Chapter 28

As we moved into the year, I made the final film of the trilogy, ‘Kathleen Cary, the Slide’. It was hard for me to make, with a lot of emotional scenes. If this didn’t win anything I was in the wrong game.

I put in a lot of hours in the air, flying myself around the country, now able to take passengers, so Jacquie joined me as we went around. We could fly to nearby airfields, get picked up, do the promotions, and fly on the next day. It would take a lot more training before I could fly at night, and I was always very careful with the weather predictions. If the show was at one of Adrian’s theatres, he would fly in and meet us. He said that my being so approachable was a real money-maker when we were there, with whatever film I was promoting doing well for weeks after.

I was feeling a lot more settled with my life. Adrian was often at the house for days on end. I had no films to be making, at the moment, but was still looking at screenplays. Life, at the house, ran smoothly until Colin and Ruth announced that they were going to retire at the end of the year. Their own house, which had been let, was going to be vacated and they were going to get it renovated and go back to it. Both Brendon and Larry would be able to take over the driving duties, but we needed a cook.

When I spoke to Adrian about it, he just said to hold on, he might have an answer. A week later, he rang to say that his cook in Bristol would be happy to relocate, as long as he was relocating as well.

So, two weeks after that, a van turned up with Molly, and her clothes and utensils. It also contained his clothes and knick-knacks. We had never discussed any permanent relationship, just happy to take it as it comes. He couldn’t marry, as he was separated but not yet divorced. She was being paid as a partner in the cinema business and had no desire to give that up.

Molly moved into the spare room of the annex with Colin and Ruth, while Adrian moved in with me. Our planes were parked together at the airfield, and we continued to carry on with things. Molly fitted in well; she and I had become friends when I stayed over at his place. At the end of Autumn, we had a big party to say our cheerio’s to Colin and Ruth, closed up the house and all went to Valencia and the villa, for Christmas.

I was walking along the esplanade with Adrian when a thought struck me. I had started to write a story about me becoming a film star but had put it aside. I remembered that dream I had, so many years ago now, where I was a little girl, on a swing as a fighter jet roared over and I had called out ‘Dadeee’. It made me think about the women in aviation, who had to fight twice as hard to get into the air. Back in the villa, I started looking on the internet for women in aviation. Other than the well-known ones, like Amy Johnson and Amelia Earhart, there was a large number of women who had been leaders. It went back as far as hot air balloons and dirigibles.

One that took my interest and made me gasp was the youngest sibling of the Wright family. Katharine Wright was born in 1874, the young sister of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Her mother died when she was fourteen, and her father, Bishop Milton Wright, expected young Katharine to look after the house and the boys in the family. She did this, while continuing her education. She was the only one in the family to gain a college degree, in 1898, aged 24, from Oberlin College, after two years at Oberlin Academy.

She managed the bicycle shop that gave the brothers their income. On top of that she taught English and Latin at the Steele High School, in Dayton, and some of her salary went towards helping the brothers when they went to Kitty Hawk to test their creation in the summer of 1901, finally achieving powered and controlled flight in 1903. Although she isn’t known to have worked on the maths, she knew others who could help the brothers. She was a great letter writer and wrote virtually all the correspondence between the brothers and all the various departments that they had to deal with, officially their executive secretary after the designs were patented in 1906. She did the press releases and kept the bicycle shop running while the brothers were away.

In 1908, Orville and an Army Lieutenant crashed on a test flight at Fort Myer, killing the soldier and badly injuring Orville. Katharine took leave from the school and went to Orville’s bedside in an Army hospital. She was there, looking after him, for seven weeks, and never went back to the school. In 1909, she joined the brothers to sail to Pau, in France, to demonstrate the aircraft and also set up a manufacturing centre. Here, with Pau being where the great spent their holidays, she became the darling of the social set, meeting royalty and political figures, being able to speak French was a great help. While in Pau, she made three flights with Wilbur, so becoming one of the earliest women to go on a powered flight. Before they returned to America, having been instrumental in setting up what was the biggest aircraft manufacturing centre in the world, the French gave each brother a Legion d’Honneur, and awarded Katharine an Officier de L’Instruction Public, the highest academic award.

