{"id":2257,"date":"2004-12-31T15:46:42","date_gmt":"2004-12-31T20:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2257"},"modified":"2022-10-09T15:00:51","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T19:00:51","slug":"lindberghs-in-flight-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2257","title":{"rendered":"Lindberghs in Flight Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will be very interested to see Flight<\/i> – the new play debuting here in New York in May<\/a>. It’s a new play about Charles and Anne Lindbergh (and my cousin Kerry O’Malley will be playing Anne. Yee-haw, Kerry!) Eric Stoltz will play Lindbergh.<\/p>\n

I know nothing about the playwright, so I’m not sure what his “take” on the Lindberghs will be … or what the focus will be … but I’m sure interested to see it. I’m a Lindbergh fanatic. (Anne and Charles both.)<\/p>\n

I have read Anne Lindbergh’s journals – all 5 volumes – probably 3 or 4 times all the way through. I LOVE them. I’ve read all of Charles’ writing as well, not to mention numerous biographies of the dude, including Scott Berg’s. All of it is really interesting, and obviously Lindbergh was (and still is) an extremely controversial guy, because of his links with Nazi Germany, and his unwillingness to condemn Adolf Hitler. (That is an ENORMOUS over-simplification of Lindbergh’s views during WWII and his vocal involvement with “America First” – forgive me – but that’s pretty much it, boiled down.) I don’t have the details in front of me, so the facts may be a bit off – but he made numerous trips (with Anne) to Germany, during the years before WWII, and expressed great admiration of the buildup of the Nazi war machine. He made grave and alarmist speeches back in America about how technologically advanced the Germans were, and how we shouldn’t alienate them or make them mad. He received some kind of medal of honor from the Nazis … from Goering, I believe. There’s an infamous picture of a beaming Charles Lindbergh accepting the medal. That picture would come back to HAUNT the guy for years and years to come, once the full horrors of the Holocaust became known to the world. Charles Lindbergh’s reputation pretty much has not recovered.<\/p>\n

Anne Lindbergh, in her journals, showed a bit more ambivalence about all of this – mainly because she really didn’t understand a lot of what was going on … and yet she always stood by her man. When he wrote a speech, however, saying that the British and the Jews were pretty much to blame for WWII – she begged him not to make the speech. He went ahead and made the speech anyway, and pretty much from that moment on, became a hated public figure (as opposed to being idolized like a god in the 20s and early 30s.)<\/p>\n

Anne Lindbergh, whose journals are awesome documents (a couple of excerpts here<\/a>), was a wonderful writer, a shy girl who pretty much had yet to blossom when she met Charles Lindbergh, one of the most famous men (really, he was practically a boy then) in the world. She was suddenly catapulted into the brightest spotlight possible, after living a very sheltered privileged life in the Morrow clan.<\/p>\n

The two of them (Charles and Anne) were completely inexperienced when they got married, neither of them had even been on a date<\/i>, for God’s sake. Their only “dates” as a couple, before they got married, were when he would take her up flying. This was their only time to get away, because of his enormous fame and the media pressure. They couldn’t even talk<\/i> while up in the air, because of the roar of the engines, so they would pass notes back and forth. That was the courtship. After a couple of afternoons like that, he asked her to marry him, she said yes, they had a secretive wedding, and then pretty much escaped in disguise<\/i> for their honeymoon on a small boat. Anne wore a mustache and dark glasses, and a fedora … etc. Complete media circus.<\/p>\n

She reveled in all of this a bit. She was swept away by him. He taught her to fly. They flew “north to the Orient”, the experience which made up Anne Lindbergh’s first book. (It’s not very good. I have a copy because, whatever, I’m OBSESSED, but the story of their “north to the Orient” trip is MUCH better in the journals.)<\/p>\n

Anne Lindbergh busted out of her safe little Morrow universe when she married Lindbergh. Anne came from a family of pretty spectacular women, highly accomplished, socially brilliant, etc. Her mother was the president of Smith College. Anne had two sisters, Elizabeth and Constance – both who were considered brilliant, and gorgeous … the real catches in the family. Anne was shy, bookish, introspective. When Charles Lindbergh met the family in Mexico City (Anne’s father was at the US Embassy in Mexico … I think he might have been the<\/i> ambassador – not sure) – everyone kind of assumed that Lindbergh would gravitate towards the sparkling, witty and lanky-limbed Elizabeth (who was a success with men. Sadly, she died very young, only a couple of years later.)<\/p>\n

