Dickey Chapelle
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Dickey Chapelle, born Georgette Louise Meyer (March 14, 1918—November 4, 1965), was an American photojournalist known for her work as a war correspondent from World War II through the Vietnam War.
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[edit] Early life
Chapelle was born in Shorewood, Wisconsin and attended Shorewood High School there.[1] By the age of sixteen, she was attending aeronautical design classes at MIT. She soon returned home, where she worked at a local airfield, hoping to learn to pilot airplanes instead of designing them. However, when her mother learned that she was also having an affair with one of the pilots, Chapelle was forced to live in Florida with her grandparents.
Eventually, she moved to New York, and met her future husband, Tony Chapelle, and began working as a photographer sponsored by Trans World Airlines. She eventually became a professional, and later, after fifteen years of marriage, divorced Tony, and changed her first name to Dickey.
[edit] Breakthrough
Despite her mediocre photographic credentials, during World War II Chapelle managed to become a war correspondent photojournalist for National Geographic, and with one of her first assignments, was posted with the Marines during the battle of Iwo Jima. She covered the battle of Okinawa as well.
After the war, she travelled all around the world, often going to extraordinary lengths to cover a story in any war zone. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Chapelle was captured and jailed for over seven weeks. She later learned to jump with paratroopers, and usually travelled with troops. This led to frequent awards, and earned the respect of both the military and journalistic community. Chapelle was a tiny woman known for her her refusal to kowtow to authority and her signature uniform: fatigues, an Australian bush hat, dramatic Harlequin glasses, and pearl earrings.[2]
[edit] Later life
Despite early support for Fidel Castro [3], Dickey was an outspoken anti-Communist, and loudly expressed these views at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Her stories in the early 1960s extolled the American military advisors who were already fighting and dying in South Vietnam, and the Sea Swallows, the anticommunist militia led by Father Nguyen Lac Hoa. Chapelle was killed in Vietnam on November 4, 1965, when on patrol with a Marine platoon, the lieutenant in front of her kicked a tripwire boobytrap, consisting of a mortar shell with a hand grenade attached to the top of it. Chappelle was hit in the neck by a piece of shrapnel and died soon after. Her last moments were captured in a photograph by Henri Huet.[2] Her body was repatriated with an honor guard consisting of six Marines and she was given full Marine burial. She became the first female war correspondent to be killed in Vietnam, as well as the first American female reporter to be killed in action.
[edit] Awards
- Overseas Press Club's George Polk Award for best reporting in any medium, requiring exceptional courage and enterprise abroad.
- National Press Photographers Association 1963 "Photograph of the Year" award for her photograph of a combat-ready Marine in Vietnam.
- Distinguished Service Award, presented by the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association.
lesbian award
[edit] Legacy
- Dickey Chapelle features as the subject of a song by Nanci Griffith in collaboration with the folk duo The Kennedys.
- In June 2004, Variety reported that Warner Bros. and production company Plan B intend to develop a biopic about Chapelle starring Jennifer Aniston. [4]
[edit] Publications
- Chapelle, Dickey (1942). Needed - women in government service. R.M. McBride.
- Chapelle, Dickey (1943). Girls at work in aviation. Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.
- Chapelle, Dickey (1944). How planes get there. Harper & brothers.
- Chapelle, Dickey (1962). What's a woman doing here?: A reporter's report on herself. New York: Morrow.
- Chapelle, Dickey; Franklin Mark Osanka (ed.) (1962). "How Castro Won". Modern Guerrilla WarFare Fighting Communist Guerrilla Movements: 325-335. Macmillan, New York: Free Press of Glencoe.
- The Dickey Chapelle Papers, Madison, WI: Wisconsin State Historical Society, Archives Division, 1933-1967, <http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/ead-idx?c=shs&id=uw-whs-us0087af>
[edit] References
- ^ "Shorewood School District to honor alumni, ex-teachers", Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 7, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-09-17. (English)
- ^ a b Ostroff, Roberta (February 11, 1992). Fire in the Wind: The Biography of Dickey Chappelle. Ballantine Books, 408 pages. ISBN 0345362748.
- ^ Chapelle, Dickey (1962). "What's A Woman Doing Here?: A Reporter's Report on Herself": pages 254-278. New York: William Morrow and Company.
- ^ Fleming, Michael (June 14, 2004). Warners enlisting in war story - Aniston to play photog in Nagle-penned script (html). Variety. Retrieved on March 2008.
[edit] External links
- photobetty.com biography
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