title: Beetlejuice

text: However, Beetlejuice quickly offends the Maitlands with his crude and morbid demeanor: they reconsider hiring him, though too late to stop him from wreaking havoc on the Deetzes. The small town's charm and the supernatural events inspire Charles to pitch his boss Maxie Dean on transforming the town into a tourist hot spot, but Maxie wants proof of the ghosts. Using the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased", Otho conducts what he "thinks" is a séance and summons Adam and Barbara, using their wedding clothes, but they begin to age and decay as Otho had unwittingly performed an exorcism instead.


title: Beetlejuice

text: Horrified, Lydia summons Beetlejuice for help; but he will only help her on the condition that she marries him, enabling him to freely cause chaos in the mortal world. He saves the Maitlands and disposes of Maxie, his wife, and Otho, then prepares a wedding before a ghastly minister. The Maitlands intervene before the ceremony is completed, with Barbara riding a sandworm through the house to devour Beetlejuice.


title: Beetlejuice

text: Finally, the Deetzes and Maitlands agree to live in harmony within the house. Beetlejuice is stuck in the after-life waiting room. He switches number tickets with a witch doctor who shrinks his head.


title: Beetlejuice

text: Following the financial success of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985) Tim Burton became a "bankable" director and began working on a script for "Batman" with Sam Hamm. While Warner Bros. was willing to pay for the script's development, they were less willing to green-light "Batman". Burton had become disheartened by the lack of imagination and originality in the scripts that had been sent to him, particularly "Hot to Trot". David Geffen handed Burton the script for "Beetlejuice", written by Michael McDowell (who wrote the script for "The Jar", an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" directed by Burton).


title: Beetlejuice

text: Larry Wilson was brought on board to continue rewriting work with McDowell, though Burton replaced McDowell and Wilson with Skaaren due to creative differences. Burton's original choice for Beetlejuice was Sammy Davis Jr. The producers also considered Dudley Moore and Sam Kinison for the role; but Geffen suggested Keaton. Burton was unfamiliar with Keaton's work, but was quickly convinced. The role of Lydia Deetz was auditioned for by several actresses such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Brooke Shields, Lori Loughlin, Diane Lane, Justine Bateman, Molly Ringwald, Juliette Lewis and Jennifer Connelly. Alyssa Milano was the runner-up for the role of Lydia Deetz. Burton cast Ryder upon seeing her in "Lucas". Anjelica Huston was originally cast as Delia Deetz but then later dropped out due to illness. O'Hara quickly signed on, while Burton claimed it took a lot of time to convince other cast members to sign, as "they didn't know what to think of the weird script."


title: Beetlejuice

text: "Beetlejuice"s budget was US$15 million, with just US$1 million given over to visual effects work. Considering the scale and scope of the effects, which included stop motion, replacement animation, prosthetic makeup, puppetry and blue screen, it was always Burton's intention to make the style similar to the B movies he grew up with as a child. "I wanted to make them look cheap and purposely fake-looking", Burton remarked. Burton had wanted to hire Anton Furst as production designer after being impressed with his work on "The Company of Wolves" (1984) and "Full Metal Jacket" (1987), though Furst was committed to "High Spirits", a choice he later regretted. He hired Bo Welch, his future collaborator on "Edward Scissorhands" (1990) and "Batman Returns" (1992). The test screenings were met with positive feedback and prompted Burton to film an epilogue featuring Betelgeuse foolishly angering a witch doctor. Warner Bros. disliked the title "Beetlejuice" and wanted to call the film "House Ghosts". As a joke, Burton suggested the name "Scared Sheetless" and was horrified when the studio actually considered using it. Exterior shots were filmed in East Corinth, Vermont.


title: Beetlejuice

text: McDowell's original script is far less comedic and much darker; the Maitlands' car crash is depicted graphically, with Barbara's arm being crushed and the couple screaming for help as they slowly drown in the river. A reference to this remained, as Barbara remarks that her arm feels frozen upon returning home as a ghost. Instead of possessing the Deetzes and forcing them to dance during dinner, the Maitlands cause a vine-patterned carpet to come to life and attack the Deetzes by tangling them to their chairs.


title: Beetlejuice

text: The character of Betelgeuse—envisioned by McDowell as a winged demon, who takes on the form of a short Middle Eastern man–is also intent on killing the Deetzes rather than scaring them, and wanted sex from Lydia instead of wanting to marry her. In this version of the script, Betelgeuse only needs to be exhumed from his grave to be summoned, after which he is free to wreak havoc; he cannot be summoned or controlled by saying his name three times, and wanders the world freely, appearing to torment different characters in different manifestations. McDowell's script also featured a second Deetz child, nine-year-old Cathy, the only person able to see the Maitlands and the subject of Betelgeuse's homicidal wrath in the film's climax, during which he mutilates her while in the form of a rabid squirrel before revealing his true form.


title: Beetlejuice

text: In another version of the script, the film was to have concluded with the Maitlands, Deetzes, and Otho conducting an exorcism ritual that destroys Betelgeuse, and the Maitlands transforming into miniature versions of themselves and moving into Adam's model of their home, which they refurbish to look like their house before the Deetzes moved in.


title: Beetlejuice

text: Co-author and producer Larry Wilson has talked about the negative reaction to McDowell's original script at Universal where he was employed at the time:


title: Beetlejuice

text: Skaaren's rewrite drastically shifted the film's tone, eliminating the graphic nature of the Maitlands' deaths while depicting the afterlife as a complex bureaucracy. Skaaren's rewrite also altered McDowell's depiction of the limbo that keeps Barbara and Adam trapped inside of their home; in McDowell's script, it takes the form of a massive void filled with giant clock gears that shred the fabric of time and space as they move. Skaaren had Barbara and Adam encounter different limbos every time they leave their home, including the "clock world", and the Sandworm's world, identified as Saturn's moon Titan. Skaaren also introduced the "leitmotif" of music accompanying Barbara and Adam's ghostly hijinks, although his script specified R&B tunes instead of Harry Belafonte, and was to have concluded with Lydia dancing to "When a Man Loves a Woman".


title: Beetlejuice

text: Skaaren's first draft retained some of the more sinister characteristics of McDowell's Betelgeuse, but toned down the character to make him a troublesome pervert rather than blatantly murderous. Betelgeuse's true form was that of the Middle Eastern man, and much of his dialogue was written in African-American Vernacular English. This version concluded with the Deetzes returning to New York and leaving Lydia in the care of the Maitlands, who, with Lydia's help, transform the exterior of their home into a stereotypical haunted house while returning the interior to its previous state. It also would have featured deleted scenes such as the real-estate agent, Jane, trying to convince the Deetzes to allow her to sell the house for them (having sold it to them in the first place—Charles and Delia decline), and a revelation on how Beetlejuice had died centuries earlier (that he had attempted to hang himself while drunk, only to mess it up and died slowly choking to death, rather than quickly by snapping his neck) and wound-up working for Juno before striking it out on his own as a "free-lance Bio-Exorcist".


title: Beetlejuice

text: Retrospectively, McDowell was impressed at how many people made the connection between the film's title and the star Betelgeuse. He added that the writers and producers had received a suggestion the sequel be named "Sanduleak -69 202" after the former star of SN 1987A.


title: Beetlejuice

text: While the setting is the fictional village of Winter River, Connecticut, all outdoor scenes were filmed in East Corinth, a village in the town of Corinth, Vermont. Interiors were filmed at The Culver Studios in Culver City, California. Principal photography began on March 11, 1987.


title: Beetlejuice

text: The "Beetlejuice" soundtrack, first released in 1988 on LP, CD, and cassette tape, features most of the score (written and arranged by Danny Elfman) from the film. Geffen reissued the original 1988 soundtrack on vinyl in 2015, which was later re-mastered and pressed to vinyl by Waxwork Records in 2019 for the 30th anniversary of "Beetlejuice". The soundtrack features two original recordings performed by Harry Belafonte used in the film: "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" and "Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)". Two other vintage Belafonte recordings that appeared in the film are absent from the soundtrack: "Man Smart, Woman Smarter" and "Sweetheart from Venezuela". The soundtrack entered the "Billboard" 200 albums chart the week ending June 25, 1988, at No. 145, peaking two weeks later at No. 118 and spending a total of six weeks on the chart. This was after the film had already fallen out of the top 10 and before the video release later in October. "Day-O" received a fair amount of airplay at the time in support of the soundtrack.


title: Beetlejuice

text: The complete score (with the Belafonte tracks included) was released in both the DVD and the Blu-ray as an isolated music track in the audio settings menu; this version of the audio track consists entirely of "clean" musical cues, uninterrupted by dialogue or sound effects.


title: Beetlejuice

text: "Beetlejuice" opened theatrically in the United States on March 30, 1988, earning US$8,030,897 in its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed US$73,707,461 in North America. "Beetlejuice" was a financial success, recouping its US$15 million budget, and was the 10th-highest grossing film of 1988.


title: Beetlejuice

text: "Beetlejuice" was met with a mostly positive response. Based on reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, "Beetlejuice" received an overall approval rating with a weighted average of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Brilliantly bizarre and overflowing with ideas, "Beetlejuice" offers some of Michael Keaton's most deliciously manic work - and creepy, funny fun for the whole family." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 18 reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a B on a grade scale of A to F.


title: Beetlejuice

text: Pauline Kael referred to the film as a "comedy classic", while Jonathan Rosenbaum of "Chicago Reader" gave a highly positive review. Rosenbaum felt "Beetlejuice" carried originality and creativity that did not exist in other films. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called it "a farce for our time" and wished Keaton could have received more screen time. Desson Howe of "The Washington Post" felt "Beetlejuice" had "the perfect balance of bizarreness, comedy and horror".


