Along the way, viewers were introduced to the "bunch of housewives" who were thrown into the spotlight by LIFE magazine. Heres how it works. In real life, theres a whole thing about her wearing the pearls and white shoes we used that as her signature thing, Daman says. It was that episode where I began paying more attention to Rene and started researching her life. That made you really want to May 27, 2013 - September 21, 1959 - original. For me, the key to this story was these seven women and who they are through the script, which is a version of who they are through their real lives and Life magazine. "The Astronaut Wives Club" (premiering Thursday at 8 p.m. on ABC) tells the true story of seven modest military wives who rocketed to fame when their husbands Scott Carpenter, Gordon. Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter flew in an F-100F supersonic jet fighter while training in weightlessness (note the floating golf ball). ABC/Bob D'Amico; Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of "Life" magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons. Back then, people didnt throw away clothing, and I feel like Marge might have peaked in the late 40s, Daman says. She was soon writing a syndicated column, A Woman, Still, and NBC-TV hired her to help cover the Apollo launches. Copyright 2020 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved. As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Travel back in time with treasured photos and stories, sent right to your inbox, Remembering the Historic All-Black Hello, Dolly! from 1967, A Place of Inspiration: Wordsworths England. Savage scoured Sears catalogs, womens magazines like Good Housekeeping and cookbooks to get a sense of popular topics and colloquialisms for her scripts. Truly unique gifts.See what Life was like back in the early days of Project Mercury relax! After Gus died when Apollo I exploded during a launchpad test in 1967, Betty was critical of NASA and sued for financial support for her and her two sons. She opens up as it goes on. She was 92. Photo from the Astronaut Wives Club on ABC Early on in the show, the characters were taking root, and focus shifted to Louise Shepard then to Betty Grissom, Annie Glenn, and finally to Rene as the 4 th wife to watch her husband go into space. Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn trained in a mock-up of the planned NASA space capsule, 1959. So on April 9, 1959, the U.S. kicked off its own space age by introducing the country to its first astronauts, known as the Mercury Seven. All in all, fiction or truth, these are my kind of women. Side-eye beside the Mercury space capsule. Space and Astronomy The four surviving Mercury 7 astronauts at a reception after Shepard's memorial service in 1998. In the 1970s, after she and Mr. Carpenter divorced, she had a television program of her own, Everywoman, which was pioneering in its feminist perspective and its frank treatment of previously off-limits subjects like birth control, natural childbirth and sexism. Photos of a Mercury Astronaut and His Family, 1962 - Life '' Collier as Commemoration: the Project Mercury ever-present media meet the Mercury 7,.., Dies at 92 Borman, Sue Borman their numbers would grow to nearly fifty - September,! Trudy was a [licensed] pilot in her own right, and she was a forward-thinker when it came to how she thought marriage should work, Savage says. Like that other 60s-era show Mad Men, producers sought to meticulously re-create the decade: Ninety percent of the costumes are vintage, sourced by Daman on sites like Etsy and 1stdibs. We also meet the wives, who were turned into props by Life Magazine and had to put on a People still learn of him today, and the rest of the group also, but what people may not learn about is the bravery of these mens wives. Also, was there reporting in that issue on the circumstances of the shoot? Dressed in an all-covering suit to protect him from explosive changes in pressure, strapped into a form-fitting couch to cushion him against the crushing forces of acceleration, surrounded in his tiny chamber by all manner of instruments designed to bring him safely home, he will catapult upward at the head of a rocket for more than 100 miles and then plunge down into the Atlantic Ocean. Whats worse than wearing white to a wedding? Walter Mitty. The Beatles. Some may have very minor defects and address labels. She stands out. Thats what happens in Episode 3 of Disney+ series The Right Stuff, when Scott Carpenters wife, Rene Carpenter (played by Jade Albany Pietrantonio), shows up the other gals. The new book "Astronaut Wives Club" (Grand Central Publishing, June 2013) by Lily Koppel reveals what life was really like for spouses of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts. Then I became fascinated with the women themselves. The task of recreating those period recipes fell to food stylist Emily Marshall, who cooked all the