SPEAKER_04 0:15

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is the Pan Ammuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I fly much too much to choose an airline because of its fancy meals or plush interiors, and I don't choose an airline on price because the fares are the same. When I fly, I try to fly Pan Am. You see, I'm not crazy about flying. But Pan Am is the world's most experienced airline. I don't know what that means to you. But I do know what it means to me.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

You just heard a 1973 commercial that the Academy Award-winning actress did for Pan Am. In this episode, we explore the history of Pan Am in Hollywood. Then we will be joined by two guests to talk about Tinseltown and Pan Am. Mark Carlson will be our first guest. He is the author of the book Flying on Film: A Century of Aviation in the Movies 1912 to 2012. And our second interview, from a Pan Am flight attendant to a Hollywood actor, Philip Keene will be sharing his story of working for the airline, hanging up his wings, loss and love, and stepping in front of the camera. But first, can you guess the following movie themes? Hint, they all have a Pan Am connection. How about this? Take a guess at this. Just like the music you just heard, Pan Am has been a pop culture fixture for almost a hundred years. From movies to TV shows, the famous airline made many guest appearances in the background and even had its own television series. Pan Am was British Secret Agent James Bond's Airline of Choice in the films Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Live and Let Die, and License to Kill. Pan Am flew Indiana Jones around the world in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, and will be featured again in the new movie currently under production at the time of this recording. Pan Am was also featured in the iconic futuristic Cityscape backdrop in both the 1982 Academy Award-nominated film Blade Runner and its recent sequel, the 2017 Oscar-winning Blade Runner 2049. And who could forget the Pan Am Space Clipper Orion III in Stanley Kubrick's 1969 Oscar-winning film 2001, A Space Odyssey, complete with Pan Am Space Stewardesses decked out in a futuristic Pan Am uniform? Remember Pan Am delivering Wonka chocolate bars on a Boeing 707 and the 1971 Academy Award-nominated film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Or how about Doris Day traveling to Bermuda to see Cary Grant and the 1962 Academy Award nominated film The Touch of Mink? And few can forget the climax of the Oscar-winning 1968 film Bullet, starring Steve McQueen, featuring a Pan Am Boeing 707. But these are all just guest roles for the airline. In 1990, Pan Am had a starring role in the movie called Last Flight Out, starring James Earl Jones as Pan Am Station Manager Alan Topping. If you haven't already, take a listen to episode 4 of this program for our interview with Al about this movie and his riveting and heroic true story of evacuating almost 400 people in the final hours before Saigon fell in 1975. Another movie where Pan Am had a starring role was the 2002 Oscar-nominated film Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, and directed by Steven Spielberg, loosely based on the life of Frank Abdignale. And yet another critically acclaimed movie, the 2004 Oscar-winning The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as TWA's Howard Hughes, and Alec Baldwin as Pan Am's Juan Tripp. But these are all just recent examples. Pan Am's relationship with Hollywood goes back to the founding of the airline in 1927. Marion C. Cooper, a close friend of Pan Am founder Ju Tripp and co-founder John Hambleton, was a decorated military aviator in both World War I and II, holding the final rank of Brigadier General. He was also a successful screenwriter, Hollywood producer, and adventurer, and was one of the first board members of Pan American Airways. In 1933, Cooper made Hollywood history with his original story he turned into a blockbuster and groundbreaking movie called King Kong. Cooper also co-produced and co-directed the film and makes a cameo in the movie by flying the plane that kills Kong. In 1933, Pan Am's Juan Tripp would collaborate with Cooper on a new musical film called Flying Down to Rio that Cooper was producing that would turn out to be a gold mine for Pan Am, as the airline was heavily featured in the film, including an airplane wing dance sequence at the end of the film. Tripp was laser-focused on showing the public that air travel aboard his aircraft was as glamorous and luxurious as Oceanliners, his principal competition at the time. The RKO Hollywood musical accomplished just that by showing exotic faraway destinations now within reach by Pan Am Aircraft to take you there. The film starred Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond and introduced to the world the dynamic dancing duo of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. In 1935, Pan Am captured the world's attention by being the first to cross the Pacific Ocean with a Martin 130 flying boat called the China Clipper. The historic event also caught the attention of Hollywood producers, and a year later the tale was on the silver screen. Screenwriter Frank Wedd thought it would make a great movie and wrote a script loosely based on Jupp and the founding of Pan American Airways less than a decade before. The 1936 film was made with the cooperation of the airline and Mr. Trip. However, the love story and other elements, such as character names, were changed and heavily dramatized. Even though the airline in the movie is called the fictional Transocean, the film uses actual newsreels and production footage of Pan Am's Martin M130 throughout. In fact, Pan Am's name is clearly visible in most aircraft shots. Let's take a listen to the trailer of the 1936 film China Clipper, starring Pat O'Brien, Ross Alexander, Humphrey Bogart, and Beverly Roberts.

SPEAKER_11 11:13

Every paper in the land headlines the news. Radio stations keep 100 million listeners advised of the plane's progress. It's history in the making. And in Hollywood, the movie producers get busy. Behind the facts of the flight, they find an amazing wealth of romantic drama, perfect screen material, a swashbuckling tale of three adventurers of the air, daredevils, fighters, and pioneers, who turn the dangerous mud flats of the West Indies into flying fields, brave tropical storms to blaze a trail down the uncharted coast of South America, take virtual possession of a group of coral islands in the Pacific Ocean, and play a shrewd game of international intrigue. No author has ever written a more powerful drama of man's courage or a more tender story of a woman's love and sacrifice. And for sheer excitement and suspense, no air film has equaled Warner Brothers production. China Clipper.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Come on, don't stall. Have you got something on your chest? Fill it. Okay, Sailor, here it is. You used to be regular, but now you aren't even human. You can't get anywhere with men by stepping on them with spikes in your shoes. You're fired! Get out!

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Boy, I sure hope you get educated soon. Then I can dump all the mean jobs in your lap and take off. Yeah, but where? I can see the headlines now. Heroic pilots, fan specific.

SPEAKER_13 12:32

When you walked out of me in Key West, it was your own doing, not mine. No man thinks he means much to his wife if she leaves him. I didn't want to leave you, Dave, but but I had to because you didn't believe in me then. I can't quite sell myself the idea you believe in me now.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

You can't order men to take off in weather like that. Not wasting any time, Argument. There's nothing wrong with that ship. It's had every test in existence. There's too much at stake. Trouble cell will wipe out everything we've done.

SPEAKER_12 13:00

What didn't you think it happened to his men? Why don't you think a dad run? It was you that put him in the hospital. Some of the heart out of him. Well, you're not going to destroy everything he slayed for.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