title: Beetlejuice

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" gave the film a negative review, stating that the film "tries anything and everything for effect, and only occasionally manages something marginally funny" and "is about as funny as a shrunken head". Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, writing that he "would have been more interested if the screenplay had preserved their [Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis] sweet romanticism and cut back on the slapstick". For Keaton's character, Ebert called him "unrecognizable behind pounds of makeup" and stated that "his scenes don't seem to fit with the other action".


title: Beetlejuice

text: In his book "Comedy-Horror Films: A Chronological History, 1914-2008", Bruce G. Hallenbeck praised the film's lively script, assured direction, off-beat casting, and "delightfully off-kilter, Edward Gorey-like look", citing the explorer with the shrunken head and the animated sandworm as particularly memorable visuals.


title: Beetlejuice

text: At the 61st Academy Awards, "Beetlejuice" won the Academy Award for Best Makeup, (Steve La Porte, Ve Neill and Robert Short.) while the British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominated the film with Best Visual Effects and Makeup at the 42nd British Academy Film Awards.


title: Beetlejuice

text: "Beetlejuice" won Best Horror Film and Best Make-up at the 1988 Saturn Awards. Sidney also won the Saturn for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Juno, and the film received five other nominations: Direction for Burton, Writing for McDowell and Skaaren, Best Supporting Actor for Keaton, Music for Elfman and Special Effects. "Beetlejuice" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. "Beetlejuice" was 88th in the American Film Institute's list of Best Comedies.


title: Beetlejuice

text: In 1990, Burton hired Jonathan Gems to write a sequel titled "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian". "Tim thought it would be funny to match the surfing backdrop of a beach movie with some sort of German Expressionism, because they're totally wrong together," Gems said. The story followed the Deetz family moving to Hawaii, where Charles is developing a resort. They soon discover that his company is building on the burial ground of an ancient Hawaiian Kahuna. The spirit comes back from the afterlife to cause trouble, and Beetlejuice becomes a hero by winning a surf contest with magic. Keaton and Ryder agreed to do the film, on the condition that Burton directed, but both he and Keaton became distracted with "Batman Returns".


title: Beetlejuice

text: Burton was still interested in "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian" in early 1991. Impressed with Daniel Waters' work on "Heathers", Burton approached him for a rewrite. However, he eventually signed Waters to write the script for "Batman Returns". By August 1993, producer David Geffen hired Pamela Norris ("Troop Beverly Hills", "Saturday Night Live") to rewrite. Warner Bros. approached Kevin Smith in 1996 to rewrite the script, though Smith turned down the offer in favor of "Superman Lives". Smith later joked that his response was "Didn't we say all we needed to say in the first "Beetlejuice"? Must we go tropical?"


title: Beetlejuice

text: In March 1997, Gems released a statement saying "The "Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian" script is still owned by The Geffen Company and it will likely never get made. You really couldn't do it now anyway. Winona is too old for the role, and the only way they could make it would be to totally recast it."


title: Beetlejuice

text: In September 2011, Warner Bros. hired Seth Grahame-Smith, who collaborated with Burton on "Dark Shadows" and "", to write and produce a sequel to "Beetlejuice". Grahame-Smith signed on with the intention of doing "a story that is worthy of us actually doing this for real, something that is not just about cashing in, is not just about forcing a remake or a reboot down someone's throat." He was also adamant that Keaton would return and that Warner Bros. would not recast the role. Burton and Keaton have not officially signed on but will return if the script is good enough. Grahame-Smith met with Keaton in February 2012, "We talked for a couple of hours and talked about big picture stuff. It's a priority for Warner Bros. It's a priority for Tim. [Michael's] been wanting to do it for 20 years and he'll talk to anybody about it who will listen." The story will be set in a real time frame from 1988; "This will be a true 26 or 27 years later sequel. What's great is that for Beetlejuice , time means nothing in the afterlife, but the world outside is a different story."


title: Beetlejuice

text: In November 2013, Ryder hinted at a possible return for the sequel as well by saying, "I'm kind of sworn to secrecy but it sounds like it might be happening. It's 27 years later. And I have to say, I love Lydia Deetz so much. She was such a huge part of me. I would be really interested in what she is doing 27 years later." Ryder confirmed that she would only consider making a sequel if Burton and Keaton were involved. In December 2014, Burton stated, "It's a character that I love and I miss actually working with Michael. There's only one Betelgeuse. We're working on a script and I think it's probably closer than ever and I'd love to work with him again." In January 2015, writer Grahame-Smith told "Entertainment Weekly" that the script was finished and that he and Burton intended to start filming "Beetlejuice 2" by the end of the year, and that both Keaton and Ryder would return in their respective roles. In August 2015, on "Late Night with Seth Meyers", Ryder confirmed she would be reprising her role in the sequel. In May 2016, Burton stated, "It's something that I really would like to do in the right circumstances, but it's one of those films where it has to be right. It's not a kind of a movie that cries out [for a sequel], it's not the "Beetlejuice" trilogy. So it's something that if the elements are right—because I do love the character and Michael's amazing as that character, so yeah we'll see. But there's nothing concrete yet." In October 2017, Mike Vukadinovich was hired to re-write the script. In April 2019, Warner Bros. stated the sequel had been shelved.


title: Beetlejuice

text: In February 2022, a sequel was announced again, this time produced by Plan B Entertainment alongside Warner Bros. with Keaton and Ryder reprising their roles. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in the same year. Burton stated in October 2022 that he was not involved in the project, but backtracked days later, saying "nothing is out of the question."


title: Beetlejuice

text: Due to the film's financial success, a "Beetlejuice" animated television series was created for ABC. The series ran for four seasons (the final season airing on Fox), lasting from September 9, 1989, to December 6, 1991. Burton served as the show's developer and executive producer.


title: Beetlejuice

text: The character of Beetlejuice was later prominently featured in the "Teen Titans Go!" episode "Ghost with the Most," which aired in October 2020 as part of the show's sixth season. In this appearance, he was voiced by Alex Brightman, reprising his role from the Broadway musical.


title: Beetlejuice

text: In 2016, work began on a Broadway stage musical adaptation of the film directed by Alex Timbers, produced by Warner Bros., with music and lyrics by Eddie Perfect and the musical book written by Scott Brown and Anthony King. The musical was debuted by readings starring Christopher Fitzgerald with the second featuring Kris Kukul as musical director and Connor Gallagher as choreographer. The musical premiered its pre-Broadway tryout at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. for a limited run from October 14 to November 18, 2018, with Alex Brightman in the title role.


title: Beetlejuice

text: In December 2019, the producers announced that the production would play its final performance at the Winter Garden on June 6, 2020, to make way for a revival of "The Music Man" starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. The producers sought to find a theatre to transfer the show to, but the run was cut short when Broadway was shut down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequent productions are set to open across the world, including a North American national tour. The show reopened at the Marquis Theatre on April 8, 2022.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. This replaced the "corseted silhouette" that was dominant beforehand with a style that was simpler, far less time consuming to put on and remove, more comfortable, and less expensive, all without sacrificing elegance. She is the only fashion designer listed on "Time" magazine's . A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her aesthetic design in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Her couture house closed in 1939, with the outbreak of World War II. Chanel stayed in France and was criticized during the war for collaborating with the Nazi-German occupiers and the Vichy puppet regime to boost her professional career. One of Chanel's liaisons was with a German diplomat, Baron ("Freiherr") Hans Günther von Dincklage. After the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator due to intervention by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When the war ended, Chanel moved to Switzerland, returning to Paris in 1954 to revive her fashion house. In 2011, Hal Vaughan published a book about Chanel based on newly declassified documents, revealing that she had collaborated directly with the Nazi intelligence service, the "Sicherheitsdienst". One plan in late 1943 was for her to carry an SS peace overture to Churchill to end the war.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in 1883 to Eugénie Jeanne Devolle Chanel, known as Jeanne, a laundrywoman, in the charity hospital run by the Sisters of Providence (a poorhouse) in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire. She was Jeanne's second child with Albert Chanel; the first, Julia, had been born less than a year earlier. Albert Chanel was an itinerant street vendor who peddled work clothes and undergarments, living a nomadic life, travelling to and from market towns. The family resided in run-down lodgings. In 1884, he married Jeanne Devolle, persuaded to do so by her family who had "united, effectively, to pay Albert".


title: Coco Chanel

text: At birth, Chanel's name was entered into the official registry as "Chasnel". Jeanne was too unwell to attend the registration, and Albert was registered as "travelling". With both parents absent, the infant's last name was misspelled, probably due to a clerical error.


title: Coco Chanel

text: She went to her grave as Gabrielle Chasnel because to correct, legally, the misspelled name on her birth certificate would reveal that she was born in a poorhouse hospice. The couple had six children—Julia, Gabrielle, Alphonse (the first boy, born 1885), Antoinette (born 1887), Lucien, and Augustin (who died at six months)—and lived crowded into a one-room lodging in the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde.


