in more comfortable conditions, it’s still a bloody long way.

Would any of my readers be familiar with Richard Pearse? As Wikipedia so delicately phrases it, ‘Pearse appears to have successfully flown and landed a powered heavier-than-air machine on  31 March 1903, some nine months before the Wright brothers’. Archivists point to the fact that there was no ‘industrial development’ after Pearse’s flight to explain why it did not receive the recognition this one man phenomenon deserves.

New Zealand wasn’t exactly America in 1903, and it still isn’t today. Industrialized development? There might have been a few “Well done mate, keep up the good work with the inventions,” and that would’ve been it. The few people who saw Pearse fly would have gone straight back to work in the post office or on the farm. They didn’t realize they were standing on the threshold of a technological/industrial revolution. Richard William Pearse was definitely a Tall Poppy, as they say around these parts. You could see him for a miles. Anyway, I have a great aunt, long since passed on, who told me many years ago about seeing Pearse fly when she was a young girl. And that’s proof enough for me.

Huh, listen to me all of a sudden. Normally, I have absolutely no time for Parochialism. But I might as well add you can’t tell me New Zealand didn’t take to the skies first, because we bloody well did and that’s that. There, I hope that sort of openness will encourage what are called ‘full, frank and broad ranging discussions’ in diplomatic circles.

via Making a private woman public for ‘Amelia’ — latimes.com.