Here are another two notable films that either has Panam as a background guest star or is mentioned. In the 1942 film Now Voyager, Betty Davis's character, Charlotte Vale, is seen with a Pan American Sikorsky S-42A. In the 1942 film Casablanca, the plane is referred to as the Clipper to America. Pan American was the only airline to call its planes Clippers, thus, Pan Am makes a guest appearance in this classic film, although not seen on screen. And who could forget the real life love story about Pan Am Captain Charlie Blair's celebrated romance with Hollywood Starlit Marine O'Hara? If you haven't already, take a listen to episode three of this program titled Flying Boats, Irish Coffee, and a Hollywood Star to learn more. Now let's talk about two notable former Pan Amployees that made it in Hollywood. After graduating from Whittier College in California in 1971, Cheryl Boone Isaacs was hired as a Pan Am Sewardess based in San Francisco. After about three years, she realized she had other dreams and decided to move to Hollywood, where her brother Ashley Boone Jr. was a marketing and film distribution executive. In fact, her brother, Ashley, worked on the marketing campaigns of some of the early James Bond films, The Omen, Star Wars, Alien, The Empire Strikes Back, Ghostbusters, and Thelma and Louise. Like her older brother, Cheryl would also find success in Hollywood and marketing. Her first job was publicizing the 1977 Steven Spielberg Oscar-winning film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While at Paramount Pictures, she orchestrated the marketing campaigns for Best Picture Oscar Winners, Forrest Gump, and Braveheart. Later in her career, Cheryl started her own company where she worked on publicity for films that included Best Picture Oscar Winners, The King Speech, and The Artist. She became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1987, and between 1991 and 1993, Cheryl and her brother Ashley served together on the board. In 2013, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, a former Pan Am Stewardess, made history by becoming the first African American elected to serve as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was re-elected in 2015. Today she serves as founding director of the Sidney Poitiers New American Film School at Arizona State University's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Nancy Holt Gannis joined Pan Am as a stewardess in 1968 after beginning her career as a public school teacher in Detroit, Michigan. She later received an undergraduate degree in history, then attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she earned a master's degree in journalism. Nancy then joined San Francisco's PBS station, KQED, as a journalist and in the public affairs department, where she also worked as a segment producer and writer covering foreign affairs and public policy issues. Her next big assignment at the station, which would have a life-changing outcome, was working on the documentary The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a perfect fit of exotic adventure for a former Pan Am Stewardess who traveled the world. The documentary won an Emmy for the program's producer and Nancy's future husband, Sid Gannis. Following the success of this documentary, Nancy worked as a developer for the long-running PBS series Comedy Tonight, and then went on to work as Steven Spielberg's assistant. Today she is a TV and film publicist, writer, producer, and developer, as well as the co-founder and partner of Out of the Blue Entertainment. Her most recent credits include the 2011 ABC television series Pan Am. Let's take a listen to the trailer of this TV show, which is available today on DVD and streaming apps.

SPEAKER_12 17:48

Do you not want to get married? You need to decide because this is your life. I want to see the world. I'll become a Pan Am Stewardess.

SPEAKER_05 17:58

Welcome to the J. Around the World.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Onboarding passengers are greeted by the International Beauty of Greece, known as the Pan Am Stewardess.

SPEAKER_09 18:38

Um helicopter waiting for you at headquarters. Where the girl is used.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

Those films were Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Ford vs. Ferrari. Both lost to the film Parasite for Best Picture. However, if anything, these two Oscar-nominated films, both featuring Pan Am, proves that the airline is still alive and well in present-day pop culture. Now on to our interviews with Mark Carlson and Philip Keene. He is a writer, classic film buff, student of filmmaking, and has written articles for several national aviation magazines and organizations. As a docent and researcher at the San Diego Air and Space Museum, and member of many aviation-related organizations, Mark has gained an insight into the people who lived the world of airplanes and the movies. Legally blind, Mark also wrote the award-winning book Confessions of a Guide Dog, The Blonde Leading the Blind, about his first guide dog, Musket. He resides in San Marcos, California, with his second guide dog, Saffron, a female yellow labrador. A link to purchase Mark's books are included in the episode description. Welcome to the Panam Podcast, Mark.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Thank you very much, Tom. I'm glad to be part of it. Wonderful to talk.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

So this episode is all about Hollywood and Panam. Give us your insights.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Well, Panam was certainly the most ambitious early adventure in the nineteen thirties because aviation at that time was exciting new year. And so on, and trains. And Pan Am taking on the idea of being able to cross the ocean, which only a few years before had just been done by Charles Lindbergh, was an amazing venture to be able to try that and get across the Atlantic and the Pacific. And the idea of being able to have giant flying boats that would fly to Hawaii and then to Midway and then to Namea and then on to Macau was something that was almost science fiction. And the fact that Jupp was able to pull it off and make it successful from 1935 until just before the Second World War is truly amazing. And Pan Am continued domination of world air travel is something that one of the great success stories in an American business. And you know, there was a lot of competition, of course, there were there were problems. But Hollywood movies and and air and aviation were born at almost exactly the same time, within a year of each other. And so they followed each other through history, American history, into becoming uh self-supporting. They supported each other. Airplanes appeared in the movies and the movies uh glorified airplane. And the airlines were the first chance that many people got to actually fly. So this is a uh Hollywood really had a big role in in movies like uh China Clipper, Flying Down to Rio, and other films. Hollywood really had a major role in in making aviation even more popular and more exciting, getting more people involved.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

Tell us a little bit about Flying Down to Rio. It was kind of the first movie where they collaborated directly with an airline.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Well, Flying Down to Rio was really meant to be a um a vehicle to promote Dolores Del Rio uh as an actress. And it was the first film to pair Fred Asther and Ginger Rogers together. Uh the flying sequences are both meant to be part of the um the song and dance routines, but there's a little bit of airline or air uh travel in it. The um the main star, Gene Raymond, who played Rogers, I think of his last name at the moment, uh, was flying a uh Monocoque 90, which was built by um Don Lacombe. It was a unique racing plane. It could never have flown all the way from Florida to to Haiti, but in those days, Holly D Hollywood didn't really worry about whether something was could be done. Pan Am's role in it, it showed some of the big flying boats, the Sikorsky S40, the big four-engine flying boat, which I believe was Southern Clipper, one of the the actual Clipper planes, turned up in the movie. Uh, so it was the first time you could actually see the Pan Am logo and the Pan Am emblem uh in on a plane. And in an early, in an early way, the the movie was like China Clipper, was a thinly veiled advertisement for Pan Am and for promoting world aviation because this was at the same time that the uh the German airships were the only uh large transports to bring uh people by air across the Atlantic uh when the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg were flying. So Pan Am had competition by the German airship, but it was also a much faster and uh uh more convenient way to fly because the airships only flew in good weather. They only flew it during a certain season. The Pan Am plane could fly year-round, or at least during good weather. So the Sikorsky S-40 is one of the early Pan Am clippers before the uh the Martin 130s and the the later Boeing 314 came along. Um, so it's it's uh there's a few interesting things in the movie. The the scene in which you you see the uh the chorus girl dancing on the wing of a plane while it's flying. Uh yeah, you really gotta pay attention, but those girls are wearing see-through blouses. Uh, and this is before the Hayes Office really got uh really started to crack down on things that they got. There's some risque stuff in it movie, which was one of the things that make the movie so much fun. And it was the first movie that that brought Esther and Rogers together, and they made eight or nine or ten more other movies after this. Um the karaoke became a huge hit. But uh Pan Am it was it was an advertisement for Pan Am to get the hey, come down to real.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

Interesting. So then uh three years later, the China Clipper movie came out. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Uh, it's one of my favorites. When I was working on flying on film, the book, um my original idea was to try to get as many aviation films together as possible to work on it, but it it went past 300, and I thought I I've got to finish this sometime in my life. Um, so I cut it down to 176 films, but China Clipper had to go in there, and it was with um Humphrey Bogart and Pat O'Brien, who had worked with Warner many times. I mean, you you almost saw Humphrey Bogart and Frank McQueen and uh and Jimmy Cagney and Pat O'Brien. They they turned up in a lot of films together. Um it is a thinly veiled advertisement for Pan Am, even though Pan Am's name never appears. Uh Dale Logan by Pat O'Brien is a um he's a hard-driven uh promoter, trying to owner of a small airline and trying to promote airline travel down to uh South America. And he becomes so driven that he he um he alienates all his friends, including Humphrey Bogart, who plays half steward, the pilot. But Logan is so determined to get past his financial difficulties and do something really radical in the in the one trip mold. Of course, he wasn't he was not as nice about it. He promotes the idea of his father designing a four-engine flying boat with a cruising range of 3,000 miles that could carry 2,000 uh pounds of cargo, 36 seated passengers, 24 sleeping passengers, at a cruising speed of about 130 miles an hour, and would be able to take off with three engines. I mean, that is unbelievably ambitious to take a huge leap forward. That was bigger than anything Sikorsky had managed. And he was the first, and the name China Clipper turns up, which is the connection to Pan Am. And then flying them uh down to um South America, primarily the Caribbean, and then on to uh across the Pacific. And it it makes use. Uh Ray Enright, who was the director. The script was written by Frank Spig Wedd, who was one of the great aviation movie writers of the time. He was a naval uh naval aviation officer who was paralyzed in an accident in his home. But he continued to write these great movies, and China Clipper was one of his best. Ray Enright made use of a lot of um footage of the um the Martin 130s, both moored uh and in flight, and so on. And there are some interior sequences, there are some cockpit sequences and so on, uh, showing how big and luxurious they were. Most of the interior sequences are done in the studio, but they are exact copies of what these flying boats look like. Uh, there are no Boeing 314s in the movie, it's all the marking. But it's it's just amazing how huge these things were. When Tripp initiated the initial flight um November of 1935, uh, the navigator on that flight was a man named Fred Noonan. He was one of those experienced uh collective navigators in um airlines at the time. And Fred Noonan had a drinking problem. He was later, he was later fired. He turned up in history as Amelia Earhart's co-pilot and navigator in July of 1937 when they disappeared over the Atlantic. Interesting. So, you know, that that connection there. But it Midway, the island of Midway, turns up in the movie briefly when one of the stops after Hawaii. And this is before six years before Midway became the target of the Japanese fleet in 1942. So the movie has some wonderful aviation sequences and some great dialogue. This is right after Bogart finished um Petrified Forest. Like he was just reaching his peak, and it was a very different role for uh Pat O'Brien because he's usually always played these really wonderful, warm-hearted, evuncular type. Uh in this movie, he's definitely a jerk. And uh it I think it was a hard role for him to play because he's always been a nice guy, but in this one he's not. But uh it's it's a great film. It's really an advertisement for for Pan Am without it ever being named. Uh it's it's a great, it's a great film. I mean, even though I can't see anymore, I can still listen to it and I remember everything uh in it.