title: Coco Chanel

text: When Gabrielle was 11, Jeanne died at the age of 32. The children did not attend school. Her father sent his two sons to work as farm laborers and sent his three daughters to the convent of Aubazine, which ran an orphanage. Its religious order, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary, was "founded to care for the poor and rejected, including running homes for abandoned and orphaned girls". It was a stark, frugal life, demanding strict discipline. Placement in the orphanage may have contributed to Chanel's future career, as it was where she learned to sew. At age eighteen, Chanel, too old to remain at Aubazine, went to live in a boarding house for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Later in life, Chanel would retell the story of her childhood somewhat differently; she would often include more glamorous accounts, which were generally untrue. She said that when her mother died, her father sailed for America to seek his fortune, and she was sent to live with two aunts. She also claimed to have been born a decade later than 1883 and that her mother had died when she was much younger than 11.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Having learned to sew during her six years at Aubazine, Chanel found employment as a seamstress. When not sewing, she sang in a cabaret frequented by cavalry officers. Chanel made her stage debut singing at a "cafe-concert" (a popular entertainment venue of the era) in a Moulins pavilion, "La Rotonde". She was a "poseuse", a performer who entertained the crowd between star turns. The money earned was what they managed to accumulate when the plate was passed. It was at this time that Gabrielle acquired the name "Coco" when she spent her nights singing in the cabaret, often the song, "Who Has Seen Coco?" She often liked to say the nickname was given to her by her father. Others believe "Coco" came from "Ko Ko Ri Ko", and "Qui qu'a vu Coco", or it was an allusion to the French word for kept woman, "cocotte". As an entertainer, Chanel radiated a juvenile allure that tantalized the military habitués of the cabaret.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1906, Chanel worked in the spa resort town of Vichy. Vichy boasted a profusion of concert halls, theatres, and cafés where she hoped to achieve success as a performer. Chanel's youth and physical charms impressed those for whom she auditioned, but her singing voice was marginal and she failed to find stage work. Obliged to find employment, she took work at the "Grande Grille", where as a "donneuse d'eau" she was one whose job was to dispense glasses of the purportedly curative mineral water for which Vichy was renowned. When the Vichy season ended, Chanel returned to Moulins, and her former haunt "La Rotonde". She realized then that a serious stage career was not in her future.


title: Coco Chanel

text: At Moulins, Chanel met a young French ex-cavalry officer and textile heir, Étienne Balsan. At the age of twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan's mistress, supplanting the courtesan Émilienne d'Alençon as his new favourite. For the next three years, she lived with him in his château Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life. It was a lifestyle of self-indulgence. Balsan's wealth allowed the cultivation of a social set that reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites, with all the implied accompanying decadence. Balsan showered Chanel with the baubles of "the rich life"—diamonds, dresses, and pearls. Biographer Justine Picardie, in her 2010 study "Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life", suggests that the fashion designer's nephew, André Palasse, supposedly the only child of her sister Julia-Berthe who had committed suicide, was Chanel's child by Balsan.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1908, Chanel began an affair with one of Balsan's friends, Captain Arthur Edward 'Boy' Capel. In later years, Chanel reminisced of this time in her life: "two gentlemen were outbidding for my hot little body." Capel, a wealthy member of the English upper class, installed Chanel in an apartment in Paris. and financed her first shops. It is said that Capel's sartorial style influenced the conception of the Chanel look. The bottle design for Chanel No. 5 had two probable origins, both attributable to her association with Capel. It is believed Chanel adapted the rectangular, bevelled lines of the Charvet toiletry bottles he carried in his leather travelling case or she adapted the design of the whiskey decanter Capel used. She so much admired it that she wished to reproduce it in "exquisite, expensive, delicate glass". The couple spent time together at fashionable resorts such as Deauville, but despite Chanel's hopes that they would settle together, Capel was never faithful to her. Their affair lasted nine years. Even after Capel married an English aristocrat, Lady Diana Wyndham in 1918, he did not completely break off with Chanel. He died in a car accident on 22 December 1919. A roadside memorial at the site of Capel's accident is said to have been commissioned by Chanel. Twenty-five years after the event, Chanel, then residing in Switzerland, confided to her friend, Paul Morand, "His death was a terrible blow to me. In losing Capel, I lost everything. What followed was not a life of happiness, I have to say."


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel had begun designing hats while living with Balsan, initially as a diversion that evolved into a commercial enterprise. She became a licensed milliner in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris, named "Chanel Modes". As this location already housed an established clothing business, Chanel sold only her millinery creations at this address. Chanel's millinery career bloomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorziat wore her hats in Fernand Nozière's play "Bel Ami" in 1912. Subsequently, Dorziat modelled Chanel's hats again in photographs published in "Les Modes".


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1913, Chanel opened a boutique in Deauville, financed by Arthur Capel, where she introduced deluxe casual clothing suitable for leisure and sport. The fashions were constructed from humble fabrics such as jersey and tricot, at the time primarily used for men's underwear. The location was a prime one, in the center of town on a fashionable street. Here Chanel sold hats, jackets, sweaters, and the "marinière", the sailor blouse. Chanel had the dedicated support of two family members, her sister Antoinette, and her paternal aunt Adrienne, who was of a similar age. Adrienne and Antoinette were recruited to model Chanel's designs; on a daily basis the two women paraded through the town and on its boardwalks, advertising the Chanel creations.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel, determined to re-create the success she enjoyed in Deauville, opened an establishment in Biarritz in 1915. Biarritz, on the Côte Basque, close to wealthy Spanish clients, was a playground for the moneyed set and those exiled from their native countries by the war. The Biarritz shop was installed not as a store-front, but in a villa opposite the casino. After one year of operation, the business proved to be so lucrative that in 1916 Chanel was able to reimburse Capel's original investment. In Biarritz Chanel met an expatriate aristocrat, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. They had a romantic interlude, and maintained a close association for many years afterward. By 1919, Chanel was registered as a "couturière" and established her "maison de couture" at 31 rue Cambon, Paris.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1918, Chanel purchased the building at 31 rue Cambon, in one of the most fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she opened an early incarnation of a fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and accessories, later expanded to offer jewellery and fragrances. By 1927, Chanel owned five properties on the rue Cambon, buildings numbered 23 to 31.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In the spring of 1920, Chanel was introduced to the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky by Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes. During the summer, Chanel discovered that the Stravinsky family sought a place to live, having left the Russian Soviet Republic after the war. She invited them to her new home, "Bel Respiro", in the Paris suburb of "Garches", until they could find a suitable residence. They arrived at "Bel Respiro" during the second week of September and remained until May 1921. Chanel also guaranteed the new (1920) Ballets Russes production of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" ('The Rite of Spring') against financial loss with an anonymous gift to Diaghilev, said to be 300,000 francs. In addition to turning out her couture collections, Chanel threw herself into designing dance costumes for the Ballets Russes. In the years 1923–1937, she collaborated on productions choreographed by Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, notably "Le Train bleu", a dance-opera; "Orphée" and "Oedipe Roi".


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1922, at the Longchamps races, Théophile Bader, founder of the Paris Galeries Lafayette, introduced Chanel to businessman Pierre Wertheimer. Bader was interested in selling Chanel No. 5 in his department store. In 1924, Chanel made an agreement with the Wertheimer brothers, Pierre and Paul, directors since 1917 of the eminent perfume and cosmetics house Bourjois. They created a corporate entity, "Parfums Chanel", and the Wertheimers agreed to provide full financing for the production, marketing, and distribution of Chanel No. 5. The Wertheimers would receive seventy percent of the profits, and Théophile Bader twenty percent. For ten percent of the stock, Chanel licensed her name to "Parfums Chanel" and withdrew from involvement in business operations. Later, unhappy with the arrangement, Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of "Parfums Chanel". She said that Pierre Wertheimer was "the bandit who screwed me".


title: Coco Chanel

text: One of Chanel's longest enduring associations was with Misia Sert, a member of the bohemian elite in Paris and wife of Spanish painter José-Maria Sert. It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of kindred souls, and Misia was attracted to Chanel by "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone". Both women were convent-schooled, and maintained a friendship of shared interests and confidences. They also shared drug use. By 1935, Chanel had become a habitual drug user, injecting herself with morphine on a daily basis: a habit she maintained to the end of her life. According to Chandler Burr's "The Emperor of Scent", Luca Turin related an apocryphal story in circulation that Chanel was "called Coco because she threw the most fabulous cocaine parties in Paris".


title: Coco Chanel

text: The writer Colette, who moved in the same social circles as Chanel, provided a whimsical description of Chanel at work in her atelier, which appeared in "Prisons et Paradis" (1932):If every human face bears a resemblance to some animal, then Mademoiselle Chanel is a small black bull. That tuft of curly black hair, the attribute of bull-calves, falls over her brow all the way to the eyelids and dances with every maneuver of her head.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1923, Vera Bate Lombardi, (born Sarah Gertrude Arkwright), reputedly the illegitimate daughter of the Marquess of Cambridge, offered Chanel entry into the highest levels of British aristocracy. It was an elite group of associations revolving around such figures as politician Winston Churchill, aristocrats such as the Duke of Westminster and royals such as Edward, Prince of Wales. In Monte Carlo in 1923, at age forty, Chanel was introduced by Lombardi to the vastly wealthy Duke of Westminster, Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, known to his intimates as "Bendor". The duke lavished Chanel with extravagant jewels, costly art and a home in London's prestigious Mayfair district. His affair with Chanel lasted ten years.


title: Coco Chanel

text: The duke, an outspoken antisemite, intensified Chanel's inherent antipathy toward Jews. He shared with her an expressed homophobia. In 1946, Chanel was quoted by her friend and confidant, Paul Morand, Homosexuals? ... I have seen young women ruined by these awful queers: drugs, divorce, scandal. They will use any means to destroy a competitor and to wreak vengeance on a woman. The queers want to be women—but they are lousy women. They are charming! Coinciding with her introduction to the duke was her introduction, again through Lombardi, to Lombardi's cousin, the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII. The prince allegedly was smitten with Chanel and pursued her in spite of her involvement with the Duke of Westminster. Gossip had it that he visited Chanel in her apartment and requested that she call him "David", a privilege reserved only for his closest friends and family. Years later, Diana Vreeland, editor of "Vogue", would insist that "the passionate, focused and fiercely-independent Chanel, a virtual tour de force", and the Prince "had a great romantic moment together".


