A colored photo of Maria Dolina and Alexandra Votintseva

U.S. army paratroopers Pfc. Lessie Smith, left, of Cleveland, and Sgt. James Closson of Everett, Mass., whose parachutes entangled during a jump in recent Kentucky maneuvers, see the stage version of a similar incident at the Alvin (now the Neil Simon) Theater, February 22, 1956. In a scene from the Broadway play No Time for Sergeants, Andy Griffith and Roddy McDowell, hanging on, recreate the paratroopers' predicament. The soldiers were invited to see the play.

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH Gladys Roy: Aviatrix, Stunt Flier, Parachutist, and Actress

In 1921, around the age of 22, Gladys Roy took her first airplane ride. A week later, on her second ever flight, she co-piloted the plane (with her brother, Lieutenant Chadwick Smith), then stepped out onto the wing of the plane and jumped off, floating to ground under a parachute. It was this thrilling first jump that led Roy, a former Minneapolis Strand Theater cashier, to a career in stunt-flying.

In 1926 she made her mark in Hollywood appearing in motion pictures like “The Fighting Ranger.” But she soon returned east with plans to fly from New York to Rome in a Ryan Monoplane with Lieutenant Delmar L. Snyder.

That flight never happened. Roy’s life was cut short in 1927, when during a photo shoot in Ohio, she accidentally stepped into the path of a whirling propeller on her airplane and was killed. At the time of her death she held the world record for short distance parachute jumping (at just 100 feet) and for women’s long distance parachute jumping.

Birth dates vary for Miss Roy (various sources say 1896, 1899, 1902, and 1904) and she likely stretched the truth to remain young to impress the crowds and appeal to Hollywood. According to her obituary in the Minneapolis Star she was a 1921 graduate of South High School in Minneapolis and Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Smith, of 2309 Chicago Ave., and the wife of Arthur J. Roy. She had four brothers (all pilots) and two sisters.