Jacqueline Auriol

About

Leading female test pilot who set several world speed records and broke the sound barrier during the 1950s and '60s.

Before Fame

She became a stunt and test pilot in the late 1940s and underwent thirty-three reconstructive surgeries after her face was severely injured in a 1949 plane crash.

Trivia

Her autobiography, I Live to Fly, was published in 1970.

Family Life

She married Paul Auriol, the son of French President, Vincent Auriol. The couple divorced in 1967 and remarried twenty years later.

Associated With

She had a friendly rivalry with fellow aviator Jacqueline Cochran.