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1927, the Duke of Westminster gave Chanel a parcel of land he had purchased in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera. Chanel built a villa here, which she called "La Pausa" ('restful pause'), hiring the architect Robert Streitz. Streitz's concept for the staircase and patio contained design elements inspired by Aubazine, the orphanage where Chanel spent her youth. When asked why she did not marry the Duke of Westminster, she is supposed to have said: "There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel."


title: Coco Chanel

text: During Chanel's affair with the Duke of Westminster in the 1930s, her style began to reflect her personal emotions. Her inability to reinvent the little black dress was a sign of such reality. She began to design a "less is more" aesthetic.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1931, while in Monte Carlo Chanel became acquainted with Samuel Goldwyn. She was introduced through a mutual friend, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, cousin to the last tsar of Russia, Nicolas II. Goldwyn offered Chanel a tantalizing proposition. For the sum of a million dollars (approximately US$75 million today), he would bring her to Hollywood twice a year to design costumes for his stars. Chanel accepted the offer. Accompanying her on her first trip to Hollywood was her friend, Misia Sert.


title: Coco Chanel

text: En route to California from New York, travelling in a white train carriage luxuriously outfitted for her use, Chanel was interviewed by "Collier's" magazine in 1932. She said that she had agreed to go to Hollywood to "see what the pictures have to offer me and what I have to offer the pictures". Chanel designed the clothing worn on screen by Gloria Swanson, in "Tonight or Never" (1931), and for Ina Claire in "The Greeks Had a Word for Them" (1932). Both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich became private clients.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Her experience with American film making left Chanel with a dislike for Hollywood's film business and a distaste for the film world's culture, which she called "infantile". Chanel's verdict was that "Hollywood is the capital of bad taste ... and it is vulgar." Ultimately, her design aesthetic did not translate well to film. "The New Yorker" speculated that Chanel left Hollywood because "they told her her dresses weren't sensational enough. She made a lady look like a lady. Hollywood wants a lady to look like two ladies." Chanel went on to design the costumes for several French films, including Jean Renoir's 1939 film "La Règle du jeu", in which she was credited as "La Maison Chanel". Chanel introduced the left-wing Renoir to Luchino Visconti, aware that the shy Italian hoped to work in film. Renoir was favorably impressed by Visconti and brought him in to work on his next film project.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel was the mistress of some of the most influential men of her time, but she never married. She had significant relationships with the poet Pierre Reverdy and the illustrator and designer Paul Iribe. After her romance with Reverdy ended in 1926, they maintained a friendship that lasted some forty years. It is postulated that the legendary maxims attributed to Chanel and published in periodicals were crafted under the mentorship of Reverdy—a collaborative effort.


title: Coco Chanel

text: A review of her correspondence reveals a complete contradiction between the clumsiness of Chanel the letter writer and the talent of Chanel as a composer of maxims ... After correcting the handful of aphorisms that Chanel wrote about her "métier", Reverdy added to this collection of "Chanelisms" a series of thoughts of a more general nature, some touching on life and taste, others on allure and love.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Her involvement with Iribe was a deep one until his sudden death in 1935. Iribe and Chanel shared the same reactionary politics, Chanel financing Iribe's monthly, ultra-nationalist and anti-republican newsletter, "Le Témoin", which encouraged a fear of foreigners and preached antisemitism. In 1936, one year after "Le Témoin" ceased publication, Chanel veered to the opposite end of the ideological continuum by financing Pierre Lestringuez's radical left-wing magazine "Futur".


title: Coco Chanel

text: The Chanel couture was a lucrative business enterprise, employing 4,000 people by 1935. As the 1930s progressed, Chanel's place on the throne of haute couture was threatened. The boyish look and the short skirts of the 1920s flapper seemed to disappear overnight. Chanel's designs for film stars in Hollywood were not successful and had not enhanced her reputation as expected. More significantly, Chanel's star had been eclipsed by her premier rival, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli's innovative designs, replete with playful references to surrealism, were garnering critical acclaim and generating enthusiasm in the fashion world. Feeling she was losing her avant-garde edge, Chanel collaborated with Jean Cocteau on his theatre piece "Oedipe Rex". The costumes she designed were mocked and critically lambasted: "Wrapped in bandages the actors looked like ambulant mummies or victims of some terrible accident." She was also involved in the costuming of "Baccanale", a Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo production. The designs were made by Salvador Dalí. However, due to Britain's declaration of war on 3 September 1939, the ballet was forced to leave London. They left the costumes in Europe and were re-made, according to Dali's initial designs, by Karinska.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Chanel closed her shops, maintaining her apartment situated above the couture house at 31 Rue de Cambon. She said that it was not a time for fashion; as a result of her action, 4,000 female employees lost their jobs. Her biographer Hal Vaughan suggests that Chanel used the outbreak of war as an opportunity to retaliate against those workers who had struck for higher wages and shorter work hours in the French general labor strike of 1936. In closing her couture house, Chanel made a definitive statement of her political views. Her dislike of Jews, reportedly sharpened by her association with society elites, had solidified her beliefs. She shared with many of her circle a conviction that Jews were a threat to Europe because of the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union.


title: Coco Chanel

text: During the German occupation, Chanel resided at the Hotel Ritz. It was noteworthy as the preferred place of residence for upper-echelon German military staff. During this time, she had a romantic liaison with Baron , a German aristocrat and member of Dincklage noble family. He served as diplomat in Paris and was a former Prussian Army officer and attorney general who had been an operative in military intelligence since 1920, who eased her arrangements at the Ritz.


title: Coco Chanel

text: "Sleeping with the Enemy, Coco Chanel and the Secret War" written by Hal Vaughan further solidifies the consistencies of the French intelligence documents released by describing Chanel as a "vicious antisemite" who praised Hitler.


title: Coco Chanel

text: World War II, specifically the Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned property and business enterprises, provided Chanel with the opportunity to gain the full monetary fortune generated by "Parfums Chanel" and its most profitable product, Chanel No. 5. The directors of "Parfums Chanel", the Wertheimers, were Jewish. Chanel used her position as an "Aryan" to petition German officials to legalize her claim to sole ownership.


title: Coco Chanel

text: She wrote: I have an indisputable right of priority ... the profits that I have received from my creations since the foundation of this business ... are disproportionate ... [and] you can help to repair in part the prejudices I have suffered in the course of these seventeen years.Chanel was not aware that the Wertheimers, anticipating the forthcoming Nazi mandates against Jews had, in May 1940, legally turned control of "Parfums Chanel" over to Félix Amiot, a Christian French businessman and industrialist. At war's end, Amiot returned "Parfums Chanel" to the hands of the Wertheimers.


title: Coco Chanel

text: During the period directly following the end of World War II, the business world watched with interest and some apprehension the ongoing legal wrestle for control of "Parfums Chanel". Interested parties in the proceedings were cognizant that Chanel's Nazi affiliations during wartime, if made public knowledge, would seriously threaten the reputation and status of the Chanel brand. "Forbes" magazine summarized the dilemma faced by the Wertheimers: [it is Pierre Wertheimer's worry] how "a legal fight might illuminate Chanel's wartime activities and wreck her image—and his business."


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel hired René de Chambrun, Vichy France Prime Minister Pierre Laval's son-in-law, as her lawyer to sue Wertheimer. Ultimately, the Wertheimers and Chanel came to a mutual accommodation, renegotiating the original 1924 contract. On 17 May 1947, Chanel received wartime profits from the sale of Chanel No. 5, an amount equivalent to some million in 2022 valuation. Her future share would be two percent of all Chanel No. 5 sales worldwide (projected to gross her $34 million a year as of 2022), making her one of the richest women in the world at the time the contract was renegotiated. In addition, Pierre Wertheimer agreed to an unusual stipulation proposed by Chanel herself: Wertheimer agreed to pay all of Chanel's living expenses—from the trivial to the large—for the rest of her life.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Declassified archival documents unearthed by Vaughan reveal that the French Préfecture de Police had a document on Chanel in which she was described as "Couturier and perfumer. Pseudonym: Westminster. Agent reference: F 7124. Signalled as suspect in the file" ("Pseudonyme: Westminster. Indicatif d'agent: F 7124. Signalée comme suspecte au fichier"). For Vaughan, this was a piece of revelatory information linking Chanel to German intelligence operations. Anti-Nazi activist Serge Klarsfeld declared, "Just because Chanel had a spy number doesn't necessarily mean she was personally involved. Some informers had numbers without being aware of it." (""Ce n'est pas parce que Coco Chanel avait un numéro d'espion qu'elle était nécessairement impliquée personnellement. Certains indicateurs avaient des numéros sans le savoir"").


