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4 unusual facts about Harding Lawrence


Harding Lawrence

Braniff co-founder Thomas Elmer Braniff was an insurance magnate and now the third major owner (Senator William A. Blakley was the second largest owner of Braniff after 1954) of Braniff was also an insurance executive.

Pan Am's Chairman Najeeb Halaby, unfortunately, nixed the idea preferring to pursue a merger with international competitor Trans World Airlines.

(Ed Acker was Executive Vice President and President of Braniff from 1965 until 1975 and became Chairman of Pan Am in 1981.) During the 1980s, Lawrence worked at Wells Rich Greene Advertising alongside his wife, advertising legend Mary Wells Lawrence who Lawrence married in November, 1967.

Mary Wells Lawrence sold her advertising firm Wells Rich Greene in 1990.


George Stanley Gordon

Mr. Gordon approached famed artist Alexander Calder and brought him to Braniff International Airways Chairman Harding Lawrence with a proposal for Calder to paint a Braniff jet airliner in what would become the world's first flying artwork.


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