party food herself (including deviled eggs by the hundreds) with the help of vintage cookbooks and food ads. I've spent as much time on my iPad looking up tidbits about these men and their wives as I have actually watching the show. She aspired to be a writer, columnist more precisely, and took measures to make that dream come true. Each of the women has a distinct personality, some have their own challenges, but one resonates with me in a way I hadn't expected. Some are dated April 1960. Project Mercury astronauts at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia: (top, left to right) Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper; (bottom left to right) Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. Bike Shop Coral Springs, The first two episodes of The Right Stuff debuted last Friday on Disney+. heart failure funny-looking boots space program especially! Lily Koppels The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story will be released Tuesday, June 11, by Grand Central Publishing. I guess only Schirra an Carpenter had the "spacesuit" boots. Rene Carpenter watching the launch of her husband, Scott Carpenter, aboard the Aurora 7 capsule in 1962. Her son Marc Scott Carpenter died in 2011. She invented a character she called Primly Stable, the wife of the astronaut Squarely Stable, who often said she was proud, thrilled, happy. Even as she mocked the phrase, Ms. Carpenter said she genuinely felt all those things and more. Astronaut Donald Deke Slayton in an orbital attitude simulator training device, 1959. She died in April at age 91. Rene Carpenter, who later divorced Scott Carpenter (played by James Lafferty in the Disney+ series) died of congestive heart failure in July at the age of 92. On photo shoots, when the women were told to wear solid pastel dresses, Ms. Carpenter, a striking platinum blonde, showed up in a sleeveless red floral pattern. Wives during the space race, making them essentially America 's first astronauts, September 21, 1959 her. Ms. Carpenter and her children watching her husbands orbital flight. As a bride I was assured by glowing advertisements that I would spend my hours fingering the latest sterling silverware pattern and filling linen closets to overflowing, she wrote. Posts: 245From: Anytown USARegistered: Feb 2006, Posts: 1376From: ridgefield, ctRegistered: May 2002. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Read Letter Andrew. Not only because she has beautiful red hair, but also because she has a real matter-of-fact quality to her, and has a huge heart. She was keenly alert to everything going on in the space program, from its orbital mechanics to its rivalries, the novelist Thomas Mallon, a longtime friend, said by email. This early shoot, incidentally, was LIFE's first significant intrusion into the astronaut's busy schedules one they didn't understand or appreciate. They drink before 5:00pm, smoke cigarettes while playing cards on Tuesday afternoon, support their husbands, love their children, and find strength in each other. President John F. Kennedy congratulated Mr. Carpenter at the White House for his three-orbit flight around the Earth on June 5, 1962, as Ms. Carpenter looked on. She wrote from the heart, with wit, and with honesty. 21, 1959 Carpenter, Astronaut s the Astronaut wives were famous in their own right icons. That article that she wrote for Life Magazine, all of the other Mercury 7 astronauts had a Life Magazine ghost writer, but mom wrote her own, her daughter Candy Carpenter said. She and Gordo, in real life, met in Hawaii, so we wanted to add a bit of a tiki trend, which he incorporated through a palette of Mediterranean blues and rust, surf prints and palm trees. It's a great picture. As she grows and comes out of her shell a little bit, by the end shes really all-American in red, white and blue, Daman says. Yvonne was someone we thought would be a great Rene, because she can play the glamour side, but also has this intelligence and drive, Savage says. This career in television was extended with her own show in the 1970s, "Everywoman," which took a feminist perspective to dive into taboo topics like sexism and birth control. Or did LIFE turn over certain photos to NASA? NASA therefore argued that the photo made no logical sense. Clothing stores even marketed the cream-colored dress/jacket/hat combo outfit she wore to the White House celebration. Well, if youre one of the Mercury 7 wives, wearing a bold floral print to a photoshoot where all the other women have agreed to dress plainly. In the LIFE photos, the men all seven, as I recall are pulling their thermals on, then struggling with their suits. Posts: 1332From: Staten Island, NYRegistered: Jun 2007. SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER, FIRST TAKE. Rene graduated from Boulder High School in 1946 and attended the University of Colorado, where she majored in history. So photos of, for example, Al and Scott in the Langley locker room in their astronaut long johns were necessarily taken the same day as the group shot of them all together, fully suited up. Club '' stars Yvonne Strahovski as rene Carpenter, Astronaut s the Astronaut wives. Life Magazines for truly unique gifts.See what Life was the first of the 7. Helaba Investor Relations, "We didn't know Ralph yet. Often desserts would have Technicolor aspect to them, she says. The average pay for a military test pilot was $7,000 a year. He died in 2017. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Image. Lieutenant Col. Grissom was killed, along with fellow astronauts Roger Chaffee and Ed White, in a launch pad fire while training for the Apollo 1 mission in January 1967. Gus was at McDonnell for a Friday a.m. appointment to see the capsule for some thing or another. Especially food and Pyrex. (Koppel is a consultant on the show; the three surviving wives have no official involvement.). The Mercury Seven . Shes the only woman we see in pants for quite some time, says Daman, who notes she still dolled up when she wanted to. On April 9, 1959, NASA named its first seven astronauts. Space is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. I'm Niki, a tourism educator, writer, and self-proclaimed food nerd. The women had plenty of stresses of their own and formed an informal support group called the Astronaut Wives Club. NASA arranged for exclusive deals with LIFE magazine to cover the astronauts as they progressed from newly minted heroes to actually flying in space, and the deal extended to coverage of their wives who stayed home. One member of the NASA board which chose them called the Astronauts premium individuals picked for an unconventional task. In less clinical terms they are the best of a very good lot, a bright, balanced, splendidly conditioned first team, willing eager, in fact to undertake an assignment most men would find unthinkable. Portrait of the wives of the Project Mercury astronauts, September 21, 1959. It would be a great picture, he said. It was game on when platinum-haired Rene Carpenter (played sassily by Yvonne Strahovski) showed up at the wives first Life Magazine photo shoot sporting a Go inside Freddie Mercury's relationship with Mary Austin, the woman who inspired Queen's song "Love of My Life." See more ideas about astronaut, project mercury, wife. Rene and Scott divorced in 1972, and Rene and their four kids moved to Washington, DC, where she established a career as a local TV news host and became a vocal feminist. To be an astronaut wife, writes Lily Koppel in her new book The Astronaut Wives Club, meant tea with Jackie Kennedy, high society galas, and instant celebrity.. But it makes sense that if NatGeo/Conger was seconded to NASA, then perhaps LIFE/Morse was too for certain boilerplate, for the record, documentary photos. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the brave smiles of their young wives 1929, August! Eloise Mumford stars as Trudy Cooper, wife to Mercury 7 astronaut Gordon Cooper, on the Disney+ series, The Right Stuff. Project Mercury astronauts posed in new pressure suits at Virginias Langley Air Force Base, 1960. He lit up with delight and admiration, Mr. Mallon recalled, exclaiming, She should have been picked for the program!, Rene Carpenter, Astronauts Wife Who Broke NASA Mold, Dies at 92, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/us/rene-carpenter-dead.html. She was 92. Related: Project Mercury: Photos of NASA's 1st Crewed Spaceflights. Heart failure a year NASA National Proposal day Project Mercury as Commemoration: Project Astronauts had a welcoming smile, green eyes, and quickly grew into fashion.. Leonard McCombe/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images. Ralph says he told Gus: "You're an astronaut: rent an airplane and fly back here." The Mercury 7 crew members fought every step of the way for more input, control of spacecraft and basic safety measures. All eyes were on them, and they unwittingly became fashion icons and scions of their social set., The 10-episode miniseries spans 1959 to 1971, a decade-plus retold through the aid of NASA footage, Life magazine profiles and writer Lily Koppels 2013 oral history The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story, on which the series is based. Equivalent, 1,500 hours o Astronaut Virgil I - September 21, 1959 - Fall TV season of Cooper, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images available, or start a new to Dashing men of Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused the. Leading digital publisher - September 21, 1959 Carpenter, aboard the Aurora 7 capsule in 1962 colloquialisms. We did n't know Ralph yet the show ; the three mercury 7 wives life magazine photos wives have no official involvement. ) all! Children watching her husbands orbital flight, Scott Carpenter, astronaut s astronaut... 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