title: Coco Chanel

text: Vaughan establishes that Chanel committed herself to the German cause as early as 1941 and worked for General Walter Schellenberg, chief of the German intelligence agency "Sicherheitsdienst" (Security Service; SD) and the military intelligence spy network "Abwehr" (Counterintelligence) at the Reich Security Main Office ("Reichssicherheitshauptamt"; RSHA) in Berlin. At the end of the war, Schellenberg was tried by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment for war crimes. He was released in 1951 owing to incurable liver disease and took refuge in Italy. Chanel paid for Schellenberg's medical care and living expenses, financially supported his wife and family and paid for Schellenberg's funeral upon his death in 1952.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Suspicions of Coco Chanel's involvement first began when German tanks entered Paris and began the Nazi occupation. Chanel immediately sought refuge in the deluxe Hotel Ritz, which was also used as the headquarters of the German military. It was at the Hotel Ritz where she fell in love with Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, working in the German embassy close to the Gestapo. When the Nazi occupation of France began, Chanel decided to close her store, claiming a patriotic motivation behind such decision. However, when she moved into the same Hotel Ritz that was housing the German military, her motivations became clear to many. While many women in France were punished for "horizontal collaboration" with German officers, Chanel faced no such action. At the time of the French liberation in 1944, Chanel left a note in her store window explaining Chanel No. 5 to be free to all GIs. During this time, she fled to Switzerland to avoid criminal charges for her collaborations as a Nazi spy. After the liberation, she was known to have been interviewed in Paris by Malcolm Muggeridge, who at the time was an officer in British military intelligence, about her relationship with the Nazis during the occupation of France.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In late 2014, French intelligence agencies declassified and released documents confirming Coco Chanel's role with Germany in World War II. Working as a spy, Chanel was directly involved in a plan for the Third Reich to take control of Madrid. Such documents identify Chanel as an agent in the German military intelligence, the Abwehr. Chanel visited Madrid in 1943 to convince the British ambassador to Spain, Sir Samuel Hoare, a friend of Winston Churchill, about a possible German surrender once the war was leaning towards an Allied victory. One of the most prominent missions she was involved in was Operation Modellhut ("Operation Model Hat"). Her duty was to act as a messenger from Hitler's Foreign Intelligence to Churchill, to prove that some of the Third Reich attempted peace with the Allies.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1943, Chanel traveled to the RSHA in Berlin—the "lion's den"—with her liaison and "old friend", the German Embassy in Paris press attaché Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, a former Prussian Army officer and attorney general, who was also known as "Sparrow" among his friends and colleagues. Dincklage was also a collaborator for the German SD; his superiors being Walter Schellenberg and Alexander Waag in Berlin. Chanel and Dincklage were to report to Schellenberg at the RSHA, with a plan that Chanel had proposed to Dincklage: she, Coco Chanel, was to meet Churchill and persuade him to negotiate with the Germans. In late 1943 or early 1944, Chanel and her SS superior, Schellenberg, who had a weakness for unconventional schemes, devised a plan to get Britain to consider a separate peace to be negotiated by the SS. When interrogated by British intelligence at the war's end, Schellenberg maintained that Chanel was "a person who knew Churchill sufficiently to undertake political negotiations with him". For this mission, code-named "Operation Modellhut", they also recruited Vera Bate Lombardi. Count Joseph von Ledebur-Wicheln, a Nazi agent who defected to the British Secret Service in 1944, recalled a meeting he had with Dincklage in early 1943, in which the baron had suggested including Lombardi as a courier. Dincklage purportedly said, The "Abwehr" had first to bring to France a young Italian woman [Lombardi] Coco Chanel was attached to because of her lesbian vicesUnaware of the machinations of Schellenberg and Chanel, Lombardi was led to believe that the forthcoming journey to Spain would be a business trip exploring the potential for establishing Chanel couture in Madrid. Lombardi acted as an intermediary, delivering a letter written by Chanel to Churchill, to be forwarded to him via the British Embassy in Madrid. Schellenberg's SS liaison officer, Captain Walter Kutschmann, acted as bagman, "told to deliver a large sum of money to Chanel in Madrid". Ultimately, the mission was a failure for the Germans: British intelligence files reveal that the plan collapsed after Lombardi, on arrival in Madrid, proceeded to denounce Chanel and others to the British Embassy as Nazi spies.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In September 1944, Chanel was interrogated by the Free French Purge Committee, the "épuration". The committee had no documented evidence of her collaborative activities and was obliged to release her. According to Chanel's grand-niece, Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, when Chanel returned home she said, "Churchill had me freed".


title: Coco Chanel

text: The extent of Churchill's intervention for Chanel after the war became a subject of gossip and speculation. Some historians claimed that people worried that, if Chanel were forced to testify about her own activities at trial, she would expose the pro-Nazi sympathies and activities of certain top-level British officials, members of the society elite and the royal family. Vaughan writes that some claim that Churchill instructed Duff Cooper, British ambassador to the French provisional government, to protect Chanel.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Requested to appear in Paris before investigators in 1949, Chanel left her retreat in Switzerland to confront testimony given against her at the war crime trial of Baron Louis de Vaufreland, a French traitor and highly placed German intelligence agent. Chanel denied all the accusations. She offered the presiding judge, Leclercq, a character reference: "I could arrange for a declaration to come from Mr. Duff Cooper."


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel's friend and biographer Marcel Haedrich said of her wartime interaction with the Nazi regime: If one took seriously the few disclosures that Mademoiselle Chanel allowed herself to make about those black years of the occupation, one's teeth would be set on edge.Churchill and Chanel's friendship marks its origin in the 1920s, with the eruption of Chanel's scandalous beginning when falling in love with the Duke of Westminster. Churchill's intervention at the end of the war prevented Chanel's punishment for spy collaborations, and ultimately salvaged her legacy.


title: Coco Chanel

text: When Vaughan's book was published in August 2011, his disclosure of the contents of recently declassified military intelligence documents generated considerable controversy about Chanel's activities. Maison de Chanel issued a statement, portions of which were published by several media outlets. Chanel corporate "refuted the claim" (of espionage), while acknowledging that company officials had read only media excerpts of the book.


title: Coco Chanel

text: The Chanel Group stated, What is certain is that she had a relationship with a German aristocrat during the War. Clearly it wasn't the best period to have a love story with a German, even if Baron von Dincklage was English by his mother and she (Chanel) knew him before the War.In an interview given to the Associated Press, author Vaughan discussed the unexpected turn of his research, I was looking for something else and I come across this document saying 'Chanel is a Nazi agent' ... Then I really started hunting through all of the archives, in the United States, in London,in Berlin, and in Rome and I came across not one, but 20, 30, 40 absolutely solid archival materials on Chanel and her lover, Hans Günther von Dincklage, who was a professional Abwehr spy.Vaughan also addressed the discomfort many felt with the revelations provided in his book: A lot of people in this world don't want the iconic figure of Gabrielle Coco Chanel, one of France's great cultural idols, destroyed. This is definitely something that a lot of people would have preferred to put aside, to forget, to just go on selling Chanel scarves and jewellery.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1945, Chanel moved to Switzerland, where she lived for several years, part of the time with Dincklage. In 1953 she sold her villa "La Pausa" on the French Riviera to the publisher and translator Emery Reves. Five rooms from La Pausa have been replicated at the Dallas Museum of Art, to house the Reves' art collection as well as pieces of furniture belonging to Chanel.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Unlike the pre-war era, when women reigned as the premier couturiers, Christian Dior achieved success in 1947 with his "New Look", and a cadre of male designers achieved recognition: Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Robert Piguet, and Jacques Fath. Chanel was convinced that women would ultimately rebel against the aesthetic favoured by the male couturiers, what she called "illogical" design: the "waist cinchers, padded bras, heavy skirts, and stiffened jackets".


title: Coco Chanel

text: At more than 70 years old, after having her couture house closed for 15 years, she felt the time was right for her to re-enter the fashion world. The revival of her couture house in 1954 was fully financed by Chanel's opponent in the perfume battle, Pierre Wertheimer. When Chanel came out with her comeback collection in 1954, the French press were cautious due to her collaboration during the war and the controversy of the collection. However, the American and British press saw it as a "breakthrough", bringing together fashion and youth in a new way. Bettina Ballard, the influential editor of the US "Vogue", remained loyal to Chanel, and featured the model Marie-Hélène Arnaud—the "face of Chanel" in the 1950s—in the March 1954 issue, photographed by Henry Clarke, wearing three outfits: a red dress with a V-neck paired with ropes of pearls; a tiered seersucker evening gown; and a navy jersey mid-calf suit. Arnaud wore this outfit, "with its slightly padded, square shouldered cardigan jacket, two patch pockets and sleeves that unbuttoned back to reveal crisp white cuffs", above "a white muslin blouse with a perky collar and bow [that] stayed perfectly in place with small tabs that buttoned onto the waistline of an easy A-line skirt." Ballard had bought the suit herself, which gave "an overwhelming impression of insouciant, youthful elegance", and orders for the clothing that Arnaud had modelled soon poured in from the US.


title: Coco Chanel

text: According to Edmonde Charles-Roux, Chanel had become tyrannical and extremely lonely late in life. In her last years she was sometimes accompanied by Jacques Chazot and her confidante Lilou Marquand. A faithful friend was also the Brazilian Aimée de Heeren, who lived in Paris four months a year at the nearby Hôtel Meurice. The former rivals shared happy memories of times with the Duke of Westminster. They frequently strolled together through central Paris.


title: Coco Chanel

text: As 1971 began, Chanel was 87 years old, tired, and ailing. She carried out her usual routine of preparing the spring catalogue. She had gone for a long drive on the afternoon of Saturday, 9 January. Soon after, feeling ill, she went to bed early. She announced her final words to her maid which were: "You see, this is how you die."