SPEAKER_04 32:02

And uh let's talk about that for a second, Mark. Let's go a little off topic. And uh so you wrote a book called Confessions of a Guide Dog, The Blonde Leading the Blind. Uh, tell us a little bit about your book and your two guide dogs. Musket was your first one, and your current one is Staffron.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Yeah, I um my family we have a degenerative uh retinal disorder, which takes your side away in late adulthood. Uh, and I knew from my father and my older brother that I was eventually going to go blind. But I went from my career, I was I used to be a graphic designer, but then I turned to writing full-time. Um, I got my guide dog Musket, a male yellow lapador, in um April of 2002. And at that time, I was working as a disability services counselor in San Diego. And Muskett went everywhere with me. And he was such an amazing dog, he just attracted people. And what we I was a volunteer tour guide at the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park, and I gave tours to people. And when one of the doses would say, Hey Mark, we got a tour group here. Would you like to come and take over? And I would show up with Musket and dead silence, and people would, I could just tell their eyebrows were going up, like, what? And then I would introduce myself and say, Hi, I'm Mark Carlson. Welcome to San Diego Museum. Uh, I will be doing the talking, and Musket will do the walking. And Musket learned his way around the museum. Uh, we were on the on the San Diego News, we were uh interviewed for some local TV show. We ended up in the paper. Uh, as the only blind tour guide and guide dog in um in San Diego. And I did that for several years, and I met a lot of mate, amazing people in aviation veterans and pilots and astronauts. Uh, and I started writing all these stories down, and that's what led to my first book, Confessions of a Guide Dog, The Blonde Leading the Blind. And Musket retired in uh August of 2012 uh September of 2012. And I went back to Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael and brought home Saffron, a female yellow Labrador. And I've been working with her ever since. Musket passed in 2014. Um, and he left such an incredible legacy that people would still come out of nowhere and say, hey, I I read your book. And it's uh it's like it's wonderful. I wanted to write a book that was funny and emotional that would tell the story. Um writing a book about flying on film, fortunately, I found a publisher that was willing to do it because I had seen these movies so many times over the years as a kid, and I knew so much about them that I didn't, I really didn't believe that not being able to see them now was a was a handicap. Um, I was able to study and read many books and audio about movies and actors and um so on, and I talked to a lot of people, a lot of actors and and directors and filmmakers uh and stunt pilots, and I got to know a lot of a stunt pilot. So I was able to do the book, oh, uh a book about aviation in the movies by a blind guy. Why not? And I've written uh other books since The Marines Lost Squadron, The Odyssey of BMF 422, which was my uh the third book, which is a nonfiction book about a Marine Corps fighter squadron during the Second World War. Uh and then just recently I published Confessions of a Labradiva, another blonde leading to Blind, which is about Saffron. It's the uh sequel. That's great. It takes up where Musket retired and comes on. So it's Saffronic with me now. Uh and she's probably gonna retire in another year or so. But she's she's the light of my life. She was my wife's baby. Uh, my wife died two years ago, and she absolutely loved Saffron. And Saffron is a true lover girl, she loves to be around everybody. Um, so I wrote her book too. That's great. And uh yeah, so as far as I'm concerned, being blind has been nothing more than a challenge to me. I mean, I enjoy life really well, and I go everywhere, and I I have some wonderful friends, and I I'm very happy with my life, and I'm glad to be able to talk about aviation in the movie.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

So well, you are an inspiration, and I can't wait to read your books. Um, and I'd like to thank you for coming on this program and sharing some of your knowledge and also sharing your personal story about your guide dogs. Uh, I find it truly inspiring.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

I'm glad to be a part of this.

SPEAKER_04 37:08

Let's take a quick break before our next interview with a Pan Am commercial from 1988.

SPEAKER_09 37:16

The vice president of Canbury's West is sleeping on the job. The publisher of Cosmopolitan can barely keep his eyes open. In fact, some of the world's most successful business people are often never never land. And that's exactly what we want them. Because when it comes to business, Pan Am believes the more relaxed and arrested you are up here, the better you'll do down there. Pan Am, the number one airline to Europe and more.

SPEAKER_04 37:45

Philip King joined Pan Am as a flight attendant in 1988 based in London. Six months afterward, he was promoted to purser. After Pan Am ceased operations in December of 1991, Philip moved back to Los Angeles, found love, and earned degrees in history and art history from UCLA, where he also took acting lessons. He is best known for playing Buzz Watson on the TV series The Closer and its spin-off, Major Crimes. Phillip served on the board of the Pan Am Museum Foundation. He and his husband James Duff split their time between Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and Paris, France. Welcome to the Pan Am podcast, Philip. Well, thanks, Tom. It's good to see you. I like to call this interview from Pan Am flight attendant to Hollywood actor. I think you've got the job. That's good. So tell us a little bit about Philip Keene.

SPEAKER_07 38:48

Well, I was born in California, and at about the age of three, I moved to Central America to live with my mother's sister. She was living in Nicaragua at the time, and I stayed with her for about a year. And that's where I developed my first uh language skills. So when I came back to the States, I only spoke Spanish. I didn't speak English yet. So my mother and I had a hard time communicating at the beginning. But eventually, I think the English won out, and that became my primary language. Um spending some time in California for a while until I was about 12, and then I moved back to Central America with my aunt, uh, this time to Costa Rica, where I picked up Spanish again and stayed there for about a year, came back to the States again, and then at the age of 21, I moved to Miami because I had answered an ad in the LA Times. This is kind of embarrassing. It was the only time until then that I bought a paper. So uh I bought a newspaper, went through the WAN ads, and I saw an ad for Pan, which I still have, but I think I shared a picture of it with you. Um I think so, yeah. The starting salary was $848 a month for 60 hours of flight time. And I thought, well, that's it's got to be an opportunity to make more money there. But I was intrigued by it nonetheless. So I answered the ad, went to the interview, was asked uh if I could stay for a little longer that afternoon, and I said yes. Um then they interviewed me again for the second time, and then about two weeks later, I received a letter in the mail, which I still have, um, inviting me to the training center in Miami. So that began my career with Pan Am.

SPEAKER_04 40:23

And did you know about Pan Am before you decided to apply for this ad? Did you know the prestige of the airline?

SPEAKER_07 40:32

Oh, I did, yeah. That was, and I felt so lucky to have been to have been chosen. Um to me, it just epitomized glamour of what the glory days of flying were. And um my aunt, oddly enough, had been a flight attendant for uh Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas. Uh so she would fly back and forth between Burbank and Vegas all the time, and she had this cute little pink uniform um that she wore, and she would always tell me stories of of doing that, and then eventually some Mac charters that she did with the military, taking the boys to Hawaii from from LA. Uh, so I was intrigued by all of that. And I just thought, well, this is perfect because I speak another language. I've always wanted to travel a lot, uh, you know, going back to my roots as a kid, traveling a little bit. So this job worked out perfectly for me. And I thought, what a better company to work for than Penn Am.

