Word: yeager
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Most Versatile Talent: Playwright-Actor Sam Shepard, who scored off-Broadway with his dynamo dramas True West and Fool for Love, and on-screen as the sexy incarnation of Test Pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff...
Army (73)--Schwarz 0-0-10- Miltron 0-1-1 Michaslan 0-0-0; Houston 7-4-18; Cozzens 8-4-20; Yeager 4-0-8' Belanger 1-0-2; Popovich 1-0-2; O'Donnel 2-1-5; Ryscavage 0-1-1; Appleman 0-0-0; Ellia 0-0-0; Steptoe 0-0-0; McGuinness 0-0-0; Totals...
...YEAGER is the sobering backdrop to all the fanfare that lionizes Glenn and his crew. He was the first man to break the barrier, a feat he pulled in 1947, and he continues to push technology to the limit, returning to the cockpit to each time his speed record is broken. The public doesn't care about Yeager. (A military officer squelched initial publicity of the sound barrier accomplishment for "security reasons.") And, Yeager doesn't care about having a public. He just wants challenge...
...Yeager's view that a real pilot was above astronaut work proved deadly accurate. The highly competitive Mercury VII crew ceased their infighting over which of them would be first in space only when it become apparent that none of them but a monkey instead, would lead the way. It is almost sad to watch the seven proud pilots ultimately realize that their work required little skill beyond stamina, and to demand technical modifications giving them more control-necessary only for their pride not for the mission...
...contrast is sharpest in the closing scenes of the movie, when six of the seven astronauts have made it into space. While the NASA crew is being wined and dined at an elaborate Texas barbecue, Yeager rides to Edwards Air Force Base and steps into a new jet fighter. The Soviets, he says, have set a new speed record, and he is determined to break it. As the astronauts comfortably watch a Sally Road feather dance from their banquet hall seats. Yeager goes too for too fast and loses control. But in an act more heroic than any earth orbit...