The Wright Brothers to the Kardashian Sisters: Celebrity Degrees of Separation

Wright Brothers – Orville WrightCharles Lindbergh – Will Rogers – Eleanor RooseveltDorothy Height – Barack Obama – Khloé  Kardashian – Kardashian Sisters

Andrews, Marx, Kennedy, Jonas, Mitford, Del Rubio, Smothers, Rockefeller, Dolly, Baldwin.  From business to politics to science to entertainment, brothers and sisters teamed in twos, threes and fours have long helped double, triple and quadruple each other’s chances for name recognition in their fields.

One can’t imagine Wilbur without Orville, the famous Wright brothers of Dayton, Ohio, who made the first controlled, sustained and powered air flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903, in an airplane they built. Wilbur died in 1912, but Orville Wright lived on until 1948.

In 1930, Orville Wright was award the Guggenheim Medal in aeronautics in the presence of legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Lindbergh flew his plane to San Diego on September 21, 1927 to the site where Spirit of St. Louis, the plane he flew to Europe,  had been built, for ceremonies honoring him. Waiting to join the festivities was the famed humorist Will Rogers, who joked that “Lucky Lindy” never lost his way – until he was on land.

On June 6, 1933, in Los Angeles, Will Rogers was on hand to welcome Eleanor Roosevelt who had just completed the first of many cross-country trips by airplane. The First Lady’s flight was a symbolic gesture to the nation about her faith in air safety which helped the fledgling passenger-flight airlines industry.

In 1960, Eleanor Roosevelt received the Mary McLeod Bethune Human Rights Award from Dorothy Height, National Council of Negro Women President and “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Forty years later, in January 2009, 97-year old Dorothy Height was on hand for the festivities honoring the newly-inaugurated President Barack Obama.

Months later, President Barack Obama hosted a ceremony to celebrate the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team winning the 2009 NBA championship, including player Lamar Odom – whose wife Khloé Kardashian was on hand and shook the President’s hand.

Reality TV performers, the sister Khloé, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian  meet often.


Categories: Barack Obama, Celebrity Degrees of Separation, Facebook of the Famous

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

0 replies »

Trackbacks

  1. Sunday Jumble Spoiler – 12/18/11 « Unclerave's Wordy Weblog

Leave a Reply