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Stars shine bright at Edwards

by Lt. Col. Hamilton B. Underwood increasing population of Riverside hangars in the High Desert (that look
Edwards AFB, Calif. County left him with few options for a lot like studio soundstages) and the
a bombing range, began the process of pilots making history on daily basis
You may not know it, but Edwards acquiring land for just that purpose. In in cutting-edge aircraft might have an
Air Force Base, in California’s High 1935 bombers from March Field flew interesting story to tell.
Desert, is a movie star. to the then Mojave Field plastering the It was after World War II the rela-
Well, sort of … Sometimes Ed- desert with incendiary devices from tionship between Edwards AFB and
wards AFB is like an extra in the 10,000 feet. Hollywood started to gain altitude.
background you have to squint to no- However, years before the desert Stars such as John Wayne, William
tice. In other instances, Edwards AFB was cratered by Gen. Arnolds’ B-18 Holden and Charles Bronson starred
is a familiar face you slowly recognize Bolo bombers, Hollywood saw in this in movies such as Toward the Un-
with a “Hey, that’s Edwards.” Then rugged patch of Kern County a loca- known, X-15, Jet Pilot, Thundering
there’s are occasions where Edwards tion that could double for the Middle Jets, 24-Hour Alert and Towards
AFB — the base, the myth, the leg- East or New Mexico as it began shoot- 60,000 Feet. These movies didn’t just
end — is front and center, no doubt ing silent movies such as The Ten use Edwards AFB and the surround-
about it. Commandments, Ben Hur and The ing area as a backdrop for somewhere
The home of the Air Force Test Santa Fe Trail in the early 1920s. else — Edwards AFB and its goings
Center, 412th Test Wing and the Air It was exactly the wide-open and on became the subject of the films.
Force Test Pilot School, as well as unsettled nature of the area, the natu- However, it wasn’t until 1983 that
Hollywood gave Edwards AFB the
top billing it deserved when it shot Air Force photograph
scenes for The Right Stuff on loca- Aug. 14, 1960: Cayuga Production Company began shooting an episode of
tion. The Academy Award winning The Twilight Zone television series on Rogers Dry Lake. The segment was titled
movie, based on Tom’s Wolf’s same- ‘King Nine Will Not Return.’ Lakebed temperatures reached well above 100
titled book, about the space race with degrees Fahrenheit as the crew filmed scenes of a B-25 supposedly wrecked
on the North African desert.
See HOLLYWOOD, Page 24

Air Force photograph
Retired Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager poses for a photo with the cast of the film The
Right Stuff at Edwards Air Force Base in 1982. Yeager had a cameo appearance
in the film, playing “Fred,” the bartender.

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research ral landing strip of the dry lakebed, as
Center, may not have seemed destined well as its proximity to the Los Ange-
for moviedom when it started out as a les aerospace industry, that heralded
water stop for the Santa Fe Railroad the rise of Muroc Army Air Field to
in 1882. eventually become Edwards AFB in
In fact, the first time the military 1947.
noticed the patch of land that would As Edwards AFB grew, so did Hol-
become Edwards AFB, it was decid- lywood’s recognition that something
ed that it would make a great place special was happening just north of
to bomb. Not the typical path to the Tinseltown. It was during its decades-
bright lights of Hollywood. long evolution from obscurity to the Air Force photograph
It was in 1932 that Gen. Henry Center of the Aerospace Testing Uni- Feb. 2, 2012: Warner Brothers wrapped up an 11-day shoot at Edwards for Man of Steel, a Superman movie starring
H. “Hap” Arnold, realizing that the verse that Hollywood realized those Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, and Russell Crowe. This Edwards History Office file photo
shows one of the on-base filming locations with some of the heavy equipment brought to Edwards for the filming

March 9, 1956: A Warner Brothers
film crew completed three weeks
of filming Toward The Unknown,
the story of test pilots and their
work at the U.S. Air Force Flight
Test Center. The film starred
William Holden, Lloyd Nolan,
Virginia Leith and featured a
variety of the Center’s aircraft and
personnel. Additionally this movie
was the very first film shown in
the new Edwards Theater when
it opened on Oct. 21, 1956. Cast
members from the film were
present for the ribbon cutting
ceremony.

Air Force photograph
Actors Royal Dano as the minister, Kim Stanley as Pancho Barnes, Barbara
Hershey as Glennis Yeager, and Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager between
takes at Edwards AFB during the filming of the motion picture The Right Stuff.
Air Force photograph

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