SPEAKER_04 41:18

So you moved from LA and you you moved to Miami for training, and then take us through that.

SPEAKER_07 41:26

Okay. Um I was terrified because I thought, oh my gosh, all these people that I'd interviewed with had college degrees and they spoke three or four languages. I only spoke two. I hadn't gone to college yet. So I was a little intimidated, but I determined to do the best I possibly could. And um, I was always the one in the classroom asking questions to the point where some of my other classmates thought that I was a mole uh from the company. Um but I graduated the six weeks of what we lovingly referred to as Barbie doll boot camp, where we were trained to carve uh Chateaubriand at you know 35,000 feet uh during turbulence and poor red wine and not spill a drop. So uh primary amongst those responsibilities, of course, was the safety of the passengers, and uh that that was fun too. Uh so I graduated from there and then found myself on a plane to London. We had been given the choice of uh bases to pick from in the order we wanted to go. So I had the choice of New York, um, London, or Miami. And I thought, well, I'd always wanted to live overseas, so I chose London as my first, New York is my second, and Miami is my third. Uh and luckily I got London and flew all night uh in a first-class seat on board of Pan Am 747, two of which I I have in my collection, two Pan Am first class seats. And uh about a week later I found a place to live and started flying.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

So our listeners know that Philip Keene is only 28, but I do have to ask you, what year was this?

SPEAKER_07 43:03

This was in I applied in 1987 and then started training in 1988, uh, beginning of 1988. And you moved to London in 1988. Correct, in February. I moved to one of the coldest places on earth at that time of the year, for me anyway, coming from Miami. So I was, you know, enjoying 90 degree weather and a lot of humidity and some rain. But uh then I moved to London and it was freezing cold.

SPEAKER_04 43:31

And I will mention, uh, so you mentioned that you have some some collector items. Um, just one or two. One or two. So to our listeners, Philip Keene has one of the most vast and complete collections of Pan Am items out there. And so the Philip Keene collection is very complete and very impressive. But we'll get to that in a little bit. So let's get back to London. So you move to London, you're this kid from Southern. California, and now you're in London, which is a completely different city. Oh my God. Yeah. Walk us through how that was.

SPEAKER_07 44:10

I was just blown away. I had never been that far away from home. And this was the story. This was the place for me where you know stories had had begun for me as a child of uh kings and queens and princes and knights and and castles. And it was just an amazing place to be. It was very romantic, terribly expensive. But uh I just had a ball. I remember coming out of the tube one evening at Piccadilly Circus and just staring at all the lights. I hadn't been to New York yet at that point, so I hadn't seen Times Square. So this for me was the equivalent, I guess. Uh and just met so many amazing people. And everybody that I worked with was very, very kind, you know, and and not making fun of or being surprised by my naivete, shall we say? Because I hadn't really been that many places. And yet these are these are men and women that have traveled all over the world for years and spoke multiple languages. And I just felt embraced by them. And it was a great feeling of family from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_04 45:15

And did you know then, as a 21-year-old kid from Southern California, now in London, did you know that this was the start of a completely different life for you? And it would be a life-changing event.

SPEAKER_07 45:29

I don't think I was aware how life-changing it would be. I just felt so fortunate to have this job and really wanted to make the most of it. Um, it wasn't until I'd say about three or four months into living uh in in London, I'd moved from one apartment to the next, and the second one was much better than the first. We had a three-bed, one, two, three-bedroom apartment. Uh, and there were I had three female roommates and myself. Two of the girls shared a bedroom with twin beds. Uh, the other girl had the room at the back of the kitchen next to the bathroom with the um olive green toilet bathtub and sink, which was kind of weird looking. Uh it hurt my eyes. Uh, but we were never home at the same time, except for one evening when we were, and she turned to me and said, This is gonna be one of those times that you're gonna remember for the rest of your life. So, in any way you can mark this uh as as a moment and take as many pictures as you can, because one day it's all gonna be gone. So, what routes were you flying from London? Oh, from London, I was flying mostly to the United States. So I would fly to New York, uh, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Detroit, uh, Washington, DC. And then there were some flights that I did to Brussels a few times to Amsterdam, uh, Scandinavia, so Norway, Finland, Sweden, um, Germany. I felt I got rerouted out of London a couple of times and ended up in Germany, Paris one evening, my my first trip, and then occasionally um rerouted out of Miami. I ended up in Connecticut of all places. So that that was that was interesting. Yeah. Tell us about that. And then after, oh, um, I'd only known it as like the insurance capital of the world from from different commercials and things. Hartford, Connecticut is what it were. And it was a nice hotel, but I decided that I was gonna go use the pool, but the pool had been leaking, so it was closed down. So then I thought I would go out for a walk and they said, Oh, don't be doing that right now. There's a lot of construction outside. So it was less than what I had expected it to be. I didn't get to see the beautiful parts of Connecticut, I don't think. But um, but I just found myself uh loving living in London and and going out to the clubs and and meeting all kinds of people and just having a great time. I mean, I was 21, I was single, and you know, life was was just completely open to me.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

So tell us about some of your more memorable trips uh with Pan Am from 1988 to 1991.

SPEAKER_07 48:06

Yeah, December 3rd of 1991 was the last the last trip I worked. Um it was actually my check write. I've been flying for six months and I wanted to become a purser. There was a slight increase in pay, it wasn't much, but it would make a difference for me at the time. Um, and it would mean that I had to go to Miami for training uh to carve the roast beef and to learn how to do uh paperwork and fill up flight logs. So there's a lot of technical stuff and teaching some leadership skills as well. Um I always thought I looked much older than I did, but looking back now on some pictures of when I was hired and in uniform, I think to myself, how did anyone take me seriously? I I just I have a hard time believing that. But uh but they did, they did. I think the uniform helped. Um, so I went there uh for training, completed the personal training, came back to London, and we had to do two familiar two familiarization trips, uh qualification flights, so with a supervisor on board. So my first one was from London to New York, and on the way there, uh everything went very smoothly. I only did make one mistake on making our landing announcements, and I welcomed everyone to London instead of New York, but I was able to fix that. Yeah, you have to be able to do that. We're back where we started. Sorry. We may we made a big circle. Uh but on the way back, this this was the most memorable part. I had um the other person on board who who became a friend of mine, had two passengers that were being deported from the US going back to wherever their home country was via London. So they were on our flight. Now, the um I guess the gate agents or whoever it was gave the other person their passports because they weren't meant to have them. And on the way across the Atlantic, we're about midway, two of the four engines catch on fire. So now we're on a 747, probably 100 series, pretty old aircraft, um, but our mechanics were amazing. So they kept these things flying very well, and we all did it, we're all very, very happy working with them. Um, some some people used to joke that the planes were so old they weren't planes anymore, they were just pieces flying in formation.

SPEAKER_08 50:13

Like, you know.

SPEAKER_07 50:16

But uh, two of the engines catch on fire, they put the engines out. Uh, we have to make an emergency landing. This is during the movie, and so we have to turn on all the lights, I've got to get the crew together. Mind you, I've only been flying for six months, and this is my qualification flight. And so I've got to feel like a lot of extra pressure. So we open up our our handbooks, we get out our pink pages. These are these are the instructions for emergency landings, just in case, because we don't know what the conditions are going to be. And we make landfall in Gander, Newfoundland, um, which will play uh an interesting role later in the year of this telling this story. Um, so we get the passengers off the plane in groups of uh 10 and or 10 or 15 people at a time down the stairs into the restaurants uh because we need a uh a new aircraft or new engines. Well, since this isn't a regular place for us to land, we don't have services there, we don't have mechanics. So they have to bring in another plane. And they do, uh, but in the meantime, uh half my crew cancels on me because of duty date limitations. And the supervisor's still on board watching me handle all this kind of stuff, right? So I'm dealing with this. And what a task. I feel a uh yes, but I feel a loyalty to our passengers. And again, you know, I'm six months in, I'm not called, I'm not uh covered by the union yet. I just probably do do the right thing. Uh we eventually get everybody back on the new aircraft that they've brought us, that they've just brought in from New York, that has just landed from Karachi, and they have not serviced any of the laboratories yet because they just needed to turn it around. I refueled it, and I get onto the plane to do my inspection, and I have to open the doors because it's just my eyes are tearing because of the smell. Oh God. And I open up the doors, let that cold Arctic air come in through there. Uh kind of you know cleans out the smell of the cabin and get everybody back on board eventually, doing a head count. If we're missing two people, guess who we're missing?

