Although Amelia Earhart wasn't the first female aviator, she was the most famous woman pilot from the early years of aviation and the only one generally remembered today. Alas, she is less known as the first woman to fly the Atlantic and Pacific than for her mysterious disappearance on her 1937 trans-world flight.
The Biography Channel documentary "Amelia Earhart: Queen of the Air" (out on DVD) tells the fascinating story of a feminist who soared across the gender barriers of her day to the applause of an adoring public. Narrator Jack Perkins maintains that she was not the best female flyer of her day in terms of skill, but the most mediagenic—a tireless promoter of herself and the status of women. A daredevil tomboy in childhood, she became captivated with flying while serving as a nurse in a hospital for wounded pilots during World War I. When a public relations firm asked her to accompany a male crew on an early trans-Atlantic flight (a woman on board was considered a peg for news coverage), she seized the opportunity and never looked back.
Her personal life remains as mysterious as her death. Perhaps the unhappy example of her parents‚ failed relationship left her leary of marriage. Reluctantly, she married her agent, publishing magnet G.P. Putnam; apparently, they found a measure of love in their workaholic partneship.
"Queen of the Air" is especially interesting for its archival footage. Smiling and gap toothed, with raggedy shorn hair and a heartland Katherine Hepburn voice, she was confident in front of the cameras—a great advertisment for herself and the idea that women were capable of rising above the expectations of her time.
