Early Life and Career
Born in Greenville, Texas, Locklear was brought up in Fort Worth, and trained as a carpenter. While still at school he was a daredevil performer of tricks in and on moving vehicles. He worked as a house-builder, and married Ruby Graves in 1915.
Locklear became fascinated by flying, trying to build his own glider, so when World War I involved the US in 1917, he joined the U.S. Army Air Service. He trained in Austin, at Camp Dick and Barron Field, becoming a flying instructor. Locklear was an exponent of wing walking to make aircraft repairs in flight.
A 2nd lieutenant at the end of the war, he had been assigned to military recruitment when he saw a barnstorming show, and realized his own usual flying exploits were far more impressive. Locklear left the Army to join the show with two military colleagues, Milton 'Skeets' Elliott and Shirley Short. They soon obtained aircraft and formed their own show, performing far and wide. This opened the way to a movie career in California, where they performed aerial stunts for the camera.
Read more about this topic: Ormer Locklear
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“O, reason not the need! our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)