Flying high on memories with 'Pan Am'

VIRGINIA BEACH

Elizabeth Waitekus, with a gracious smile, offered macaroons on an elegant tray, and it wasn't even her house.

"It's just in our blood," she explained, as Leilani Pierce, whose home it was, presented sassafras tea in crystal stemware.

"I love waiting on people," Pierce said.

Spoken like a true Pan Am stewardess, which, indeed, they both were in the 1960s, the era in which ABC-TV's new show "Pan Am" is set. It's about the glamour and adventure of flying on Pan American World Airways, and that, the two ladies said, is absolutely accurate.

Waitekus and Pierce were selected to be stewardesses from among hundreds of applicants. Pan Am wanted bilingual college graduates, and beyond that the company wanted poise and personality. Waitekus had planned to be an elementary schoolteacher, but her parents had traveled widely and she followed their lead.

"My life really began when I started flying," she said. "It was so glamorous. It was so special. It was just this thing unto itself."

She pulled out a photo of herself in her Pan Am designer uniform.

"Wow," Pierce said. "You were movie star good-lookin'. Still are."

So were all the Pan Am girls, who were required to wear girdles, high heels, gloves and hats, along with uniforms fashioned by Chanel, Evan Piccone and other designers.

It was a luxury lifestyle, with flights to exotic locations around the world, layovers of up to a week in spots such as Tahiti, Bora Bora and Paris, accommodations in high-end hotels and per diem payments for food and travel while the girls waited for their next flight.

Pan Am had no domestic routes then, so the company flew Waitekus from Los Angeles to training school in New York via London. Pierce went from Houston to Guatemala to Miami, turning away from a job as a dietitian after receiving a postcard from Rio, sent by a stewardess friend.

"I said, 'Wait a minute here.' I called Pan Am at Houston and asked if they were hiring," Pierce recalled. They were.

Pierce has wide eyes and a brilliant smile; Waitekus radiates grace. They were perfect for Pan Am.

On Sunday evening, before the TV show debuted, a group of former Pan Am stewardesses, pilots and crew members gathered at Pierce's house in Virginia Beach. They are members of World Wings International, a philanthropic organization of former company employees.

They brought their uniforms, bags, gloves and hats. They displayed photos and memorabilia and wings - the brooches that set them apart. They enjoyed a seven-course meal patterned on the menu once served to first-class passengers.

Prepared by Maxim's of Paris, the menu took off with caviar, soared through beef tenderloin and "Le Vol au Vent de Fruits de Mer Neptune" - "Our Seafood Specialty" - and landed in luscious desserts.

Pierce and, in fact, every former stewardess in the room, played hostess. Glasses stayed full, empty plates were not allowed to linger, silverware - Pan Am silverplate, of course - appeared and vanished discreetly.

A tray traveled the length of the table: "Cookie?" "Cookie?" A man's voice said, "You can't land with a full load."

Gini Deets passed around a photo of herself as a stewardess, next to Richard Nixon. In the golden age of jet travel, celebrities and statesmen often were aboard. "He was so nice," Deets said.

Waitekus once served Charles Lindbergh. It was not unusual for the stewardesses to get to know their guests.

"When you were with somebody in first class, and you're together for eight to 10 to 12 hours, you visit," Pierce explained.

Pan Am flew to 84 countries. During her eight-year career, Pierce visited 71 of them. It wasn't all luxury.

On steeply climbing and descending flights in and out of Vietnam, carrying American soldiers on R&R, the jets were shot at. In Liberia, the crews stayed in refurbished military barracks. In Nepal, they volunteered in orphanages.

"We were ambassadors for America," Pierce said. "We were very aware of that. We might be the first Americans some people had ever met."

On Sunday, they gathered in front of the TV to watch one actress be recruited by the CIA during the Cold War, another evacuate political refugees during the Bay of Pigs.

"Did that really happen?" one watcher wondered.

The TV show was developed by a former Pan Am stewardess, and World Wings members were asked to submit their real-life travel stories for possible adaptation. Pierce says she will send some, possibly about being in Saigon a few hours before the Tet Offensive began in 1968.

The watchers cheered as one actress was scolded for not wearing a girdle - accurate, they said - and scoffed at the fictitious pilots - too young, they agreed.

A former pilot pointed out that in the cockpit scene at takeoff, the oil pressure lights indicated that none of the engines were running.

In the show's final scene, the flight crew discussed the stewardesses. "They're not like normal women," one man says. "They just had an impulse - to take flight."

The crowd at Pierce's house applauded.

A couple of days earlier, Waitekus and Pierce had met over stemware and macaroons to remember the glamour days, before Pan Am collapsed as a company in 1991, the days when flying meant luxury and comfort, before shoe bombs and airport pat-downs.

"It was elegant," Pierce said. "We were treated so well because, I think, Pan Am wanted their passengers treated well."

Waitekus smiled and gracefully dipped her chin in agreement.

"My life really began when I started flying," she said. "Just..."

She searched for the right word.

"Wings."

Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com