title: Coco Chanel

text: She died on Sunday, 10 January 1971, at the Hotel Ritz, where she had resided for more than 30 years.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Her funeral was held at the Église de la Madeleine; her fashion models occupied the first seats during the ceremony and her coffin was covered with white flowers—camellias, gardenias, orchids, azaleas and a few red roses. Salvador Dalí, Serge Lifar, Jacques Chazot, Yves Saint Laurent and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild attended her funeral in the Church of the Madeleine.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Most of her estate was inherited by her nephew André Palasse, who lived in Switzerland, and his two daughters, who lived in Paris.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Although Chanel was viewed as a prominent figure of luxury fashion during her life, Chanel's influence has been examined further after her death in 1971. When Chanel died, the first lady of France, Mme Pompidou, organized a hero's tribute. Soon, damaging documents from French intelligence agencies were released that outlined Chanel's wartime involvements, quickly ending her monumental funeral plans.


title: Coco Chanel

text: As early as 1915, "Harper's Bazaar" raved over Chanel's designs: "The woman who hasn't at least one Chanel is hopelessly out of fashion ... This season the name Chanel is on the lips of every buyer." Chanel's ascendancy was the official deathblow to the corseted female silhouette. The frills, fuss, and constraints endured by earlier generations of women were now passé; under her influence—gone were the ""aigrettes", long hair, hobble skirts". Her design aesthetic redefined the fashionable woman in the post World War I era. The Chanel trademark look was of youthful ease, liberated physicality, and unencumbered sportive confidence.


title: Coco Chanel

text: The horse culture and penchant for hunting so passionately pursued by the elites, especially the British, fired Chanel's imagination. Her own enthusiastic indulgence in the sporting life led to clothing designs informed by those activities. From her excursions on water with the yachting world, she appropriated the clothing associated with nautical pursuits: the horizontal striped shirt, bell-bottom pants, crewneck sweaters, and "espadrille" shoes—all traditionally worn by sailors and fishermen.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel's initial triumph was her innovative use of jersey, a machine knit material manufactured for her by the firm Rodier. Traditionally relegated to the manufacture of undergarments and sportswear (tennis, golf, and beach attire), jersey was considered too "ordinary" to be used in couture, and was disliked by designers because the knit structure made it difficult to handle compared to woven fabrics. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "With her financial situation precarious in the early years of her design career, Chanel purchased jersey primarily for its low cost. The qualities of the fabric, however, ensured that the designer would continue to use it long after her business became profitable." Chanel's early wool jersey travelling suit consisted of a cardigan jacket and pleated skirt, paired with a low-belted pullover top. This ensemble, worn with low-heeled shoes, became the casual look in expensive women's wear.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel's introduction of jersey to high-fashion worked well for two reasons: First, the war had caused a shortage of more traditional couture materials, and second, women began desiring simpler and more practical clothes. Her fluid jersey suits and dresses were created with these notions in mind and allowed for free and easy movement. This was greatly appreciated at the time because women were working for the war effort as nurses, civil servants, and in factories. Their jobs involved physical activity and they had to ride trains, buses, and bicycles to get to work. For such circumstances, they desired outfits that did not give way easily and could be put on without the help of servants.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Designers such as Paul Poiret and Fortuny introduced ethnic references into haute couture in the 1900s and early 1910s. Chanel continued this trend with Slav-inspired designs in the early 1920s. The beading and embroidery on her garments at this time was exclusively executed by Kitmir, an embroidery house founded by an exiled Russian aristocrat, the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who was the sister of Chanel's erstwhile lover, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. Kitmir's fusion of oriental stitching with stylised folk motifs was highlighted in Chanel's early collections. One 1922 evening dress came with a matching embroidered 'babushka' headscarf. In addition to the headscarf, Chanel clothing from this period featured square-neck, long belted blouses alluding to Russian "muzhiks" (peasant) attire known as the "roubachka". Evening designs were often embroidered with sparkling crystal and black jet embroidery.


title: Coco Chanel

text: First introduced in 1923, the Chanel tweed suit was designed for comfort and practicality. It consisted of a jacket and skirt in supple and light wool or mohair tweed, and a blouse and jacket lining in jersey or silk. Chanel did not stiffen the material or use shoulder pads, as was common in contemporary fashion. She cut the jackets on the straight grain, without adding bust darts. This allowed for quick and easy movement. She designed the neckline to leave the neck comfortably free and added functional pockets. For a higher level of comfort, the skirt had a grosgrain stay around the waist, instead of a belt. More importantly, meticulous attention was placed on detail during fittings. Measurements were taken of a customer in a standing position with arms folded at shoulder height. Chanel conducted tests with models, having them walk around, step up to a platform as if climbing stairs of an imaginary bus, and bend as if getting into a low-slung sports car. Chanel wanted to make sure women could do all of these things while wearing her suit, without accidentally exposing parts of their body they wanted covered. Each client would have repeated adjustments until their suit was comfortable enough for them to perform daily activities with comfort and ease.


title: Coco Chanel

text: The camellia had an established association used in Alexandre Dumas' literary work, "La Dame aux Camélias" (The Lady of the Camellias). Its heroine and her story had resonated for Chanel since her youth. The flower was associated with the courtesan, who would wear a camellia to advertise her availability. The camellia came to be identified with The House of Chanel; the designer first used it in 1933 as a decorative element on a white-trimmed black suit.


title: Coco Chanel

text: After the jersey suit, the concept of the little black dress is often cited as a Chanel contribution to the fashion lexicon, a style still worn to this day. In 1912–1913, the actress Suzanne Orlandi was one of the first women to wear a Chanel little black dress, in velvet with a white collar. In 1920, Chanel herself vowed that, while observing an audience at the opera, she would dress all women in black.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1926, the American edition of "Vogue" published an image of a Chanel little black dress with long sleeves, dubbing it the "garçonne" ('little boy' look). "Vogue" predicted that such a simple yet chic design would become a virtual uniform for women of taste, famously comparing its basic lines to the ubiquitous and no less widely accessible Ford automobile. The spare look generated widespread criticism from male journalists, who complained: "no more bosom, no more stomach, no more rump ... Feminine fashion of this moment in the 20th century will be baptized lop off everything." The popularity of the little black dress can be attributed in part to the timing of its introduction. The 1930s was the Great Depression era, when women needed affordable fashion. Chanel boasted that she had enabled the non-wealthy to "walk around like millionaires". Chanel started making little black dresses in wool or chenille for the day and in satin, crêpe or velvet for the evening.


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel proclaimed "I imposed black; it's still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around."


title: Coco Chanel

text: Chanel introduced a line of jewellery that was a conceptual innovation, as her designs and materials incorporated both costume jewellery and fine gem stones. This was revolutionary in an era when jewellery was strictly categorized into either fine or costume jewellery. Her inspirations were global, often inspired by design traditions of the Orient and Egypt. Wealthy clients who did not wish to display their costly jewellery in public could wear Chanel creations to impress others.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1933, designer Paul Iribe collaborated with Chanel in the creation of extravagant jewellery pieces commissioned by the International Guild of Diamond Merchants. The collection, executed exclusively in diamonds and platinum, was exhibited for public viewing and drew a large audience; some 3,000 attendees were recorded in a one-month period.


title: Coco Chanel

text: As an antidote for "vrais bijoux en toc", the obsession with costly, fine jewels, Chanel turned costume jewellery into a coveted accessory—especially when worn in grand displays, as she did. Originally inspired by the opulent jewels and pearls given to her by aristocratic lovers, Chanel raided her own jewel vault and partnered with Duke Fulco di Verdura to launch a House of Chanel jewellery line. A white enamelled cuff featuring a jewelled Maltese cross was Chanel's personal favourite; it has become an icon of the Verdura–Chanel collaboration. The fashionable and wealthy loved the creations and made the line wildly successful. Chanel said, "It's disgusting to walk around with millions around the neck because one happens to be rich. I only like fake jewellery ... because it's provocative."


title: Coco Chanel

text: In 1929, Chanel introduced a handbag inspired by soldiers' bags. Its thin shoulder strap allowed the user to keep her hands free. Following her comeback, Chanel updated the design in February 1955, creating what would become the "2.55" (named for the date of its creation). Whilst details of the classic bag have been reworked, such as the 1980s update by Karl Lagerfeld when the clasp and lock were redesigned to incorporate the Chanel logo and leather was interlaced through the shoulder chain, the bag has retained its original basic form. In 2005, the Chanel firm released an exact replica of the original 1955 bag to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its creation.


title: Coco Chanel

text: The bag's design was informed by Chanel's convent days and her love of the sporting world. The chain used for the strap echoed the "chatelaines" worn by the caretakers of the orphanage where Chanel grew up, whilst the burgundy lining referenced the convent uniforms. The quilted outside was influenced by the jackets worn by jockeys, whilst at the same time enhancing the bag's shape and volume.


