Even as an elementary school student, I’ve always been fascinated by the disappearance of female flying icon Amelia Earhart, whose plane lost contact with tower communications on July 2, 1937, during her famed around-the-globe flight attempt.
She was just 39 while flying over the Pacific Ocean en route to tiny Howland Island from Lae, New Guinea.
New hope for answers surfaced in February that the 88-year-old mystery might come to closure after a search in the Pacific “pinged” with a sonar signal image of what could be her long-lost airplane.
Bram Kleppner, Earhart’s great nephew and de facto spokesperson for his family, told The New York Post he was grateful for the efforts of Air Force veteran Tony Romeo, who launched a 90-day expedition near Howland Island where the pilot vanished. Skeptics say rather than a recovered plane on the ocean floor, the image could just be a rock formation.
The search firm Deep Sea Vision is now working with a team of experts in the field to review findings and prepare for a follow-up expedition, the latter of which is costly and dangerous.
“We need to get a camera on it, and when we see those numbers NR16020 on the wing, that’s when we’ll know for sure what it is,” a spokesperson for the expedition told The New York Post.
The memory and legacy of Earhart remain alive and buzzing, and actress and lecturer Leslie Goddard is one of the reasons new generations continue to learn and understand the complicated career and personal life of Earhart’s shortened lifetime and a true pioneer for opportunities for women to follow their dreams.
The award-winning stage personality Goddard, who won the Philip A. Danielson Award for her portrayal of art collector and Chicago hotel maven and socialite Bertha Honore Palmer, tells the story of the pilot Earhart and her forever fame as the first woman to ever fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean on stage this week in Munster for eight performances.
She will perform “The Mystery of Amelia Earhart – A One-Woman Play” in the theater at the Center for Visual and Performing Arts at 1040 Ridge Road in Munster at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 18, Friday, July 19, and Saturday, July 20, and then conclude with a final show at 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 21.
Trama Catering is offering a thematically aligned dinner in the ballroom for those interested in a dinner-and-show option. The pre-show meal is $32 and includes Hoosier Strawberry Spinach Salad with Poppyseed Dressing, “Purdue” Grilled Chicken Breast w/Pesto Cream Sauce, Rice Pilaf, Green Bean Almondine, and “Around the World” Chocolate Fudge Cake.
Tickets for the show cost $40. It’s $35 each for groups of 13 or more at theatreatthecenter.com or call 219-836-3255. For dining reservations, call 219-836-1930, ext. 2.
Earhart is being honored by Purdue University with the future construction of the Amelia Earhart Terminal in West Lafayette, where she was an instructor and career advisor for women from 1935-37 before her disappearance after departing for an around-the-world flight at age 39.
The construction of the Amelia Earhart Terminal is expected to be completed in August 2025. The Purdue University main campus has a residence hall named after Amelia Earhart, established in 1964.
Earhart’s courageous exploits and spirited personality made her an international celebrity in the early 20th century. In Goddard’s lively living-history one-woman play, audiences meet Amelia and learn about her experiences as the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane in 1928 and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. The aviator describes how she learned to fly and what inspired her adventurous spirit.
Goddard was gracious and adventurous enough to allow me to step back under the “real” fedora hat that once belonged to Hearst newspaper gossip columnist Walter Winchell to play the infamous radio broadcaster, highlighted in a short scene that starts the second act of her performance.
In June 2021, I portrayed Winchell for a one-man dinner show I wrote titled “Winchell: On the Air,” which premiered in the ballroom of The Center for Visual and Performing Arts.
Goddard’s play also delves into Earhart’s personal life, examining her uneasy marriage with book publisher and promoter George Putnam. It was her husband-turned-manager who arranged a landslide of lecture dates, speaking engagements, and countless advertising endorsements such as Maxwell House Coffee, Lucky Strike Cigarettes (which she pushed hard not to do), and even lending her name to a line of luggage.
Her husband reasoned that it was lecture bookings, commercial endorsements and published books that provided the funds for her expensive flying exploits, capped in 1937 when she headed out for an around-the-world flight and disappeared, creating a mystery of the ages.
Goddard said much of her play script is inspired by Amelia Earhart’s books “20 Hrs., 40 Min.” (1928), “The Fun of It” (1932) and “Last Flight” (1937, posthumous). And for the record, Goddard says she’s “hopeful but skeptical” that Amelia’s plane or remains will ever be found.
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org.