SPEAKER_04 52:03

Oh no.

SPEAKER_07 52:04

The two passengers that were being deported. The other person had given them back their passports when we got when we landed. Oh no. And they had flushed them down the toilet and asked for political asylum. So this is like a nine-hour like ordeal on the ground. We'd already, you know, left. Uh, so we can make the announcement to the rest of the passengers that we're not going anywhere because of the situation. And you could visibly see the plane just sort of slump, you know, and this great moan came out. But we eventually got permission to to go ahead and leave without our other passengers, and and we made it back. So, needless to say, I passed my purser test. Well, there you go. Did a good job. Yes. What a test that was, man.

SPEAKER_04 52:44

Yeah, that was crazy. That was good. So December 4th, 1991. Uh sad day. Let's talk about how your life changed after Pan Am.

SPEAKER_07 52:58

Okay. Um, I mentioned before that that Pan Am was uh very much like a family atmosphere for me. You know, no matter where we went in the world, there was always someone that would help us, or uh even if you never met them before, if they were in uniform and you were too, it was an instant connection. So the loss of that, what some people might call a job was to me pretty traumatic, you know, because I lost not only my my way to support myself, but my extended family. And that was that was pretty devastating to me. Uh in 1988, uh, as you well know, uh, there was a plane that left from London in the evening, flight 103, on its way to New York, and it blew up over Scotland. And I'd known all of the people, all of the crew on board, um, and had seen many of them the day before. So that was that was that was a hard thing for me at the time. I I don't think I really truly realized how much of an effect it had on me until many years later. You know, I kind of went into to shock after that. And then the following year I lost my boyfriend in another accident. So it was a lot of a lot of a lot of death those first couple of years for me.

SPEAKER_04 54:08

And um uh your boyfriend dying in another accident, was that related to aviation?

SPEAKER_07 54:14

No, it wasn't. It was maritime, actually.

SPEAKER_04 54:17

Okay, and that was in London.

SPEAKER_07 54:20

It was in London. He and I had been invited to a mutual friend's birthday party, who also happened to own a business that was celebrating their first windfall profit. So it was a combination of things. And um, at the time we were living in Clapham. And of course, you know, Heath was a little bit kind of far away from there. And the earliest trains were not gonna get me to work in time in the morning for my trip to Brussels. So I said, Well, I'm just gonna go stay with our friend Paul who lives in South Kensington. I can take the first train, I'll get there. It's a flight there, I'm back to Brussels, and I'll see you in the afternoon and we'll have dinner. Um, he said, Okay, so he he was gonna go off to the party, so I laid out some clothes for him and said goodbye. And I got to work in the morning, and the other purser, she um had an apartment by the river. She she lived on the Thames, and she said that she didn't get any sleep at all last night because there had been this horrible accident on the Thames. I'm like, what are you talking about? I had no idea because I I hadn't read the paper or listened to the news yet. And she said, Oh, yes, there was a party boat that was hit by a dredger and it capsized, and they're still searching for people. I there was this, my stomach just turned. Well, I just had that this awful feeling in the pit of my gut. So I I called home, and it was only 7:30 in the morning, and so Peter should have been home and getting ready for work, and he wasn't. So um, and I called his job and there was no answer there. And so I kind of knew, but then I thought, well, I don't know for certain what's going on yet. So I did my trip to Brussels and came back and checked my my mailbox, and there were notes in there from friends saying, if you when you get this, please don't go home. Just wait for me here. And that's when I knew for sure. You know, and so I called Harbor Patrol, I called Scotland Yard and reported him missing. And then within a week, uh, we found his body. That's terrible. Um yeah, it but I have to say that the London police and especially Scotland Yard, they were all very, very kind to me during during this. And it was at a time when being gay in just being gay was was kind of it wasn't really talked about for me at work so much. Um, it wasn't discouraged, but it wasn't promoted, it wasn't, it was just sort of a non-entity. But I think in the beginning, for me anyway, it was it was important for me to sort of keep a low profile. So having to talk about this kind of thing at work and with the police was a little uh it was difficult for me. Uh, but they they couldn't have been nicer about the whole thing. They let me back into our apartment. Uh they checked to make sure everything was okay, they checked up on me. And then when it came time to either identify Peter's body after days floating in the river, or just bringing me his clothes, they decided the latter. They brought me his clothes, and so I was able to make a positive identification. Uh, but they drove me all around London for days, making sure that I had what I needed, um, interviewing me, talking to me, they treated me with nothing but respect. Um, so I have to thank them for that. But it was it was uh a really critical time for me, uh emotionally, you know. But again, I'm glad I had my friends at Pan Am to kind of take care of me because uh I didn't have any immediately family members there with me in England. But so again, the family kind of stepped in, sure.

SPEAKER_04 57:36

Thank you for sharing that that story. You mentioned uh Lockerby and Flight 103. Yes, you're a in your 20s right now, going through two very tragic events. How did you deal with it?

SPEAKER_07 57:50

I kind of went a little crazy. I uh I went out all the time. I went out to to nightclubs every night and stayed out late. Um, I didn't really party that much. I I you know would have a few drinks here and there, and but I was determined, I suppose, to uh convince myself that I was that I was still alive, even though so many people around me had died and the relationship that I had was no longer. And I did feel sort of alone, and I guess was I don't know, just trying to um reaffirm the fact that I was still living and vital. So, you know, I did all those things that people do when you're trying to do that.

SPEAKER_04 58:35

Um well again, thank you for sharing those two stories. Um let's talk about the end of Pan Am in the beginning of the second part of your life.

SPEAKER_07 58:48

December 3rd, 1991. I was flying back from Caracas uh to Miami, and I think we got in a little late as I remember it. And I didn't want to make the trip all the way from the terminal to the office and drop off the duty-free money and stuff like that. I was, I was, I was exhausted. So I said, Well, I'll just have another flight tomorrow, you know, day after tomorrow. I will drop it off there. And no one's gonna be checking it tonight anyway. So I did, I went home, woke up in the morning to a phone call. My roommate who was going to medical school at the time called me and said, Dude, you don't have a job anymore. And I said, What are you talking about? He said, Haven't you read the paper? And I said, No, I'm I'm just now getting up. So I went out and got the paper, and there it was on the front page. You know, Pan Am was gone. So I thought, well, uh, now what do I do? So I knew I knew I needed to find a job. I didn't really have any other skills other than hospitality and you know, being a flight attendant. So I went back to what I knew, which was restaurant work. And because I knew then if I had that job, at least they would feed me there. So I knew that my food was going to be taken care of and make enough money to pay my rent. So those were the two most important things. Everything else was secondary at that point. And I did that for a little while and again felt adrift, you know, without the the support of that extended family that I had and uh the job, I was grounded in in in many ways, and uh really had to take a hard look at my life and kind of figure out which direction I wanted to go. But I was, I was, I was lost for a little while. Then my my mother developed um uh cancer, and uh it was a great opportunity for me to go back and kind of be with her and help out a little bit. So I eventually made my way back to the to California.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:35

So you moved back to California to be with your mom? Yes. And then what happened?