But Lindbergh picked out Anne right away. Perhaps he sensed that he could more easily mold her into what he needed. I don’t mean this in a hostile way, or in a judgmental way towards Lindbergh. After all, he was a very practical man, and I believe that he knew what he needed. He couldn’t have just any old wife, because his life was going to be a different sort of life. He needed a specific KIND of wife. He was a pilot, in the days when it was a deadly profession. Well, I suppose it still is, to some degree – but he faced enormous dangers, every day. He needed someone who would “get” that, be able to handle it. He needed someone who would “get” why he needed to go away for months at a time. He also needed someone who, perhaps, didn’t have too much going on herself – and could accompany him on all of his major journeys. Anne Lindbergh, shy, quiet, unsure of herself, fit the bill. (This is totally my interpretation of their romance, by the way – based on all the books I’ve read. I didn’t KNOW either of them, so there are, perhaps, many other interpretations. This is mine.) He lived the life of a world-famous celebrity, with not a lot of freedom (except when he was in the air), no privacy … He needed a wife who was NOT famous, someone with a good head on her shoulders, who could handle the blitzkrieg, and stand by him.<\/p>\n

Even though Lindbergh was so famous and so dang HANDSOME (really, those early pictures of him are … almost archetypal in their handsomeness) … he was a very shy boy, with the logical mind of a mechanic, who was completely pussy-whipped (forgive me) by his overbearing mother. He was a mamma’s boy, basically. In his own way (even though he led the life of an adventurer, a pioneer) – he was as shy and cowed as Anne Lindbergh was.<\/p>\n

Reeve Lindbergh (one of their many children) published a book recently about her parents. Of course I have it. BECAUSE I’M OBSESSED. She said that there was a powerful physical <\/i>connection between her parents that went beyond love, went beyond anything that she as a child could understand – but she could always feel<\/i> it. They weren’t a couple who talked much, or who sat around having deep intellectual conversations. Anne probably would have wanted more talk (which is why she fell head over heels in girlish love with Antoine de St.-Ex when she met him briefly – something in her missed that cerebral stimulation) – but Charles was not a verbal guy. She had to adjust to that. And she was a ball of emotion, and very unsure of herself. Charles had to adjust to that. He tried to help her in this – he built her a small shed in their backyard, where she could set herself up as a writer, away from their brood of children – he really wanted her to be independent, free. I believe Anne Lindbergh had some depressive issues. Maybe it was just a leftover from the murder of her first born – which would make sense – but she became rather fatalistic and lethargic after that. It hurt Charles to see, and since he wasn’t a verbal person, had a hard time handling it.<\/p>\n

All of this is just normal relationship give-and-take stuff.<\/p>\n

But apparently, going back to what daughter Reeve wrote, Anne and Charles had an intense sexual chemistry that lasted pretty much until Charles died. Basically, they had sex all the time<\/i>, is what I’m tryin’ to say.<\/p>\n

The kidnapping and murder of their son was horrific. Their different sensibilities (he – calm and logical, she – emotional, passionate) struggled with how to come together during the crisis. She wrote letter after letter after letter (daily letters) to Charles Lindbergh’s mother, during the entire search for the baby. They are very odd letters, and Anne Lindbergh says she doesn’t remember writing them, and finds them astonishing and puzzling to read. Like: What on earth was going on with me? Every. Single. Day. She wrote a 4 or 5 page letter to Lindbergh’s mother, detailing breaks in the case, the house filled with cops, the newspapers … Almost no emotional outbursts.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lindbergh handled the tragedy in his own way – getting completely involved in the case, obsessing about it, doing his own investigations. There’s that famous story of Lindbergh flying over … I think it was the bay where JFK Jr. went down – anyway, Lindbergh was flying his plane over that bay, with a cop or a detective in the plane with him … this was while the baby was missing … and Lindbergh, at the controls of the plane, was staring out the window, down into the water, as he flew over, saying through gritted teeth: “Where. Is. That. Baby. Give. Me. My. Baby<\/i>….” over and over and over. Like a robot: “Where Is That Baby. Show Me My Baby. Where Is My Baby<\/i>.” Like – if he said it enough times, the baby would be revealed. Tragic.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the marriage survived this horror. Somehow. They went on to have 5 children. She eventually published the book for which she will be known forever: Gift from the Sea<\/i>. It is the book that will never die. It’s a classic. It (almost) blotted out the shame of her Wave of the Future<\/i> book – almost, but not quite. In that book, written in the late 1930s, as the clouds of war darkened over Europe, Anne Lindbergh put forward a very misguided, very naive theory about fascism: that it is the “wave of the future” and we should, to some degree, accept it. It is inevitable, and the Nazis are part of that inevitability, as bad as they are … Perhaps something beautiful will follow afterwards, but it is the “wave of the future” and we should accept it.<\/p>\n