title: Coco Chanel

text: In an outdoor environment of turf and sea, Chanel took in the sun, making suntans not only acceptable, but a symbol denoting a life of privilege and leisure. Historically, identifiable exposure to the sun had been the mark of labourers doomed to a life of unremitting, unsheltered toil. "A milky skin seemed a sure sign of aristocracy." By the mid-1920s, women could be seen lounging on the beach without a hat to shield them from the sun's rays. The Chanel influence made sun bathing fashionable.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Born and raised in Atchison, Kansas, and later in Des Moines, Iowa, Earhart developed a passion for adventure at a young age, steadily gaining flying experience from her twenties. In 1928, Earhart became the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane (accompanying pilot Wilmer Stultz), for which she achieved celebrity status. In 1932, piloting a Lockheed Vega 5B, Earhart made a nonstop solo transatlantic flight, becoming the first woman to achieve such a feat. She received the United States Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment. In 1935, Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue University as an advisor to aeronautical engineering and a career counselor to female students. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. Known as one of the most inspirational American figures in aviation from the late 1920s throughout the 1930s, Earhart's legacy is often compared to the early aeronautical career of pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, as well as to figures like First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for their close friendship and lasting impact on the issue of women's causes from that period.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: During an attempt at becoming the first woman to complete a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. The two were last seen in Lae, New Guinea, on July 2, 1937, on the last land stop before Howland Island and one of their final legs of the flight. She presumably died in the Pacific during the circumnavigation, just three weeks prior to her fortieth birthday. Nearly one year and six months after she and Noonan disappeared, Earhart was officially declared dead. Investigations and significant public interest in their disappearance still continue over 80 years later.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Decades after her presumed death, Earhart was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1968 and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973. She now has several commemorative memorials named in her honor around the United States, including an urban park, an airport, a residence hall, a museum, a research foundation, a bridge, a cargo ship, an earth-fill dam, four schools, a hotel, a playhouse, a library, multiple roads, and more. She also has a minor planet, planetary corona, and newly-discovered lunar crater named after her. She is ranked ninth on "Flying"'s list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, the daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1867–1930) and Amelia "Amy" (; 1869–1962). She was born in the home of her maternal grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis (1827–1912), who was a former federal judge, the president of the Atchison Savings Bank and a leading citizen in the town. Earhart was the second child of the marriage after an infant was stillborn in August 1896. She was of part German descent. Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with Edwin's progress as a lawyer.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: According to family custom, Earhart was named after her two grandmothers, Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton. From an early age, Earhart was the ringleader while her sister Grace Muriel Earhart (1899–1998), two years her junior, acted as the dutiful follower. Amelia was nicknamed "Meeley" (sometimes "Millie") and Grace was nicknamed "Pidge"; both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood. Their upbringing was unconventional, as Amy Earhart did not believe in raising her children to be "nice little girls". But their maternal grandmother disapproved of the "bloomers" they wore, and although Earhart liked the freedom of movement they provided, she was sensitive to the fact that the neighborhood's girls wore dresses.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A spirit of adventure seemed to abide in the Earhart children, with the pair setting off daily to explore their neighborhood. As a child, Earhart spent long hours playing with sister Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle, and "belly-slamming" her sled downhill. Although the love of the outdoors and "rough-and-tumble" play was common to many youngsters, some biographers have characterized the young Earhart as a tomboy. The girls kept "worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad" in a growing collection gathered in their outings. In 1904, with the help of her uncle, Earhart cobbled together a home-made ramp, fashioned after a roller coaster she had seen on a trip to St. Louis, and secured the ramp to the roof of the family toolshed. Earhart's well-documented first flight ended dramatically. She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised lip, torn dress and a "sensation of exhilaration". She exclaimed, "Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!"


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Although there had been some missteps in Edwin Earhart's career up to that point, in 1907 his job as a claims officer for the Rock Island Railroad led to a transfer to Des Moines, Iowa. The next year, at the age of 10, Earhart saw her first aircraft at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Her father tried to interest his daughters in taking a flight. One look at the rickety "flivver" was enough for Earhart, who promptly asked if they could go back to the merry-go-round. She later described the biplane as "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting".


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Sisters Amelia and Muriel (who went by her middle name from her teens on) remained with their grandparents in Atchison while their parents moved into new, smaller quarters in Des Moines. During this period, the Earhart girls received home-schooling from their mother and governess. Amelia later recounted that she was "exceedingly fond of reading" and spent countless hours in the large family library. In 1909, when the family was finally reunited in Des Moines, the Earhart children were enrolled in public school for the first time and Amelia, 12, entered seventh grade.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: While the family's finances seemingly improved with the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of two servants, it soon became apparent that Edwin was an alcoholic. Five years later in 1914, he was forced to retire and although he attempted to rehabilitate himself through treatment, he was never reinstated at the Rock Island Railroad. At about this time, Earhart's grandmother Amelia Otis died suddenly, leaving a substantial estate that placed her daughter's share in a trust, fearing that Edwin's drinking would drain the funds. The Otis house was auctioned along with all of its contents; Earhart was heartbroken and later described it as the end of her childhood.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 1915, after a long search, Earhart's father found work as a clerk at the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Earhart entered Central High School as a junior. Edwin applied for a transfer to Springfield, Missouri, in 1915, but the current claims officer reconsidered his retirement and demanded his job back, leaving the elder Earhart with nowhere to go. Facing another calamitous move, Amy Earhart took her children to Chicago, where they lived with friends. Earhart made an unusual condition in the choice of her next schooling; she canvassed nearby high schools in Chicago to find the best science program. She rejected the high school nearest her home when she complained that the chemistry lab was "just like a kitchen sink". She eventually enrolled in Hyde Park High School but spent a miserable semester where a yearbook caption captured the essence of her unhappiness, "A.E. – the girl in brown who walks alone".


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart graduated from Chicago's Hyde Park High School in 1916. Throughout her troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering. She began junior college at Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania, but did not complete her program.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: During Christmas vacation in 1917, Earhart visited her sister in Toronto. World War I had been raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. After receiving training as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital. Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the hospital's dispensary. There, Earhart heard stories from military pilots and developed an interest in flying.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: When the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties that included night shifts at the Spadina Military Hospital. She became a patient herself, experiencing pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis. She was hospitalized for pneumonia in early November 1918 and discharged in December 1918, about two months after the illness had started. Her sinus-related symptoms were pain and pressure around one eye and copious mucus drainage via the nostrils and throat. While staying in the hospital during the pre-antibiotic era, she had painful minor operations to wash out the affected maxillary sinus, but these procedures were not successful and Earhart continued to have worsening headaches. Her convalescence lasted nearly a year, which she spent at her sister's home in Northampton, Massachusetts. Earhart passed the time reading poetry, learning to play the banjo, and studying mechanics. Chronic sinusitis significantly affected Earhart's flying and activities in later life, and sometimes even on the airfield she was forced to wear a bandage on her cheek to cover a small drainage tube.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: At about that time, Earhart and a young woman friend visited an air fair held in conjunction with the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. "The interest, aroused in me, in Toronto, led me to all the air circuses in the vicinity"<ref name="forneymuseum/AmeliaEarhart"></ref> One of the highlights of the day was a flying exhibition put on by a World War I ace. The pilot overhead spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dived at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she said. Earhart stood her ground as the aircraft came close. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: By 1919, Earhart prepared to enter Smith College, where her sister was a student. However, she changed her mind and enrolled in a course in medical studies and other programs at Columbia University. Earhart quit a year later to be with her parents, who had reunited in California.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: On December 28, 1920, Earhart and her father attended an "aerial meet"<ref name="latimes/daily-pilot/2008-07-31-pipeline"></ref> at Daugherty Field in Long Beach, California. She asked her father, Edwin, to ask about passenger flights and flying lessons. She was booked for a passenger flight the following day at Emory Roger's Field, at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. The cost was $10 for a 10 minute flight with Frank Hawks (who later gained fame as an air racer). Hawks gave her a ride that would forever change Earhart's life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet [60–90 m] off the ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The next month Earhart recruited Neta Snook to be her flying instructor. The initial contract was for 12 hours of instruction, for $500. Working at a variety of jobs including photographer, truck driver, and stenographer at the local telephone company, she managed to save $1,000 for flying lessons. Earhart had her first lesson on January 3, 1921, at Kinner Field on the west side of Long Beach Boulevard and Tweedy Road, now in the city of South Gate. Snook used a crash-salvaged Curtiss JN-4 "Canuck", that Snook had restored, for training. In order to reach the airfield, Earhart had to take a bus to the end of the line, then walk four miles (6 km). Earhart's mother also provided part of the $1,000 "stake" against her "better judgement".


