Russell William Thaw (October 25, 1910 – May 6, 1984) was an American airplane pilot. While working as the chief pilot for the Guggenheim family, he was sponsored for air races and excursions. He served during World War II in the United States Army Air Force, and later became a test pilot for the
Douglas Aircraft Company in California. In 1948 he was the first person to fly the
Douglas XF3D-1.
Thaw was the only child of American
Gibson Girl
The Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal of physical attractiveness as portrayed by the pen-and-ink illustrations of artist Charles Dana Gibson during a 20-year period that spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries in th ...
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
and actress
Evelyn Nesbit
Evelyn Nesbit (born Florence Evelyn Nesbit; December 25, 1884 or 1885 – January 17, 1967) was an American artists' model, chorus girl, and actress. She is best known for her years as a young woman in New York City, particularly her inv ...
and her claimed husband
Harry Kendall Thaw
Harry Kendall Thaw (February 12, 1871 – February 22, 1947) was the son of American coal and railroad baron William Thaw Sr.. Heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune, the younger Thaw is most notable for murdering the renowned architect Sta ...
. Their lives had received sensational attention after his father fatally shot architect
Stanford White
Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in addition ...
in 1906 in front of a large crowd. Harry Thaw spent the next several years in mental institutions, before eventually being released. The Thaw family did not accept Nesbit's claims about Russell's paternity. He grew up in California, where his mother remarried after divorcing his father. She had a prominent and lucrative acting career, a result of her wide regard as a standard for beauty in the western world. Thaw appeared as a
child actor
The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage or in movies or television. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated t ...
with his mother in six films of the
silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...
era, all of which have since been lost.
Early years
![Evelyn Nesbit and son by Arnold Genthe, 1913](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Evelyn_Nesbit_and_son_by_Arnold_Genthe%2C_1913.jpg)
Born in
Berlin, Germany in 1910, Thaw was the only known child of
Evelyn Nesbit
Evelyn Nesbit (born Florence Evelyn Nesbit; December 25, 1884 or 1885 – January 17, 1967) was an American artists' model, chorus girl, and actress. She is best known for her years as a young woman in New York City, particularly her inv ...
, a famous American
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
and actress, and, legally, her first husband
Harry Kendall Thaw
Harry Kendall Thaw (February 12, 1871 – February 22, 1947) was the son of American coal and railroad baron William Thaw Sr.. Heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune, the younger Thaw is most notable for murdering the renowned architect Sta ...
. The senior Thaw was wealthy, the son of a
tycoon
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
, with a long history of mental instability. In 1906, he shot and killed architect
Stanford White
Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in addition ...
, a former rapist of Nesbit, at
Madison Square Garden in front of hundreds of witnesses. In 1908 Harry Thaw was acquitted of murder
based on reason of insanity, but he spent years in mental institutions, where Nesbit visited him.
Russell Thaw was treated indifferently by Harry Thaw and his family, who never accepted the boy as his biological son. Russell was born four years into a period of about seven years, following his father's killing of White, when Harry Kendall Thaw was largely confined to jails and mental institutions. Nesbit had testified that Russell had been conceived by Harry Thaw during her
conjugal visit
A conjugal visit is a scheduled period in which an inmate of a prison or jail is permitted to spend several hours or days in private with a visitor. The visitor is usually their legal spouse, and the visit's purpose is usually sexual activity. Th ...
s to her husband at the
Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. There Harry Thaw had been given extensive visitation privileges, freedom of movement, and privacy. Nesbit said that those who saw the boy believed that Harry Thaw was his father by the resemblance between them. But, she eventually gave up trying to prove Thaw's paternity in an era when before it could be definitively established. Nesbit said of the matter, "A working girl could not fight the Thaw millions."
Nesbit and Harry Kendall Thaw divorced in 1915, after she had moved to California with Russell. She married again in 1916, to Jack Clifford. His father was eventually released, though a kidnapping and sexual assault charge saw him briefly confined again, before being released due to his family connections.