Now. All hell pretty much broke loose when this book was published. The critics crucified her. Her family almost broke ties with her. She had NO IDEA the shit-storm that would hit when her pacifist message went out. She pleaded innocence, and she CONTINUED to say that her message was misunderstood – she didn’t mean lay down and die … I’ve read the book (why? BECAUSE I’M OBSESSED) – and it is very <\/i>muddy thinking, and you can sense that she really doesn’t know what she’s talking about.<\/p>\n

As you can probably tell, I love the woman, so I wince when I read it, thinking, “Anne, sweetheart, you’re out of your depth. Come on now. Write about your emotions, and I want to listen … but you have no idea<\/i> what you’re doing here … Stop. Just stop.” She is wading into waters she has no business wading into. It was her mis-guided way of defending her husband, who was being criticized left and right for his open and vocal resistance to our entry into WWII. Wave of the Future<\/i> was a disaster. It caused a rift between Anne and her patriotic US Embassy American family. She had thrown in her lot with her husband, for good or ill.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be for ill. Lindbergh quickly became the most hated man in America, and Anne Lindbergh found herself scorned and shunned as well.<\/p>\n

Anne Lindbergh saw the error of her mindset, once the full truth about Nazi horror was revealed. She wrote a foreword to her last volume of journals, which document the years of WWII, admitting this: We were naive, we stepped into areas we shouldn’t have, we didn’t have all the facts, and we over-stepped our bounds as public people. <\/i><\/p>\n

Selfishly, I am glad that the shame of her book (really, it was more of a pamphlet) Wave of the Future<\/i> did not last forever, and the memory of it died … because if it had lived on, following her around like a shadow, then she might not have written Gift from the Sea<\/i>, one of those enduring classics. Anne Lindbergh, an awkward undeveloped girl, grew up in the public eye – the unrelenting public eye. I suppose we could say the same thing about Charles, who was little more than a grown-up KID when he flew across the Atlantic and became world-famous. Neither of them were seasoned human beings. She was pretty much an un-formed amoeba when she met and married Charles Lindbergh (you think I’m exaggerating? Read the first volume of her journals and see if you can sense ANY maturity whatsoever. It would be like if my junior-high-school Diary Friday self <\/a>suddenly married, oh, Russell Crowe – or someone equally as famous – AT THAT VERY TIME in my life … uh … what??), and so all of her mistakes (and some of them were quite big) were splashed about on the front pages of the newspapers. All of her disappointments, too, her griefs, her sorrows. It was relentless. She had quite an awkward time of it.<\/p>\n

Anyway. That’s my rambling essay on the Lindberghs, one of my longest enduring obsessions. Which I will now post without proofreading. I wrote all of that in one shot. I’m insane.<\/p>\n

May 2005. The off-Broadway debut of Flight<\/i><\/a>. Starring Eric Stoltz and my cousin Kerry. I may have to snag Kerry to go out for a beer with me prior to then, so I can hear about this script, get all the DEETS. Can’t WAIT. ALREADY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will be very interested to see Flight – the new play debuting here in New York in May. It’s a new play about Charles and Anne Lindbergh (and my cousin Kerry O’Malley will be playing Anne. Yee-haw, Kerry!) Eric … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[138,1688],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178175,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions\/178175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}