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From the jacket of Gann's autobiography
A Hostage to Fortune
A Hostage to Fortune is Ernest Gann's own account of his incredibly full and fascinating life, a life with more than enough adventure-risks taken and gambles won, exotic journeys, ironic tricks of fate, the struggle of man (and man's machines) against nature-to match anything in this master storyteller's marvelous and best-selling novels.
Pilot, sailor, filmmaker, and author of more than a score of famous and successful books (including The High and the Mighty, Fate is the Hunter, and Band of Brothers), Gann's turbulent history began -with deceptive calm- in Lincoln, Nebraska. After studying theater at Yale, and a wild trip around the world, Ernie descended on the New York theater world-as an assistant to Radio City Music Hall director Leon Leonidoff; as a commercial movie cartoonist; and as a highly paid casting director for a variety of movie companies.
Finally, after a variety of false starts and failed endeavors, he encountered the great passion of his life-flying. We see him, at long last, becoming a true airman. And we follow him into the early days of airline service, into wartime, into commercial flying of every variety. The facts behind so many of his books: the struggle to keep a faltering airliner aloft over the Pacific; the near destruction-in a moment trapped forever in his memory, and now in ours-of the world's most famous building, the Taj Mahal.
In counterpoint to the thrills of a life crammed with adventure is the compelling thread of a personal life both joyous and haunted: the tragic loss of a son, a marriage which ended in the tragic destruction of a once-beloved wife; and a second marriage as rewarding as Gann's second major career, writing. Through it all, Gann confronts his past and himself honestly, decently, movingly-with no hint of pretension or self-importance. What A Hostage to Fortune reveals to us is a rich, exciting life-and a man one is glad to have known.
From Ernie's sailing auto bio Song of the Sirens
There was only one reason I could even contemplate buying a vessel like the Albatros. She had served as a training ship for many years, yet now her Dutch shipping proprietors sheepishly confessed they could not find enough young recruits to man her. I would have disbelieved them, since most European countries successfully maintained at least one sail-training ship, yet their asking price convinced me they were anxious to be rid of her. So when I had completed my inspection, I made an offer of even less, and all too suddenly for my financial courage, became a shipowner.
My rashness had at least the quality of the absolute. How a private individual of limited means was to maintain such a vessell when a large steamship company declined was a problem I deliberately refused to recognize until it was too late. In this manner drunkards convince themselves another drink is necessary, gluttons gorge against the day of their passing, and philanderers excuse an extra affair.
In 1960, after being sold, the Albatros sank in a White Squall / book link
here
Gann died in 1991. For more info on the life of Ernest K. Gann, see the December 1992 Flying