88 Norma Jeane Dougherty, later known as Marilyn Monroe, appeared on her first magazine cover after this 1945 advertising shoot in a Douglas DC-6 cabin mock-up. with Douglas airplanes while touring, celebrating or even christening the various new models coming off the production lines at the Santa Monica and Long Beach plants in California. 2006 CH-47F Chinook helicopter The first production CH-47F Chinook is a multi-mission, heavy-lift transport helicopter. The outbreak of World War II only served to strengthen the bond between the film world and Boeing. Bond rallies and drives brought them together on a regular basis as fighting raged overseas. In 1943, actor and comedian Bob Hope even rode a tank into a Sunday night event attended by 40,000 people at a Seattle football stadium, with his entrance used to promote the recruitment of workers, especially women, to build Boeing’s B-17 bomber. As modern moviemaking demanded more and more aviation themes, airplanes and facilities for Boeing and its heritage companies popped up in a steady stream of popular releases, among them Airplane!, Airport, Air Force One, Apollo 13, Behind Enemy Lines, Black Hawk Down, Bullitt, Catch Me If You Can, Executive Decision, Godzilla, Independence Day, Mission Impossible, Snakes on a Plane, Speed, Starship Troopers, The Right Stuff and Top Gun. “One of my favorite movies is Top Gun, which brought together the idea of flight, the romance of that particular character and the power of jets,” said Sander, referring to the Tom Cruise film that involved the heritage Douglas A-4 and TA-4 Skyhawk aggressors amid a variety of aircraft. “That movie did a lot for aviation.” The Boeing name has appeared numerous times on screen. Boeing, Boeing was a comedic film featuring Jerry Lewis and Tony Curtis. A television episode for The A-Team was titled “The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing.” And in the film Airport, an airline pilot played by actor Barry Nelson uttered the following line after his crippled 707 landed safely with a huge hole in its fuselage caused by a bomb blast: “Remind me to send a thank-you note to Mr. Boeing.” Scenes for Apollo 13, Species, Puppet Master and Austin Powers were filmed at Boeing’s Seal Beach, Calif., facility, used to build Global Positioning System satellites, among other products. Different rooms offered unique settings favored by the Hollywood set. “It looked spacey in there with all the clean rooms,” said Erik Simonsen, a former Boeing employee and witness to the proceedings. “Ron Howard and Tom Hanks used my wife’s office.” Space Cowboys, starring Clint Eastwood, was filmed at a Boeing facility in Downey, Calif., since closed. A small town was built and flooded by a water tank for the film Hard Rain, featuring Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater, inside a Boeing facility in Palmdale, Calif., once used to produce the B-1B Lancer bomber. Richard Karn is a longtime TV actor, known best for his role as “Big Al” in Home Improvement and the host of Family Feud. He grew up around Boeing in Seattle. His sister worked for Boeing in Kansas. He fully comprehends the Hollywood attraction to airplanes. His Home Improvement co-star, Tim Allen, owned a Gulfstream business jet. Karn has spoken at length about aviation with fellow actor Kurt Russell, who earned a private pilot’s license in recent years. Karn and others in Hollywood have watched in wonder as actor John Travolta increasingly has fueled his passion for flying—by owning and receiving a type rating to fly a 707-138B, which he keeps outside his Florida residence. “He’s really kind of moved his life around to have that airplane in his world, living in a place with a parking spot for it,” Karn said of Travolta. “It’s very important to him. He gets a big kick out of having that plane, but he’s also done a lot of humanitarian things with it.” Travolta, who has attended several Boeing events and rollouts, was trained to fly the 707 and 747 on company Boeing acquires Aviall, the largest independent provider of new aviation parts and services in the aerospace industry.
Frontiers July 2016 Issue
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