Thunderbird Man

Leland Hayward is a high-voltage Hollywood agent who handles big-name stars like Greta Garbo and Ginger Rogers, insists on calling them "Darling" on the telephone. But last week Hayward was also going places in aviation--he was a promoter, manager and part owner of Southwest Airways, a husky, 2 7-month-old enterprise in Phoenix, Ariz, which operates four big pilot-training centers, an overhaul depot for training planes and an air cargo line.

Southwest started when Agent Hayward and onetime Airplane Salesman John Howard Connelly dined in a cosy booth in Beverly Hills' swank Chasen's Restaurant, decided to use some Hollywood razzle-dazzle on the Army's mushrooming pilot-training program.

Cactus and Rattlesnakes. Hayward raised $30,000 from rich clients like James Stewart and Henry Fonda, bought a small civilian school at Phoenix, hired six instructors. A little later he bought a one-mile desert tract outside the city, ploughed out the cactus and rattlesnakes, built a palacelike Air Corps training center with pastel-colored buildings, olive orchards, tennis courts and bright red Thunderbird insignia over everything. The first Thunderbird graduates got their diplomas only four months after the desert was broken, had a bang-up graduation party with pretty Hollywood starlets, listened to Hoagy Carmichael (also a Southwest stockholder) pound the piano.

Soon the British decided they wanted a Hayward-run training center too. So Hayward borrowed $200,000 from the British Government, still more from his friends, slapped up Falcon Field 25 miles east of Phoenix. This succeeded right off the bat --Southwest was on its way. To handle the Army's stepped-up pilot program Hayward expanded the original civilian school and built Thunderbird Field II. To overhaul training planes and engines he set up a big repair depot. To haul high-priority military cargo he started an airline over a censored Pacific Coast route. Meanwhile Southwest trained thousands of pilots (27 nationalities but mostly U.S., British and Chinese), expanded its staff time & again.

Debts and Profits. All these operations lost money at the start and Hayward and Connelly went over their ears in debt. In 1941 they owed $1,200,000 in notes. Cracked Hayward: "We pledged everything up to our homes and children. If my wife [Cinemactress Margaret Sullavan] had ever known she would have shot me." Hayward's break came when the Army decided pilot-training schools were too risky for private capital, got Defense Plants Corp. to buy Thunderbird for its net cost price. Now Hayward gets a straight fee per cadet-hour flown, pays rent to DPC, keeps the balance for instructors, gas and maintenance.

With millions in service contracts on the books, Southwest is now in the black. So like any good Hollywood story Southwest has a happy ending: this week Hayward was ready to pay $293,500 spot cash for all outstanding preferred stock, thus clear his still-growing outfit of its last big obligation.

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