Новая биография раскрывает двойственную жизнь рекордсменки авиации Джеки Кокран

Jackie Cochran’s extraordinary life flies into focus in Donna Pedace’s latest biography Jackie Cochran – record-breaking pilot, cosmetics executive, war correspondent and political insider – lived a life so expansive that it’s almost impossible to believe. Donna Pedace didn’t set out to write a book about Jackie Cochran. In fact, Cochran was supposed to be a footnote — a small chapter tucked into the back of another book. “When I started going down the rabbit hole of research, I decided she needed something of her own,” Pedace said. “Her little chapter got much bigger.” Pedace’s new biography, “The Fastest Woman in the World,” pulls Jackie Cochran out of the footnotes and into full view, revealing a woman who broke records, broke barriers and, on occasion, broke the truth. Cochran’s achievements were staggering. She is the first woman to break the sound barrier, she won six Harmon Trophies, she became the first woman to pilot a bomber across the Atlantic and commanded the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). Under her leadership, she helped prove that women could serve as military pilots. “She put a thousand women in the air,” said Pedace, a Los Lunas resident. “They were testing planes that male pilots were afraid to fly.” Cochran didn’t stop at aviation. She ran a national cosmetics company, used her political connections to support aviation medicine research and somehow found herself in the company of China’s communist leader Mao Zedong, Pope Pius XII, the Shah of Iran and many more influential figures. She even secretly flew Lyndon B. Johnson to a hospital during his presidential campaign. After he won, he said the person who had done the most for him was “a woman — not my wife.” But Pedace’s research uncovered a second Jackie — the one Cochran invented. “She often lied about her history,” Pedace said. “She said she was adopted. She had no family. I think she made up a childhood she wished she had.” In reality, she was the youngest of five, her family was poor and she was basically illiterate. To escape this truth, she changed her name from Bessie Lee Pittman to Jackie Cochran and created a new, unfathomable life for herself. Pedace, who has researched more than 200 historical women, admits Cochran was the only subject she didn’t like. “Maybe it was because of all the lying,” she said. “I tried very hard to not let that come into the writing.” Her challenge was to honor Cochran’s achievements without ignoring her contradictions, including the fact that in her later life, Cochran actively worked against opportunities for other women. Though she helped fund early astronaut testing for women, she testified against the program to Congress once she realized she was too old to participate. “She was not a feminist in the traditional sense,” Pedace said. “She hurt women later in life when she couldn’t be in the forefront anymore.” Still, Cochran’s impact is undeniable. When she died, she held more speed, altitude and distance records than any pilot in the world – man or woman. Pedace hopes her book will restore Cochran’s story to public memory. “Jackie’s life was extraordinary,” Pedace said. “What she did — you can’t even believe any one person could do.” Her mission doesn’t end with Cochran. Pedace’s next book will spotlight 22 women who competed in the first permitted female cross-country air race, the Powder Puff Derby. “I just want people to know about these women,” she said. “They deserve it. They earned it.” (Aubrie Moore is an intern with the New Mexico Local News Fellowships and Internships Program, which places emerging journalists in newsrooms across New Mexico. Learn more at newmexicolocalnewsfellowships.org.)