As a child, Thaw appeared with his mother in at least six films of the
silent film era: ''
Threads of Destiny'' (1914), ''
Redemption'' (1917), ''Her Mistake'' (1918), ''
The Woman Who Gave
''The Woman Who Gave'' is a lost 1918 American silent melodrama film directed by Kenean Buel and starring Evelyn Nesbit, a former Gibson girl, "It girl" model and showgirl involved in a 1906 " trial of the century" that involved a killing and an al ...
'' (1918), ''I Want to Forget'' (1918), and ''
The Hidden Woman'' (1922). However, all copies of these films have since been
lost.
Career as a pilot
As a young man Thaw was attracted to flying and became certified as a pilot. He worked as the chief pilot for the
Guggenheim family
The Guggenheim family ( ) is an American-Jewish family known for making their fortune in the mining industry, in the early 20th century, especially in the United States and South America. After World War I, many family members withdrew from th ...
and participated in air races and adventure excursions under their sponsorship.
Thaw participated in two cross-country
Bendix trophy
The Bendix Trophy is a U.S. aeronautical racing trophy. The transcontinental, point-to-point race, sponsored by industrialist Vincent Bendix founder of Bendix Corporation, began in 1931 as part of the National Air Races. Initial prize money for ...
races. These were instituted in 1931 and held annually to promote and encourage the achievements of U.S. aviation. Flying the
Gee Bee Model R-2 with a
Pratt & Whitney Wasp
The Pratt & Whitney Wasp was the civilian name of a family of air-cooled radial piston engines developed in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.Gunston 1989, p.114.
The Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company (P&W) was founded in 1925 by Frederick B. Rentsc ...
engine, he withdrew from the 1933 race. Flying a
Northrop Gamma
The Northrop Gamma was a single-engine all-metal monoplane cargo aircraft used in the 1930s. Towards the end of its service life, it was developed into the A-17 light bomber.
Design and development
The Gamma was a further development of the su ...
with a
Wright Cyclone
Wright Cyclone was the name given to a family of air-cooled radial piston engines designed by the Wright Aeronautical Corporation and used in numerous American aircraft in the 1930s and 1940s.
Background
The Wright Aeronautical Corporation wa ...
engine, he came in third in the 1935 race from Los Angeles to Cleveland, ahead of
Amelia Earhart in fifth place.
On December 10, 1935, Thaw crashed in
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
, after leaving from
Caldwell, New Jersey, during a planned flight to rescue the polar explorer
Lincoln Ellsworth
Lincoln Ellsworth (May 12, 1880 – May 26, 1951) was a polar explorer from the United States and a major benefactor of the American Museum of Natural History.
Biography
Lincoln Ellsworth was born on May 12, 1880, to James Ellsworth and Eva F ...
.
He also served as a pilot in the US Army Air Force during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
Thaw worked as a test pilot for the
Douglas Aircraft Company. He flew the
Douglas F3D Skyknight
The Douglas F3D Skyknight (later designated F-10 Skyknight) is an American twin-engined, mid-wing jet fighter aircraft manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California. The F3D was designed as a carrier-based all-weath ...
, the
Douglas XB-43 Jetmaster, and the
XF4D-1 Skyray. He was the first person to fly the
Douglas XF3D-1 (on March 23, 1948, at Douglas's
El Segundo facility in California).
Personal life
On July 17, 1936, Thaw married Katherine Emily Roberts, a
Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...
debutante who was graduate of
Radcliffe College. They settled in
White Plains, New York
(Always Faithful)
, image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png
, seal_link =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State
, su ...
. They separated on March 15, 1939. Katherine Thaw sued her husband for cruelty and "refusal to live with her". They divorced effective July 8, 1941. Katherine Thaw said that her husband had left her because he said he could not support them both.
Thaw married again in 1943. He had three children with his second wife: sons Michael William and Russell Hall Thaw, and a daughter, Theresa Nesbit Thaw. Thaw died in
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Co ...
, on May 6, 1984.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
The Love Triangleat
pbs.org
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thaw, Russell
1910 births
1984 deaths
United States Army Air Forces officers
United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II
Russell William
American male child actors
American male film actors
20th-century American male actors