It’s Complicated
Apollo 13 was a movie about an American mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster. Tom Hanks starred as Captain James R. Lovell, Flight Commander. I know many people would think it would be cool to hang out with Tom Hanks for an afternoon, but even cooler for me was hanging out with Jim Lovell.
My friend, Marla Friedman, had completed a portrait bust of Captain Lovell for the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center, in North Chicago, and she asked me if I would appraise it and some other items being donated to the facility. I was told to go there and someone would meet me.
It is the first combination military base health center and V.A. hospital in America. As I entered there were a few elderly men seated on a bench waiting for appointments. One of them smiled warmly, stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Jim Lovell. He had seen my picture and was expecting me. None of the other men knew who he was, he told me with a twinkle in his eye.
He walked me a few steps to a grand rotunda dominated by a twenty-foot-wide painting of the god Apollo in his chariot behind his three magnificient horses with hooves flying just above a choppy sea with the sun breaking through the clouds behind. This was the main subject of the charitable contribution from Lovell to the Hospital.
We spent the afternoon going over the history of the painting and the space memorabilia displayed in the facility. There were plaques with sealed flags and pages from notebooks carried on the mission that nearly ended when a malfunction ocurred onboard the Apollo 13. The Ron Howard film dramatically tells the story.
Lovell first saw the painting in a hotel while on a publicity stop in New York as NASA was boosting public support for the space program. He immediately ordered the Apollo 13 mission patches to be based on the design.
Years later,when the hotel was sold and being completely remodeled, the painting was put up for sale at auction. Tom Hanks surprised Lovell by giving it to him at a celebration of his birthday.
Lovell told me that each astronaut was allowed to take twenty pounds of personal articles aboard the spacecraft. He had 480, 6x8 inch American and other national silk flags aboard. Today they are averaging $5,000 each at auction when signed and mounted with a brass plaque.
When the crew began selling them after their service, NASA tried to stop them saying they were the property of NASA, but the astronauts won in court. NASA then rewrote the policy which limits what astronauts can keep or sell. This effectively made Lovell’s flags a very limited edition collectible.
After I finished the appraisal I sent it to Lovell with a long list of instructions for him to take it to the head of the facility and then to his accountant to fill out the proper forms, and for him to sign them and make sure it was filed within sixty days to qualify for the tax deduction.
He called me and said it all seemed too complicated, I replied, “Jim, getting back from the moon was complicated.” He chuckled, “Okay, I’ll do it.”