Lindbergh Kidnapping - The Lindbergh Kidnapping Represented in The Arts

The Lindbergh Kidnapping Represented in The Arts

In Music

• May 1932: Just one day after the Lindbergh baby was discovered murdered, the prolific country recording artist Bob Miller (under the pseudonym Bob Ferguson) recorded two songs for Columbia on May 13, 1932, commemorating the event. The songs were released on Columbia 15759-D with the titles "Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr." and "There's a New Star Up in Heaven (Baby Lindy Is Up There)".
• June 2002: The Opera Theatre of St. Louis premiered a new opera by the American composer, Cary John Franklin, entitled "Loss of Eden." The opera commemorated the centennial of Lindbergh's birth, and the 75th anniversary of his Atlantic crossing, and was a musical reflection on Lindbergh's public triumph and personal tragedy. Later, the composer reworked some of the music into a chamber work entitled "Falls Flyer." The music in the opening section of the piece is derived from the music in the major dramatic moments of the opera—the plane departing for Paris, the kidnapping, and the execution of Bruno Hauptmann.

In Novels

• January 1934: Agatha Christie was inspired by circumstances of the case when she described the kidnapping of baby girl Daisy Armstrong in her 1934 Hercule Poirot novel Murder on the Orient Express, including a parallel of the death of Violet Sharpe.
• 1972: In Tom Tryon's novel and film The Other the Lindbergh kidnapping is mentioned several times, and Rider and Torrie's baby is kidnapped in a similar manner.
• 1981: The kidnapping and its aftermath served as the inspiration for Maurice Sendak's book Outside Over There.
• 1991: Stolen Away by Max Allan Collins is a thorough treatment of the case from the point of view of a fictional detective. The author examines several possible solutions and provides considerable support for one.
• 2004: In Philip Roth's novel The Plot Against America, the narrator describes theories about the kidnapping – most notably, the possibility that prominent Nazis were responsible and used the kidnapping to extort the Lindberghs into expressing some admiration for and defense of the policies of Nazi Germany. According to this theory (which the narrator neither accepts nor rejects), the baby is brought to Germany where he is adopted into a Nazi family and becomes a member of the Hitler Youth, unaware of his true background.
• 2012: The Last Newspaperman by Mark Di Ionno tells the story from the perspective of a tabloid journalist who covered the kidnapping and claims to have heard an off-the-record confession by Bruno Hauptmann.

In Languages

• In Spanish, the expression "Estar más perdido que el hijo de Lindbergh" (to be more lost than Lindbergh's child) means "to be clueless"

In Film/Television

• 1976: In the television movie The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, Anthony Hopkins played the role of Bruno Hauptmann, and Sian Barbara Allen played Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
• 1996: The Lindbergh kidnapping was the subject of a 1996 Golden Globe and Emmy nominated HBO TV movie titled Crime of the Century. Bruno Hauptmann was played by Stephen Rea and his wife Anna by Isabella Rossellini.
• March 7, 2000: In the Family Guy episode "Brian in Love," Peter objects to toilet-training Stewie, as, according to a cutaway, Charles Lindbergh did the same thing to his son and his son ended up being flushed down the toilet. Lindbergh then decides to fake the kidnapping and get rid of Amelia Earhart, who was a witness.
• 2009: In the documentary Tell Them Anything You Want, author/illustrator Maurice Sendak tells interviewer Spike Jonze that he has been obsessed with the case of the Lindbergh baby since he was 2 years old.
• 2010: In the TV Series Fringe, episode 23 of the 2nd Season, titled "Over There: Part 2", Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) quotes 'Then I'm like the Lindbergh Baby from this side' as he returned to a Parallel universe (fiction) where he had been abducted from.
• 2011: The Clint Eastwood-directed film J. Edgar focuses on the Lindbergh kidnapping. Josh Lucas plays Charles Lindbergh, Damon Herriman was cast as Bruno Hauptmann and Stephen Root was cast as Arthur Koehler, an expert on wood who testified at the trial.