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart's commitment to flying required her to accept the frequent hard work and rudimentary conditions that accompanied early aviation training. To complete her image transformation, she also cropped her hair short in the style of other female flyers. Six months later in the summer of 1921, Earhart purchased a secondhand bright chromium yellow Kinner Airster biplane, against Snook's advice, which she nicknamed "The Canary". After her first successful solo landing, she bought a new leather flying coat. Due to the newness of the coat, she was subjected to teasing, so she aged her coat by sleeping in it and staining it with aircraft oil.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of , setting a world record for female pilots. On May 16, 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman in the United States to be issued a pilot's license (#"6017") by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Throughout the early 1920s, following a disastrous investment in a failed gypsum mine, Earhart's inheritance from her grandmother, which was now administered by her mother, steadily diminished until it was exhausted. Consequently, with no immediate prospects for recouping her investment in flying, Earhart sold the "Canary" as well as a second Kinner and bought a yellow Kissel Gold Bug "Speedster" two-seat automobile, which she named the "Yellow Peril". Simultaneously, Earhart experienced an exacerbation of her old sinus problem as her pain worsened and in early 1924 she was hospitalized for another sinus operation, which was again unsuccessful. After trying her hand at a number of ventures that included setting up a photography company, Earhart set out in a new direction.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Following her parents' divorce in 1924, she drove her mother in the "Yellow Peril" on a transcontinental trip from California with stops throughout the western United States and a jaunt up to Banff, Alberta. The meandering tour eventually brought the pair to Boston, Massachusetts, where Earhart underwent another sinus operation which was more successful. After recuperation, she returned to Columbia University for several months but was forced to abandon her studies and any further plans for enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, because her mother could no longer afford the tuition fees and associated costs. Soon after, she found employment first as a teacher, then as a social worker in 1925 at Denison House, a Boston settlement house. At this time, she lived in Medford, Massachusetts.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: When Earhart lived in Medford, she maintained her interest in aviation, becoming a member of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter and was eventually elected its vice president. She flew out of Dennison Airport (later the Naval Air Station Squantum) in Quincy, Massachusetts, and helped finance its operation by investing a small sum of money. Earhart also flew the first official flight out of Dennison Airport in 1927. Along with acting as a sales representative for Kinner Aircraft in the Boston area, Earhart wrote local newspaper columns promoting flying and as her local celebrity grew, she laid out the plans for an organization devoted to female flyers.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest (1873–1959) expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean. After deciding that the trip was too perilous for her to undertake, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting that they find "another girl with the right image". While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The project coordinators (including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam) interviewed Earhart and asked her to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and copilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as a passenger, but with the added duty of keeping the flight log. The team departed from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m named "Friendship" on June 17, 1928, landing at Pwll near Burry Port, South Wales, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later. There is a commemorative blue plaque at the site. Since most of the flight was on instruments and Earhart had no training for this type of flying, she did not pilot the aircraft. When interviewed after landing, she said, "Stultz did all the flying—had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes." She added, "... maybe someday I'll try it alone."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart reportedly received a rousing welcome on June 19, 1928, when she landed at Woolston in Southampton, England. She flew the Avro Avian 594 Avian III, SN: R3/AV/101 owned by Lady Mary Heath and later purchased the aircraft and had it shipped back to the United States (where it was assigned "unlicensed aircraft identification mark" 7083).


title: Amelia Earhart

text: When the Stultz, Gordon, and Earhart flight crew returned to the United States on July 6, they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade along the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan, followed by a reception with President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Trading on her physical resemblance to Lindbergh, whom the press had dubbed "Lucky Lindy", some newspapers and magazines began referring to Earhart as "Lady Lindy". The United Press was more grandiloquent; to them, Earhart was the reigning "Queen of the Air". Immediately after her return to the United States, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour in 1928 and 1929. Meanwhile, Putnam had undertaken to heavily promote her in a campaign that included publishing a book she authored, a series of new lecture tours and using pictures of her in mass-market endorsements for products including luggage, Lucky Strike cigarettes (this caused image problems for her, with "McCall's" magazine retracting an offer) and women's clothing and sportswear. The money that she made from Lucky Strike had been earmarked for a $1,500 donation to Commander Richard Byrd's imminent South Pole expedition.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The marketing campaign by both Earhart and Putnam was successful in establishing the Earhart mystique in the public psyche. Rather than simply endorsing the products, Earhart actively became involved in the promotions, especially in women's fashions. For a number of years she had sewn her own clothes, but the "active living" lines that were sold in 50 stores such as Macy's in metropolitan areas were an expression of a new Earhart image. Her concept of simple, natural lines matched with wrinkle-proof, washable materials was the embodiment of a sleek, purposeful, but feminine "A.E." (the familiar name she went by with family and friends). The luggage line that she promoted (marketed as Modernaire Earhart Luggage) also bore her unmistakable stamp.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Celebrity endorsements helped Earhart finance her flying. Accepting a position as associate editor at "Cosmopolitan" magazine, she turned this forum into an opportunity to campaign for greater public acceptance of aviation, especially focusing on the role of women entering the field. In 1929, Earhart was among the first aviators to promote commercial air travel through the development of a passenger airline service; along with Charles Lindbergh, she represented Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT, later TWA) alongside Margaret Bartlett Thornton and invested time and money in setting up the first regional shuttle service between New York and Washington, D.C., the Ludington Airline. She was a Vice President of National Airways, which conducted the flying operations of the Boston-Maine Airways and several other airlines in the northeast. By 1940, it had become Northeast Airlines.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Although Earhart had gained fame for her transatlantic flight, she endeavored to set an "untarnished" record of her own. Shortly after her return, piloting Avian "7083", she set off on her first long solo flight that occurred just as her name was coming into the national spotlight. By making the trip in August 1928, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back. Her piloting skills and professionalism gradually grew, as acknowledged by experienced professional pilots who flew with her. General Leigh Wade flew with Earhart in 1929: "She was a born flier, with a delicate touch on the stick."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart subsequently made her first attempt at competitive air racing in 1929 during the first Santa Monica-to-Cleveland Women's Air Derby (nicknamed the "Powder Puff Derby" by Will Rogers), which left Santa Monica, California on August 18 and arrived at Cleveland, Ohio on August 26. During the race, she settled into fourth place in the "heavy planes" division. At the second to last stop at Columbus, her friend Ruth Nichols, who was coming in third, had an accident while on a test flight before the race recommenced. Nichols' aircraft hit a tractor at the start of the runway and flipped over, forcing her out of the race. At Cleveland, Earhart was placed third in the heavy division.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 1930, Earhart became an official of the National Aeronautic Association, where she actively promoted the establishment of separate women's records and was instrumental in the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) accepting a similar international standard. On April 8, 1931, she set a world altitude record of flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro borrowed from Beech-Nut Chewing Gum.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: During this period, Earhart became involved with The Ninety-Nines, an organization of female pilots providing moral support and advancing the cause of women in aviation. She had called a meeting of female pilots in 1929 following the Women's Air Derby. She suggested the name based on the number of the charter members; she later became the organization's first president in 1930. Earhart was a vigorous advocate for female pilots and when the 1934 Bendix Trophy Race banned women, she openly refused to fly screen actress Mary Pickford to Cleveland to open the races.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart was engaged to Samuel Chapman, a chemical engineer from Boston; she broke off the engagement on November 23, 1928. During the same period, Earhart and publisher George P. Putnam had spent a great deal of time together. Putnam, who was known as GP, was divorced in 1929 and sought out Earhart, proposing to her six times before she finally agreed to marry him. They married on February 7, 1931, in Putnam's mother's house in Noank, Connecticut. Earhart referred to her marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control". In a letter written to Putnam and hand-delivered to him on the day of the wedding, she wrote, "I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly." She continued, "I may have to keep some place where I can go to be by myself, now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinement of even an attractive cage."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart's ideas on marriage were liberal for the time, as she believed in equal responsibilities for both breadwinners and pointedly kept her own name rather than being referred to as "Mrs. Putnam". When "The New York Times", per the rules of its stylebook, insisted on referring to her as Mrs. Putnam, she laughed it off. Putnam also learned that he would be called "Mr. Earhart". There was no honeymoon for the newlyweds, as Earhart was involved in a nine-day cross-country tour promoting autogyros and the tour sponsor, Beech-Nut chewing gum. Although Earhart and Putnam never had children, he had two sons by his previous marriage to Dorothy Binney (1888–1982), a chemical heiress whose father's company, Binney & Smith, invented Crayola crayons: the explorer and writer David Binney Putnam (1913–1992) and George Palmer Putnam, Jr. (1921–2013). Earhart was especially fond of David, who frequently visited his father at their family home, which was on the grounds of The Apawamis Club in Rye, New York. George had contracted polio shortly after his parents' separation and was unable to visit as often.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: On the morning of May 20, 1932, 34-year-old Earhart set off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, with a copy of the "Telegraph-Journal", given to her by journalist Stuart Trueman to confirm the date of the flight. She intended to fly to Paris in her single engine Lockheed Vega 5B to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo flight five years earlier. Her technical advisor for the flight was famed Norwegian American aviator Bernt Balchen, who helped prepare her aircraft. He also played the role of "decoy" for the press as he was ostensibly preparing Earhart's Vega for his own Arctic flight. After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes, during which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems, Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. The landing was witnessed by Cecil King and T. Sawyer. When a farm hand asked, "Have you flown far?" Earhart replied, "From America".


title: Amelia Earhart

text: As the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover. As her fame grew, she developed friendships with many people in high offices, most notably First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt shared many of Earhart's interests and passions, especially women's causes. After flying with Earhart, Roosevelt obtained a student permit but did not further pursue her plans to learn to fly. The two friends communicated frequently throughout their lives. Another flyer, Jacqueline Cochran, who was said to be Earhart's rival, also became her confidante during this period.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: On January 11, 1935, Earhart became the first aviator to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California. This time, she used a Lockheed 5C Vega. Although this transoceanic flight had been attempted by many others, notably by the unfortunate participants in the 1927 Dole Air Race that had reversed the route, her trailblazing flight had been mainly routine, with no mechanical breakdowns. In her final hours, she even relaxed and listened to "the broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera from New York".


title: Amelia Earhart

text: That year, once more flying her Lockheed Vega airliner that Earhart had tagged "old Bessie, the fire horse", she flew solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City on April 19. The next record attempt was a nonstop flight from Mexico City to New York. Setting off on May 8, her flight was uneventful, although the large crowds that greeted her at Newark, New Jersey, were a concern, because she had to be careful not to taxi into the throng.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart again participated in long-distance air racing, placing fifth in the 1935 Bendix Trophy Race, the best result she could manage, because her stock Lockheed Vega, which topped out at , was outclassed by purpose-built air racers that reached more than . The race had been a particularly difficult one, as a competitor, Cecil Allen, died in a fiery takeoff mishap, and rival Jacqueline Cochran was forced to pull out due to mechanical problems. In addition, "blinding fog" and violent thunderstorms plagued the race.