![]() ![]() Although she was not a founding member of the Ninety-Nines, she was one of their most influential members. Ninety-Nines Ĭochran was a friend of Amelia Earhart. Sometimes called the "Speed Queen", at the time of her death, no other pilot held more speed, distance, or altitude records in aviation history than Cochran. Cochran was the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic. She had won the Bendix and set a new transcontinental speed record as well as altitude records. By 1938, she was considered the best female pilot in the United States. That year, she also set a new women's world speed record. In 1937, she was the only woman to compete in the Bendix race and worked with Amelia Earhart to open the race to women. Known by her friends as "Jackie", and maintaining the Cochran name, she was one of three women to compete in the MacRobertson Air Race in 1934. Contributions to aviation 1938 Bendix Race Cochran in the cockpit of a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. Years later, Odlum used his Hollywood connections to get Marilyn Monroe to endorse Cochran's line of lipstick. Calling her line of cosmetics Wings to Beauty, she flew her own aircraft around the country promoting her products. Odlum, whom she married in 1936 after his divorce, was an astute financier and savvy marketer who recognized the value of publicity for her business. She then soloed and within two years obtained her commercial pilot's license. Īfter a friend offered her a ride in an aircraft, Cochran began taking flying lessons at Roosevelt Airfield, Long Island in the early 1930s and learned to fly an aircraft in three weeks. Odlum became enamored of Cochran and offered to help her establish a cosmetics business. Fourteen years her senior, he was reputed to be one of the 10 wealthiest men in the world. ![]() Later Cochran met Floyd Bostwick Odlum, founder of Atlas Corp and CEO of RKO in Hollywood. Cochran apparently wanted to hide from the public the early chapters of her life and was successful in doing so until after her death. They were instructed to always say they were her adopted family. Some of her family moved to her ranch in California after she remarried. There, she used her looks and driving personality to get a job at a prestigious salon at Saks Fifth Avenue.Īlthough Cochran denied her family and her past, she remained in touch with them and provided for them over the years. Cochran then became a hairdresser and got a job in Pensacola, eventually moving to New York City. After the marriage ended, she kept the name Cochran and began using Jacqueline or Jackie as her given name. Ĭirca 1920, (she would have been 13 or 14), she married Robert Cochran and gave birth to a son, Robert, who died in 1925 at the age of 5. Contrary to some accounts, there was always food on the table and she was not adopted, as she often claimed. While her family was not wealthy, Cochran's childhood living in small-town Florida was similar to those in other families of the era. Jacqueline Cochran, born Bessie Lee Pittman, in Pensacola, (some sources indicate she was born in DeFuniak Springs) in the Florida Panhandle, was the youngest of the five children of Mary (Grant) and Ira Pittman, a skilled millwright who frequently relocated setting up and reworking sawmills. Cochran was later a sponsor of the Mercury 13 women astronaut program. Cochran (along with Nancy Love) was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (1943–1944), which employed about 1000 civilian American women in a non-combat role to ferry planes from factories to port cities. She set numerous records and was the first woman to break the sound barrier on. She pioneered women's aviation as one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. Jacqueline Cochran (– August 9, 1980) was an American pilot and business executive. Aviator, test pilot, spokesperson, and businessperson ![]()
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