Wilbur died of typhoid in 1912, and Orville sold the airplane business in 1915. They had moved to a large mansion called Hawthorn Hill in 1914, the same year that Katharine attended a suffrage parade in Dayton. She went to Columbus to lobby the legislators, with the state giving women suffrage in 1919.

She continued to look after her father until his death in 1917, and then Orville until she went to Kansas City to join an old friend, Henry Haskell. She married Henry in 1926, with Orville refusing to have anything to do with her, as he considered that she had broken a deal to look after him. In 1929, the happy couple were about to embark on a delayed honeymoon when she came down with pneumonia and died on March 3, that year.

It took until 2022 for the Smithsonian to add her input to the public display. There had been a few books on the Wright Brothers, with some after 2003 including Katharine as an important part of the story. When I looked at movies or documentaries, only the 1978 film ‘The Winds of Kitty Hawk’ had a Kate Wright as part of the cast. To me, it was time that this marvellous woman had her own story told, from her own viewpoint.

From what I could gain from my searches, I made notes for the story. After New Year, I took Molly with me on the ferry to Palma, where we opened up the apartment so that I could sit down and write. With the research, I didn’t need to write a story first, so got straight onto writing the screenplay. Molly kept me fed and proofread the pages as I produced them.

I open the film with Katharine walking home from the Central High School in 1888, her heart heavy as she knows that her mother is getting close to death with tuberculosis. She visits her mother in her bedroom, and they talk about the coming changes. Her mother, Susan, tells her to be a good girl when she’s gone, and to look after the men folk.

As I work through the story, I have to invent scenes that reflect the actual events, but there’s enough there to build her narrative. I make it as a timeline, with things happening as they did in real life. The final scene is Haskell unveiling a bronze sculpture commemorating her life at Oberlin. Although she wasn’t longing to fly, she was the one person who made it possible for the brothers to achieve their dream. My screenplay almost wrote itself, and I finished the first draft at the end of January. I sat on the beach while Molly reread it, from beginning to end, with the instruction to put red lines where it didn’t sound right.

When she called me in, there were a few places with red, and I could see why when I looked closer. I edited the file in the laptop and sent a copy to the home email address. I also sent a copy to Kym, with the note that this was hot off the press and whether she knew anyone who had access to old film of the events for accuracy, as well as the access to any of the buildings still standing. Also, whether she knew of any studio that might be interested, this was, after all, an American story, and she had worked longer in that country than anyone else I knew.

We then closed up the apartment and went back to Valencia for another month of relaxation. I found that Adrian had gone to Bristol in the middle of January but didn’t want to bother me with that. He was back in Valencia in the second week of February, and I realised just how much I had missed him. I let all of the others read the screenplay, with reasonably good reviews. Bronte went on the computer and printed off all the pictures of Katharine that he could find, then made portraits of her at the different stages of her life.

She wasn’t a pretty woman, by any means. If you were asked to describe a Victorian Latin teacher, you would get it spot on. She wasn’t ugly, merely somewhat plain. I scanned his pictures from the three main eras – a teenager, twenties to thirties, and the older woman. I added these to another email to Kym, with the note that we only needed the brothers in their twenties but would need to cast three females for the title role.

Two days later, she replied. I sat and looked at her email in wonder. It read ‘Way ahead of you. Attached are three photos of likely cast members made up for the era. It didn’t take long to get the studio that did ‘Tycoon’ on board. I sent them a copy of the screenplay and they’re ready to sign contracts, with the same terms as previous. They have access to other films about the brothers and are keen on the new viewpoint. Nearly all the locations still exist and are happy to be used. Oberlin very happy to host us for as long as it takes, as she was one of their own, a past trustee of the college and they want her on the pedestal that you have shown them. Organise your trip to America, and we’ll all get together at the studio to sign the paperwork. Kurt wants the part of Haskell.’

It had been so quickly accepted that I hadn’t sent the screenplay to anyone else. I forwarded Kym’s email to Jim, Tony, and Cecil, with another attachment of the screenplay. Jim replied inside an hour, with a long line of exclamation marks and just ‘will reply after I read it.’