SPEAKER_07 1:00:40

Uh she sort of rallied and then got sick again, rallied and got sick again. And then I was living in in Los Angeles and I met somebody at a place where I worked. He was uh one of the gym's members that was I was working at a gym. I had three jobs when I went back to Los Angeles. I worked at a gym uh four nights a week. I worked at a restaurant two nights a week on the weekends, so actually four jobs. I cleaned houses on Sunday, and during the day I was an agent's assistant at a modeling agency in the middle of Los Angeles, no car and shitty crap. So things things just kind of started all over again there. And when did you meet your husband? Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

So so James and I met at at the gym, and so was he the the man that you you met?

SPEAKER_07 1:01:27

Yes, yes. So years before in London in 1989, I was I was living in London and I'd gone to the YMCA. I had a Brazilian boyfriend at the time, and he and I would go to the gym and he would wander off sometimes, you know. Um he was very, very attractive and uh very personable. And what I like to say is that he was very generous with his affections and not just with me. Okay. So that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, that that was it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:56

To our listeners, Philip Keene is always very positive about everything.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:02

Some people will be surprised to hear that, but yes. Um anyhow, so I had a confrontation with my boyfriend at the time and said, uh, who are you talking to? What's going on? And I guess I threw a fit and stormed off. Well, cut two years later, James and I are sitting uh at at a lunch and I'm going through some old photographs from my time in London and Amsterdam and Miami. And he goes, Go back to that picture. I think I recognize someone in that photo. I'm like, okay. So we went back and he said, Oh my gosh, that's the guy who tried to pick me up the YMCA, and that's when this had happened. And I said, That was you. Oh my God, I can't believe that was you. So that was how we met again and yet hadn't met when we met the first time. So it was interesting that both times it happened at the gym. Interesting. Right. One one to the other. You know, the universe just aligns sometimes, right? Exactly. Well, at that point, I had been single for quite a bit and has just decided, you know what, I had not such great luck in love. Maybe I'll just kind of chill and and be on my own for a while and just kind of figure out how that works. And lo and behold, I met James, and it's now almost 30 years later. That's been together.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:15

Yeah. So this episode is about Pan Am in Hollywood. You know, Pan Am has been an influence in pop culture. China Clipper, Flying Down to Rio, 2001, a space odyssey, the James Bond movies, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, just to name a few. And James is a Hollywood writer, producer. Why don't you tell us a little bit about James? And then let's talk about your acting career.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:44

Well, James is uh a Texan. Nearly everybody I've met from Texas has been amazing, um, mostly his family. And he's just he's a charming man, he's smart, he doesn't take any any guff from anybody. He is amongst our friend group, he's referred to as the male version of Julius Sugarbaker. So that give kind of gives you an idea of who he is. Um I don't know. I just it's it's been it's been amazing, an amazing almost 30 years together. He created such an atmosphere on the on the set of our shows that we did together that uh even though that some workers could have gone to other places, some of some of our crew members, to make a little more money, you know, uh, maybe work a little bit longer hours, uh, nearly 85 to 90 percent of our crew decided to stay with us because of the the great familial atmosphere that James and his other producer friend Mike Robin had created. So that was pretty amazing to be part of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

Tell us a little bit about those shows, too.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:46

Uh there were two shows that we did back to back. Uh one was called The Closer, starring Kira Sedwick, and uh that ran for seven and a half years that James created, produced, directed uh many of the episodes, um, and also edited every single one of them, um, sat in on every casting session. So he had his hands in every aspect of the production, uh, working, working really hard. And if I had not been on the show with him, I never would have seen him because of the hours, you know. So he'd be down in the morning, six o'clock, writing, writing, writing until about 9:30. And then he'd go into the office and do casting and production meetings and location meetings and do all this kind of stuff and get home probably around 10 in the evening, then do it all over again. Then even on Saturdays and Sundays, still, because wow, it's uh it's a manufacturing business, you know, uh film and television in Hollywood.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:35

Yeah, and a lot of people don't realize that a serialized TV show, it is a lot of work and a lot of hours. We're talking like 18 hour days, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:44

Oh, easily, easily, yeah. And sometimes without any sleep between that, you know, uh no no no no breaks. But uh it was a well oiled machine, you know, everything came off the the assembly line as as promised. And every year the show would get better and better. would think gosh this this season five was was amazing how are they gonna top it and they would they they would do it you know james always insisted on on um having stories that that meant something and would leave the viewers asking questions you know so that was pretty and how was your relationship during the production of this show it would I think it got even stronger um I had a very interesting role or uh rope to walk in that and I do it was sort of a balancing act because I was a the creator's husband right um and also a cast member so there are some sometimes things that go on on set or down uh amongst the actors that don't always get filtered up to the to the executive offices and for good reason because they may not be important or maybe they are but I couldn't be the one to separate myself from the acting group and go up there and say hey do you know what so and so said or do you know what happened that this wasn't done so I had to gain the trust and confidence of all of my coworkers who were well seasoned professionals um and at the same time maintain a professional relationship with my husband and also a personal relationship with him. So it was a tricky tricky balance to walk. But sure I'm glad we I'm glad we did it it did bring us a lot closer together.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:16

Sure. And then there was a sequel.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:20

There was a sequel yes uh which James is again uh mostly responsible for due to his uh excellence in writing and producing and keeping every single episode at budget or under so he's a very very very very good guy to work with um and then we did six years of that show so all told I think it's about 218 episodes of television uh with a couple of other ones here and there that I did but those two shows we we we did nearly 14 years together so and you started collecting Pan Am memorabilia after the the company closed correct correct correct so walk us through that well I still had my luggage of course and my uniforms and matchbooks and some personal materials and things so I thought well there's no point throwing all of this away there's some fond memories not realizing or thinking that it would become collectible one day you know because I hadn't really entered the world of collectibles of anything and then I found uh an ad uh watercolor uh from uh I don't know it was either Look magazine or maybe Saturday evening post of Mary Martin um on the steps of a Pan Am plane and the caption read how Peter Pan flew to Paris and it was pretty cool and I thought this is neat I've never seen anything like this before then started to delve more into the advertising of the company I mean I was already you know at Bled Pan Am Blue Blood already at that point I was so indoctrinated with the whole thing. And I fell in love with fell in love more with the history of the company and started collecting little bits here and there. So matchbooks, advertisements, uh stir sticks and then started getting into more some some more expensive things like some of the uh the vintage uniforms or actual pieces of the aircraft uh some wall hangings and seats and dishes and it just it's it's culminated into a collection of about 5,000 pieces. So and it's not all sitting in my house. Most of it's in storage at the moment. But I do have what I would call a pretty impressive poster collection you know of first edition posters that that they that they issued. Starting I think in the late 30s is the is the earliest one I have. And then of course the ones that we had uh during the early 90s. So and I think you and I want to talk about uh maybe having them on display someplace.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:41

Yes we're you know to our listeners we are working on some traveling exhibits in the near future maybe coming to a city new near you that will be great. So Philip I can't remember if it was your wedding or a birthday party but it was all pan themed. Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:03

That was my 50th birthday party and it was a it was a big one to celebrate. And at first I said I didn't really want to do anything and James said oh no no no you're not getting away with that so he um joins forces with my good friend Kieran uh Kieran Giovanni who played Detective Sykes on major crimes. Uh I told her that James and I were going to get married. I know that because she did she did she helped plan our wedding so I'm conflating with you. But she she worked with James on um executing his vision for my birthday. And I knew there was going to be a Pan Am element to it but I did not know to what extent he was going to go. So uh because we were in the entertainment business and James had a lot of connections and said Kieran they were able to rent the costumes from the ABC show Pan Am and have all of our wait staff wearing these things. So I walked up to the door of my house because we've been away for three days prior to the birthday because this whole thing had to be installed in our backyard in the house and so sort of a secret of surprise. So I get to the front gate of our house and oddly enough it is a gate so that's like a uh uh a jet wave kind of thing and outside is a podium with a Pan Am sign on the front and a Pan Am stewardess in a 1960s uniform greeting me handing me a boarding pass with my name on it inviting me to inviting me to flight 50 uh which was my birthday and then I walk up through a metal detector and then through the luggage bins where some people have placed gifts and at the top of the stairs is a line of Pan Am stewardesses all impeccably dressed um holding trays of cocktails in hors d'oeuvres uh and a giant ice sculpture of the 747 over a seafood buffet on the front terrace and waiters dressed as captains and then we had Skycaps as the the valet and James had uh worked with our contractor friend and built a jetway a ramp up the side of the yard in Pan Am Blue carpeting had made copies of almost all of my posters and hung them all up along the way and then got to the backyard and there were these runways of these really long tables with Pan Am Blue tarps running down the center of them. And it was all dressed up like we would dress the the the seats for first class setting. So there were glasses in the Pan Am China and menus with clippers on the front and each table was named after a different clipper. My fellow cast members unbeknownst to me had assembled a safety video that they played outside and it was nuts. It was absolutely amazing and it didn't stop. It was it was it was fantastic at the very top of our yard um he'd built a clipper lounge. So there was an engine the cell there was a bar uh there was furniture up there and and we had hired uh someone to play music so it was quite a quite a big thing it was it was so beautifully done just all the Pan Am stuff and she had rented luggage and it it was it was crazy. It was really good. That sounds so cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:11

