Word: wead
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Wings of Eagles (MGM) is a massively expensive sentimental gesture, involving about $2,600,000 worth of hearts and flowers, prepared by Director John Ford and Actor John Wayne in tribute to the memory of their friend, a prominent screenwriter named Commander Frank ("Spig") Wead, who died in 1947. Starting adult life as a naval aviator, Commander Wead joined the daredevil team that brought the Schneider Cup to the U.S. for the first time in 1923.* Wead himself once set five world records with Lieut. John Price, and at 30, he became (according to studio publicity) the youngest squadron commander...
...however, Wead fell down a short flight of steps-in the movie, Actor Wayne crashes down about 20 of them, scattering staves like matchsticks-and broke his neck. The doctors said he would never move his legs again, and the Navy retired him. But Wead had an invincible will to get well. For the better part of five years he lay helplessly in bed, driving the life "back into his limbs by sheer force of determination, until at last, with the help of two canes, he was able to walk...
Unable to fly, Annapolisman Wead supported himself by writing about flying, mostly for the movies. Dirigible, Hell Divers, Test Pilot, Ceiling Zero, Dive Bomber and a dozen other pictures made him a well-paid, well-known man, a sort of Secretary of Aviation in Hollywood's ruling circles. In World War II Wead wangled active duty, hobbled about the flight decks of the Pacific with his neck in a steel brace, and won the Legion of Merit for his theory of the supporting carrier, a major contribution to Pacific strategy...
Obviously, Frank Wead's story is worth telling-but hardly the way Ford & Co. tell it. They turn his naval career into a bell-bottom farce, his marriage (to Maureen O'Hara) into a pointlessly unpleasant shore-leave shenanigan, and they simplify the commander's character to the point where even Actor Wayne has to play down to his part...
...international seaplane speed trophy was actually won by Lieut. David Rittenhouse, one of Wead's teammates...