It was only then that I looked at the three pictures she had attached. The teenager was very close to what Bronte had envisioned, an actress that I had heard of as one to be watched. The middle one was one of the ‘Tycoon’ cast, one of the ex-wives, with some cheek pads and a severe make up job. The third was Kym, as a haughty suffragette. With the brothers, it was only Orville that took part in most of the film, and we could change a single actor to look older, especially once he had been injured. I thought of Eric as the Bishop, but the studio may well have someone in mind, seeing that it would be aimed at their home market.

We closed the villa and went back to the house in Britain. Once we had settled in, we put on a small party for the shareholders of the film company, as well as inviting the new group of girls who were now running the Fan Club, now part of the curriculum at the school within Business Studies. When they arrived, they had brought Sherona and Sharina, with their husbands. They had both grown into beautiful and clever girls, as well as mothers of tiny ones. They had both met their husbands at the good jobs that they had walked into, based on their Fan Club experience.

When Jim arrived, he had the award that I had won in this year’s round of ceremonies. I had won the BAFTA Best Actress for ‘Film Star’, as well having a nomination in the Oscars but not getting it. If I picked up the Best Actress for ‘The Slide’ I think it may be some kind of record, so, if I get nominated, I’d better attend. Horatio gave me my latest account figures. I could never make another film and dash all over the world, but still be rich when I shuffled off the mortal coil.

We organised our trip to the studio that evening. We rang Kym at her home to get her to set up the meeting. Everyone had read the screenplay and were excited about it. David and Tony told me that they would stand back and let me direct it, as long as the studio was happy. They would see to the second units and the editing. A lot depended on what footage the studio already had. If we could make the film without having to recreate the flying parts, it would be a quick one to complete.

Adrian came with us when we went to America. At the studio, they were more than welcoming in their praise of what ‘Tycoon’ had done, both in gaining respect for the studio as well as gaining hard cash. They already had a full cast ready to start filming. We looked at the pieces of film that they already had, with much of it able to be slotted into our production without looking out of place. We signed the contracts and had a little party to celebrate.

After that, David and Tony joined me, Adrian, and my little group, to go and look at the locations. The two earliest schools did not exist anymore but were generic enough for us to find other buildings which would work equally as well. Oberlin was as grand as it had been when Katharine was there. We were welcomed and shown around, the architecture might have been the same, but the classrooms were up to the modern day.

Hawthorn Hill was very much the same as it had been, despite having been a guest house for V.I.P.s with the National Cash Register company for many years. A complete set of photos of the house, taken after Orville died in 1948, were available should we want to redress a room as it would have been, although Orville’s office looked very much like it did in his lifetime.

Kym had told me that she would scout the locations in France. Her home wasn’t far from Pau, close to the Spanish border. Pau had been greatly developed since 1909, but there were enough of the old villas and grand buildings to make locations easy to find.

While we were in Dayton, we made our bookings in one of the local hotels. We estimated that we would be three months there, planning to start filming at the end of May. I would do the early parts of the story, with the younger actress, up to 1890, while David and Tony would film in Pau, with the middle actress with the section between 1909 and when the Wrights returned to Dayton.

After that, the middle actress would join me to film the central part of the story between 1890 and 1909. Then we would transfer our attention to Hawthorn Hill for some background and to meet Haskell properly, with Kym and Kurt now playing their parts, before moving to Oklahoma City for the last part of her life. Tony would do the editing in the American studio, and we hoped to have the premiere, in Dayton, the following February.

Adrian decided that he needed to have a holiday from his cinemas, so would stay in America. He would spend some time touring the museums and aircraft collections, promising to pick out any that may be helpful to me. While I stayed in Dayton, we was never away more than a week or so at a time. The filming went well, with David, Tony and the second unit joining us in early July, happy with what they had done.

We wound up filming in Dayton, including the final scene, in late July. We had time then to move to Oklahoma to finish the film. From there, we moved everyone to the studio to do some soundstage shots. The filming ended in mid-September, and my group went back to Britain. David and Tony stayed with the studio for a little while longer. Post-production, and the score, would be the job for the studio, which was something they did very well.

The screening, for the reviewers, took place in the main hall at Oberlin, so they could be the first to tell us where we had gone wrong. That took place in the middle of January, which made for some interesting rumours circulating by the time the Globes came around. The premiere was at The Neon, in Dayton. It wasn’t a big place, so the audience was by invitation only. The red carpet was very short, but the atmosphere was positively electric. We had invited a lot of female aviation celebrities to see what they thought.

