Pioneering mom: Boyce man's aviator mother is subject of movie

BOYCE - She was a strong-willed, independent woman who knew the value of hard work. She had a soft spot in her heart for children and a passion for helping others. She was adventurous, she never gave up, and she was a bit of a daredevil. Her audacious life is an inspiration, and her story will soon reach the big screen.

The life of Eula "Pearl" Carter Scott, a Chickasaw American Indian and a famed aviator, has been documented in museums and a 2007 book, "Never Give Up! The Life of Pearl Carter Scott." Filming has just finished on a new movie about this pioneering woman, says her son, Bill Scott, of Boyce. By the end of next spring, it could be in the hands of Disney.

"It came up real quick," says Scott. At the end of September, he was in Dallas, Texas, when he received a call from his sister, Louise Thompson. "She said, 'They're making a movie on mother's life, this is Hollywood. They're wrapping up in another week and they want to have you and the family up this weekend.'"

Scott contacted the movie's director, and by the end of the week, he found himself dressed in 1920s clothing on a movie set at an old grass airport in El Reno, Okla. "When we got there, the whole cast came over, it was really something," Scott said. Scott, his sons and Thompson's son and grandson all played extras in the film, "Pearl."

"[The scene] is when she was barnstorming. She landed after doing a loop-d-loop. The guy she took up, he's supposed to barf. We're sitting on bails of hay. We're supposed to point and laugh at him. Don't blink, if you do, you've missed my illustrious film career," Scott says, with a hearty laugh. "Just don't blink."

The movie, produced by the Chickasaw Nation, is a feature-length film and includes actors and actresses from Oklahoma and around the United States. Elijah De Jesus, a 13-year-old actress from California, portrays Carter Scott. While this is her first leading role in a feature film, she's been seen in the television hit "Ugly Betty." Andrew Sensenig, who plays Pearl's father, has been seen in the TV series "Burn Notice" and "Prison Break."

Many members of the Chickasaw Nation have principal roles, and another 200 locals from filming locations in Oklahoma serve as extras. The film is scheduled to premiere in summer 2009 at the opening of the new Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Okla. But, says Scott, producers at Disney have taken a strong interest in the film.

Carter Scott was born in 1915 to a prominent blind businessman and an American Indian mother, and grew up in Marlow, Okla. Her mother taught her how to drive, and by the age of 12, the youngster had her own car, in part to help her father with his business travels. When legendary aviator Wiley Post landed his plane in a pasture near the Carters' home, she became fascinated with the airplane.

Post and a certified instructor taught the young girl how to fly, and by age 13, she became the youngest licensed pilot in the United States when she flew her first solo flight in September 1929. Her father saw the benefit of having an airplane for travel, and bought his daughter her own airplane, a Curtiss Robin monoplane.

Post routinely visited the Carter family. Shortly after completing the first around-the-world airplane flight in his plane, the Winnie Mae, he asked the young aviator to transfer the plane for him. Post allowed only one other person to fly his beloved plane, his mechanic. The famous plane now hangs in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport.

Carter Scott became a well-known barnstormer, what stunt pilots were known as in the 1920s. She also flew as a private commercial pilot, taking business leaders and oil barons wherever they needed to go. But, after marrying and having children, she retired, as family came first, according to her son. "She hung up her spurs so to speak," he said.

In the 1970s, his mother returned to her roots and became one of the first community health representatives for the Chickasaw Nation. She later became involved in the tribe's government, and was the first woman elected to the Chickasaw Nation Tribal Legislature in 1983.

She was inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame in 1995, the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame in 1995, the International Women's Air and Space Museum Hall of Fame and is a charter member of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. She passed away in Oklahoma in 2005.

Scott says he enjoyed being on the set and talking with the cast. "We started telling stories, and they were thirsting for this information," he said. "[For every character], they couldn't have cast a more perfect person. The casting is phenomenal."

Scott, who has traced his mother's family's genealogical past to the Trail of Tears, holds up a signed photograph of the cast and speaks passionately about the movie that tells the story of the woman he knew as not a famous aviator, but as his mother. "Her name was mama," he said in a deep Oklahoma accent. "I didn't know she had a name until high school."