Ernest K. Gann

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Ernest Kellogg Gann (October 13, 1910 - December 19, 1991) was an aviator, author, filmmaker, sailor, fisherman and conservationist. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Gann was best known as a skilled aviator. He was the scion of a prosperous family; his father was an executive with General Telephone and Telegraph. Resisting his father's strong wish that he follow in the telephone business, Ernest became interested in the then-new field of aviation, and became an accomplished pilot. He flew everything from World War I aircraft to the U-2 and F-15, and brought his deep love of flight to the written page and silver screen.

He became a film producer as a teenager in St. Paul, Minnesota, and later attended the Yale School of Drama. After his studies at Yale, Gann worked in New York at Radio City Music Hall and as a commercial movie cartoonist, a stunt pilot, and barnstormer.

A chance encounter landed Gann a job with "The March of Time," a documentary film company associated with TIME magazine. In 1936, while working on the feature "Inside Nazi Germany," Gann narrowly escaped Hitler’s advancing troops as they marched into the Rhineland. Returning to New York, he moved to a new home where the lure of a local airport rekindled his interest in aviation. Earning a pilot’s license, he spent his free time aloft until the Great Depression ended his career in motion pictures. He took his family to California, worked odd jobs at Burbank Airport, and began to write short stories, but soon returned to New York, and, in 1938, began to fly the DC-2 and DC-3 for American Airlines.

Captain Gann flew for American Airlines and later, when a portion of American and other U.S. airlines were absorbed into the U.S. Army Air Corps Air Transport Command during World War II, flew DC-3's, DC-4's and C-87s, the cargo version of the B-24. These trips took him across the North Atlantic, Africa and India, among others. His travels worldwide would become part of his many novels and screenplays in the years to come. After the war, Gann left American Airlines, when it discontinued international flying. His adventures with Matson Airlines, a new company flying the Pacific to Honolulu, spawned ideas that were developed into one of his best works, Fate Is the Hunter. Matson Airlines was a venture of the Matson steamship line, but failed to effectively compete with the politically well-connected Pan American. When Matson Airlines folded, Gann turned to writing.

In 1966, he and his wife Dodie (Post) purchased an 800 acre ranch on San Juan Island, Washington that signaled the beginning of his second love, environmental conservation. To that end, he and Dodie donated the bulk of their ranch to the San Juan Island Preservation trust. Gann converted a chicken coop near the ranch house into a writing office. He equipped it with a barber's chair, in which he wrote all his later works. On his death, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) moved the entire coop and its furnishings to their aviation museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where it is on public display.

Gann's major works include the novel The High and the Mighty, a collection of vignettes about his flying experiences Fate Is the Hunter, and his autobiography A Hostage to Fortune. Notes and short stories scribbled down during long layovers on his pioneering flights across the North Atlantic became the source of his first serious fiction, Island in the Sky. Inspired by an Arctic rescue mission, it became an immediate best-seller as did Blaze of Noon, a story of early air mail operations.

The High and the Mighty was not only a number one best-seller, but also, as a movie, was nominated for several Academy Awards. Although many of his 21 best-selling novels show Gann’s devotion to flying, several works, including Song of the Sirens, Twilight for the Gods, and Fiddler’s Green, reflect his love of the sea. His versatility resulted in the television mini-series Masada, based on The Antagonists. Gann was very displeased with the film version of "Fate Is The Hunter", and removed his name from the credits. He later lamented that this decision cost him a fortune in royalties, as the film played interminably on television.

Ernest K. Gann died on December 19, 1991, in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, Washington. He was 81. A few months prior to his death, Gann made his last flight on the 50th anniversary of his promotion to captain at American Airlines.

On July 9, 2003, Washington Governor Gary Locke awarded the Medal of Merit (the state’s highest honor) to Gann.

[edit] Partial list of Gann's books

• Island in the Sky, Viking, 1944
• Blaze of Noon, Holt, 1946
• Benjamin Lawless, Sloane, 1948
• Fiddler's Green, Sloane, 1950
• The High and the Mighty, Sloane, 1952
• Soldier of Fortune, Sloane, 1954
• Trouble with Lazy Ethel, Sloane, 1957
• Twilight for the Gods, Sloane, 1958
• Fate Is the Hunter, Simon & Schuster, 1961
• Of Good and Evil, Simon & Schuster, 1963
• In the Company of Eagles, Simon & Schuster, 1966
• The Song of the Sirens, Simon & Schuster, 1968
• The Antagonists, Simon & Schuster, 1971
• Band of Brothers, Simon & Schuster, 1973
• Ernest K Gann's Flying Circus, Macmillan, 1974
• A Hostage to Fortune (autobiography), Knopf, 1978
• Brain 2000, Doubleday, 1980
• The Aviator, GK Hall, 1981
• The Magistrate: A Novel, Arbor House, 1982
• Gentlemen of Adventure, Arbor House, 1983
• The Triumph: A Novel, Simon and Schuster, 1986
• The Bad Angel, Arbor House, 1987
• The Black Watch: The Men Who Fly America's Secret Spy Planes, Random House, 1989

[edit] Partial list of film credits

Writer/Filmography

• Blaze of Noon (1947) (novel)
• The Raging Tide (1951) (also novel Fiddler's Green)
• Island in the Sky (1953) (technical advisor, also novel)
• The High and the Mighty (1954) (also novel)
• Our Girl Friday (1954) (novel)
• Soldier of Fortune (1955) (also novel)
• Twilight for the Gods (1958) (also novel)
• Fate Is the Hunter (1964) (book)
• The Last Flight of Noah's Ark (1980) (story)
• Masada (1981) (TV miniseries story: The Antagonists)
• The Aviator (1985) (book)

[edit] Sources

• A Hostage to Fortune
• Fate Is the Hunter
• Nebraska Center for Writers