It all went very well. Some of the female pilots were in the Ninety-Nines, and I was invited to visit the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum in Atchinson before I went back to Britain. After that, I was invited to attend their Head Office in Oklahoma, where they made me an honorary member, seeing that I had spent years in the air as cabin crew, flew my own plane, and had put one of the pioneers of flight on the pedestal she had always deserved.

Katharine would have loved knowing them but had died in the year the group first met and was founded. I cherish my membership certificate, which is in the display with the film awards. I also put my name down to offer scholarships for women in aviation, but one named after Katharine Wright, to sponsor women who are studying aeronautic engineering, rather than actual flying.

My main task that I set myself, in that year, was to upgrade my pilot licence to a larger plane, getting my twin propellor rating and trading the Cessna in for an old Piper Cheyenne 400LS. I also sat all the classes to upgrade to all-weather flying in the Piper, which had been upgraded to the current Garmin instrumentation and aeronautics. Compared to the Cessna, it was like moving to a jet. It was quiet, it went a very long way, and it would take our whole group if we wanted to.

By the time I was needed to go on promotional tours with the stars of ‘Katharine Wright’ we could do it in style. The fact that I would be piloting the plane we arrived in was an extra bit of publicity. That year was very interesting, with Adrian also getting rated to fly the Piper. He left the cinema business for his managers to manage, and we flew to a lot of places, together. We put the Piper into one of those huge transport planes and took it to America, getting it put back together by Piper, and getting upgrades and a full maintenance done at the same time.

We took all of our group and spent three months in America, never in one place more than a few days. We saw all of the aircraft museums, visited as many air shows as we could, and generally made that time our honeymoon, interspersed with the odd promotional visit. When we landed at Will Rogers World Airport, in Oklahoma, we were greeted by the Ninety-Nines as guests and treated well. We were told that ‘Katharine Wright’ was improving the chances for women in aviation around the world.

While there, we were taken up in one of my old employers’ planes, by one of their female pilots, and we were both given some time at the controls. That made me think, as my father may well have sat in that very seat, some years before. So much for me never being able to fly! It was tempting, but I couldn’t afford the fuel bill for one that big, the Piper being expensive enough.

We had Piper do a full check of the Cheyenne before packing it for shipment back to Britain. I suppose, with good enough planning, we could have flown it there, but it was good to be sitting in comfort with someone else at the controls.

We flew ourselves to Spain, that year, and relaxed for a while. We were back in Britain in the middle of January, as we had news that the film was breaking all nomination records on the awards circuit. We had special invites to the Globes and cleaned up. I got one for the screenplay and direction. We picked up the Best Actor, with the guy that played Orville nailing his complex personality. We picked up Best Film, Casting and Editing. After that, we did almost as good in the BAFTAs. With Best Film, Screenplay, Best Actress for the one who played the middle ages. Tony and David got the Editing, and I got the Directing mask.

The Oscars were daunting, and I had to swallow my prejudice to attend. All three of our female leads had been nominated in the Best Actress award, our American star was in for Best Actor, with Kurt as Best Supporting Actor. We were in the line for most of the other awards, and, on the night, took nearly everything we were nominated for. The studio heads gave us a big party, afterwards, and we were promised the world should we come up with another blockbuster idea.

The studio party was nothing compared to the one we were invited to in Oklahoma. The Ninety-Nines had hired a big venue to celebrate the success, and all of us were flown there by one of the members, with everyone getting some time in the cockpit. When we left, some two days later, I was minus one Oscar, now in their Museum of Women Pilots, alongside a poster from the film, signed by us all, and a framed history of the difference that Katharine had made to the history of powered flight. There was also a blow-up picture of her, sitting next to Orville, in one of their planes in Pau.

That year, we went off on another promotional tour, back through Europe and down through South Africa to Australia, New Zealand and up to Japan again. We flew by commercial airlines on that trip. When we got home, I decided that this time, I would just do my own thing for a year or two. It had been a busy few years, I was in my mid-thirties and now very rich, getting richer by the week as the various films were shown around the world. It was time for a genuine break.

Marianne Gregory © 2024