I hope you you you need to share some pictures with me.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:14

I will I will bring the box I'll bring the box of photos. Yeah if that's not true love I don't know what it is. I don't know I don't know I did an exhibit of some of my collection years ago um during Modernism week in Palm Springs and I knew I had a lot of stuff but didn't really understand just how much until my collection was able to fill a ballroom at a hotel. So mannequins with uniforms and dishes and everything else that was out there. And James and I both looked at it and said wow that's a lot of stuff and I realized this is not going back in the house. It's just too much.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

So that's great. Let's stay on the closer and uh major crimes for a moment. Sure. Any stories you'd like to share about your time on those two TV shows?

SPEAKER_07 1:14:00

There is there's one story that stands out to me. And again I mean a lot of this goes back to for me and how important it is is is a sense of family and belonging and inclusiveness. And there was a young lady that we discovered whose car had broken down. She was uh a second assistant director which oftentimes is an internship and really doesn't pay very much at all if anything it's about gaining hours and experience. Well we found out that she uh was taking three buses to get to work in the morning and that she had to be to work at 530 in the morning a lot of days. So some of the actors and some of the other uh crew decided well we'll just throw in see we'll see if we can gather a few hundred dollars together maybe buy her a scooter or something you know well at the in the end we ended up raising many thousands of dollars and a good friend of ours who worked at a car dealership heard what had happened and gave us a great deal on a great used car and only had the minimum amount of miles so we presented her with this with this car.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:56

That's great.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:57

And the reason that stands out to me is again because of the kinds of people that I was surrounded by. And it reminded me very much about my days at Pan Am in the sense of family and people chipping in and doing what they needed to do. And the hours were similar you know um although at the end of the day I wasn't in a jacuzzi drinking champagne in some beautiful hotel in some other country but you know it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:22

After all these years Pan An still captures the imagination of the public in film and TV shows such as the ABC series that was only for one season but you know it was it was a T it was a full TV show. What is it about this company and its history that still resonates with audiences I think it's a number of things.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:48

Personally I I would have to say it's about the people that Pan Am hired there was a uh I I don't know how to put it but there was something about who they chose to work together you know who they chose to who they chose to hire um it just it just worked people who had a curiosity about the world who were um open-minded and and who love to learn things um I I think that's maybe what they were looking for for the most part uh so that that really stands out to me but also it it epitomizes a time in travel that exists really only in memories and on film you know uh it was a time when people didn't have multiple devices to to gather their attention you know during during a flight so there were things that the company needed to do to make people a feel comfortable and make have have a have a good journey and to so the service on board was part of the entertainment you know um some other carriers had women in hot pants and and go go boots and things like that. Well Pan Am had their women in in skirts and pants that were elegant. I I like to to to paraphrase Edith head and I I think this is a direct quote but I'm not certain so I have to say paraphrase the the our our women at Pan Am were uh dressed in such a way that their clothes were tight enough to show that they were women but loose enough to show that they were ladies.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:17

So that's a great quote I don't think I've heard that and I mean that's another Hollywood connection there's so many absolutely you know Edith Head was Alfred Hitchcock's costume designer uh Academy Award winner.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:28

Yeah and she helped redesign uh uniforms for um for Pan Am. I know she did a number of them including all of the the ground staff as well. So she incorporated what was then I think called the universe design. It's a little sort of bend series of lines sort of bend and then come back down and hats and all kinds of things. So she yeah that's it's a great Hollywood connection there very much so.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:52

And there and I mean there's so many. I remember a few years ago um my friends and I went to see a a movie that just came out called Atomic Blonde okay which is a a fun movie um but there's a scene where from London to West Berlin and it's Pan Am and of course the row of friends that I had they all turned and looked at me and I'm like yep that's Pan Am.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:15

Yeah there it is right there. Yes. Even there was a film I was watching um I'm a fan of uh Jean Dujardin who uh most people in the states will know from the artist this the silent movie so he was the silent film actor in this he did a a couple of films called OSS 117 where he plays a a spy uh it's in the and it's a French film but he goes a couple of the shots are you can see Pan Am jets in the background. So even today I mean this these like these movies are just a few years old it's still being referenced.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:45

And when I was a kid when I uh flew on Pan Am that started my love affair with Pan Am I was I I still am but I was an avid James Bond fan and I was like here I am and I'm an 11 year old kid and I'm a secret agent just like James Bond and I'm flying James Bond's airline.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:03

I I could I could uh I can I can understand that that that's that's a lot of fun I I remember doing a a special assignment a young lady and I we were both working for for the company um we were sent to the US Embassy in London in uniform to greet people and I had no idea what that was about really to this day I don't know why we were asked to do that but it was it was interesting we were just walked around and milled you know little conversation here and there and my when I was in Miami I was I felt certain that someone was following me for a long time because I had a lot of time off and I would go on the weekends down to Rio uh to kind of hang out with friends or I'd take a trip overnight to New York and then back or overnight to London. The questions I would get asked all the time uh going from country to country by customs and immigration because it we were required to dress well you know suit and tie that kind of thing um so here I was this 22, 23 year old flying all over all over the world and always being asked well where do you live? What's going on? Why weren't you just in this other country the other day and I would try and go through these explanations and at the end I just I I I ended with well I'm a Pen M flight attendant like oh okay well that's fine here just go go go go go so but I still get stopped every time I come back into the country. It's weird.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:20

It's weird. So how do you feel when you watch you know some contemporary movies and some you know classic movies and the Pan Am logos there.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:30

I feel connected to that I feel connected to that that period in time uh even though it was a short time frame it was only four years and it was at the you know the last the last years of the company it uh I still felt connected to all the history of it I did. And so whenever I see it any place it's almost as though I have uh a radar for it I I see that Pan Am Blue on something and in the shop and I my eye goes right to it. I will find odds and ends here and there that I hadn't seen anywhere before and add to my collection that I think I don't have anything written down as far as inventory but I can tell you Tom I know almost everything that's in my collection all almost all those pieces.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:09

I can't tell you exactly how many stir sticks I have but I can tell you which colors I have and which ones I don't and as a fellow collector but not as as accomplished as you sometimes it's great when you forget you have something and you're going through a box and you're like oh wow this is great. Yeah when did I buy this?

SPEAKER_07 1:21:29

Does that ever happen to you? Sometimes I just recently found because I put it away for safekeeping a uh a blue uh uh what was it called it's uh not false graph but it's a ceramic I guess uh stoneware uh water pitcher or drinks pitcher it's round and it's blue and it's in the late 1930s and I'd put it in this box for safekeeping I know I'd talk to you about it when I first bought it but then put it away and was cleaning up this closet thought oh here it is and it's still one piece that's great you know so yeah that happens to me still or I'll get packages and I won't have time to open them and then I'll put them in the closet someplace and then bring them out and think when did I get this? So what's in here? And it's a whole new discovery again. So it's fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:13

It's like we're you know we're we're giving ourselves Christmas presents that you know that open up exactly exactly and you know um and it's easy enough for friends if they want us if they want to buy me something you know oftentimes as guys it's like oh you're so hard to buy for I don't know what to get you or what's you know for me it's easy if it's got Pan Am on it and you know you can be rest assured that I'll let I'll take it. So let's rewind to your four years with Pan Am. Okay. Any memorable stories uh trips with crew members stories with crew members passengers celebrities that might be traveling with you that you would like to share to our audience?

