[78-L] On the fly

[Taylor Bowie]

Whozzat/ Smith Balloon? ..and Orville Knapp...didn't they invent flying ?

Al S.


Nope...they were there at Kitty Hawk,  but Smith Balloon drifted away, and 
Orville Knapp slept through it.

The irony...Knapp was killed in the crash of his own plane in 1936.  He was 
practicing take-offs and landings.  He had recently married a talented 
singer and actress from Seattle named Gloria Grafton.  She made a great 
record  for Victor in 1934  of  "Two Cigarettes in the Dark" which she had 
introduced in a Broadway show called Kill That Story.

She was a star in Billy Rose's Jumbo in 1935,  and recorded "Little Girl 
Blue" with Whiteman,  b/w a duet with Donald Novis (I think) of "The Most 
Beautiful Girl in the World."

I got interested in both Knapp and Grafton early on in my collecting,  and 
had no idea until recently that they had been married.  Same thing  even 
earlier for me when I started avidly collecting both Margaret Young and 
Margaret Whiting without knowing they were aunt and niece.

Taylor