SPEAKER_07 1:22:51

Well I did fly with a few celebrities as passengers.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:55

I had um Ted Senator Ted Kennedy uh on the plane quite he is the nicest guy I've met him he really he really is yeah so I was working for a gentleman that was running for governor of Ohio who was good friends with him and uh I I must have met him four times and he remembered my name which is just insane that's that's great and I was like 21 at the time and uh sorry you know this is the Pan Am podcast not about Tom but this is related to what we're talking about. But yeah Senator Kennedy was one of the the the most favorite people I I have met too and he can he could drink like there was no tomorrow I was amazed. And still walk off the plane oh yeah and still steady talk exactly I mean he must have drank I don't know like a whole bottle of wine and maybe uh you know a couple scotches and you know he could still carry on a whole conversation and give a speech it was amazing.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:58

Yeah yeah I had a similar experience with him a very very very nice man um Tracy Allman was also on one of my flights uh Huey Lewis in the news um then a couple you know there were a couple of people who were uh like what what's the game did you play uh six degrees with Kevin Bacon. So there was one degree of Pan Am with uh uh Christy Turlington her father was was a pilot for Pan Am oh I didn't know that Jennifer Capriotti her mother was a flight attendant um Jason Bateman's mother was a flight attendant uh for Pan Am uh so that you know we have that connection too and um gosh I don't I don't I don't know who else but that was that was but I did have a funny story for me being clumsy and forgetful but it it has to do with flying a lot too. So I was living in Amsterdam commuting to London you know it's not a it's not a long flight it's 45 minutes or so but you have to be able to get on a flight to get there. It was cheaper for me to live in Amsterdam at the time than live in London because we were paid in dollars and at the time the exchange rate was about $1.80 $1.85 to the pound. So whatever money my $848 a month was basically cut in half uh every month by by uh the exchange but uh working more hours you earn a little more money make a long story make a longer story short uh I flew from Amsterdam in the morning to wait for my New York flight that evening so I left at six o'clock in the morning so I walked down to the the subway take the subway to the train station then take the train to the airport and then fly from Amsterdam to London get there wait in the crew lounge all day then fly to New York that evening get in the hotel by 1030 or so and then go out you know with a group of friends and pickups not till later the next day so I stay out late and don't really get much sleep but sleep enough in the afternoon before pickups so I work back to London get on the flight from London to Amsterdam take the train take the subway get to my front door and I don't have my keys oh no I can't get into my apartment. So and I can't call my landlord because he's on vacation and I don't really speak Dutch um and I can't call the police to you know get in because I've gotten the the apartment mid maybe from the black market is that is that what happens you know when you're not really living in the country do you live someplace so and I couldn't get in because it was there were bars everywhere and I was on the second floor. So I just turned around and walked back to the subway took that to the train station took the train back to the airport flew back to London flew back to New York and I've met on you I've just arrived that morning from New York fly back to New York get in that evening run over to Lawson Found grab my keys not for a moment thinking that they won't be there because they they you know I can't that not a consideration that cannot happen. They have to be there well I fly there and lo and behold they are through there I left them on top of the x-ray machine in this little blue boat um panhammers will know what I'm talking about when I say blue boat it was on top of the x-ray machine and got my keys then flew back to London to arrive the next morning to get on a train back on a plane back to Amsterdam shower get in my apartment shower change uniforms fly back to London to work a trip to New York so now that's a story you just do what you got to do you know it's like how the heck am I going to get in there?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:25

I can't so I've got to go back that is a pan and story.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:29

I have heard uh many stories from flight attendants about traveling halfway around the world to buy you know silver or uh China or TVs in Korea. But this this story uh I have to say this is the first I forgot my keys in New York I arrived in Amsterdam and uh I I guess I'll just go back to New York and get my keys that's what you do, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:27:55

This is all in a day before all in age before cell phones, you know, and in laptop computers and all kind of stuff. Um I did the I think the strangest thing I ever brought back was a frozen turkey. Uh again I was living in Amsterdam and it was hosting Thanksgiving at my apartment and I was searching everywhere for a turkey and they didn't have any. They had geese and I didn't know how to make a goose. So I just said I'll I'll when I go back to when I go to LA I'll bring a frozen turkey back. So I did. But it almost didn't fit me up and so I had to take all the racks out and put the the turkey in there. The dinner turned out well but I had wanted to serve in my family there was corn on the cob for Thanksgiving. I don't know I don't know why but that was it. So I kept going to all the little local markets there and in in Holland in Amsterdam trying to find corn on the cob. I went to the farmers markets and they just kind of looked at me weird and like return away and I went to the grocery store and they're like they didn't know. And finally a woman took pity on me and she she she called me over she says I know what you're looking for but you won't find it.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:52

And I said why not she goes because we feed this to pigs I said okay so it's not fit for human consumption my bad okay great just a little just the little differences in culture you know so what message do you have for younger generations on why Pan Am history should be important?

SPEAKER_07 1:29:17

Because it basically changed the face of aviation as we know it today. I mean um just do a little reading to scratch a little the surface of Pan Am and you'll find that we as a company and I still say we even though company doesn't exist anymore but we are still bound by this this this this this comradeship um jet jet engines navigation uh safety uh the space missions all of this kind of thing private jets pan had its hand in in all of these kinds of things so anytime you get on an aircraft you can you can think that or or thank people at Pan Am for for making all of these things possible I think and not to say that there weren't other companies that were on you know that were helping aviation along as well they were but Pan Am was at the forefront of all of this you know for for good or ill with the relationships of people all across the world and opening up airports. I I think Wantripp's message in the beginning was was uh was really pretty good and that you know by increasing travel and I think this is a uh a paraphrasing Mark Twain nothing gets rid of ignorance faster than you know than travel and meeting other people and I know that's not the best bit of the stretch as far as paraphrasing but uh he he did say something like that. And I know that Wantripp's vision was to bring the peoples of the world together. And I think by doing that once we begin to know someone who's different than us and who maybe looks differently or or speaks another language, uh has a different religion, once we get to know these people, they're no longer strangers. You know and it's hard to be angry with someone that you know and and care about you know and into to the point where you want to do them harm. So I think the travel with people around the world and the ability to do that has brought people closer together. You know and I'm and I'm hoping that in the future especially with with what's going on in Ukraine today that uh that we can we can come together and stop this. Stop what's going on but that's very well any um closing thoughts um I think that job really changed the trajectory of my life um it it made me believe in myself it made it gave me confidence it gave me the ability to be dropped any place in the world and figure out where I was going and and find my way around you know and I think that has helped me uh to make some pretty big decisions in my life uh one of them would be going back to going to college in my 30s um I realized I knew a little bit more than maybe I thought I did um so I had the courage to go to college and graduate uh I had the courage to step into a very scary dream I'd always had as a kid which was working in film and television and through the help of friends and colleagues I was able to do that. So thank you to Pan Am and everybody who was there to support me and help me.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:14

Well thank you very much Philip for sharing your story. It's an honor and pleasure to be your colleague on the Pan Am Museum board and uh I can't thank you enough for coming on the program.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:28

Well thanks for for doing this and it was so great meeting you just these few weeks ago and uh welcome aboard. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:34

Welcome Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York where you can explore the rich history of the aircrafts and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum dot org. You can also find us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram as was once a tagline in one of our commercials we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Ammuseum dot org in the Hollywood spirit we're going to close out this episode with a Pan Am song from Sammy Davis Jr.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:57

As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world thank you for flying Pan Am is the Golem Gray Answer yes the going's grey question is the living fine answer Yes the living's fine I've got someone it's to find a twin to If I could I would describe that face someone that I need everything to work every time I did not have to be a bit of a