Marilyn Lovell obituary: Astronaut’s wife turned heroic archetype amid Apollo 13 drama

Born: July 11th, 1930

Died: August 27th, 2023

Marilyn Lovell, who became an object of fascination for the news media, the inspiration for movie and TV characters, a figure in history books and who incarnated for many people around the world the hardships and glamour of being an astronaut’s wife, has died aged 93.

Her husband Jim Lovell was captain of the dramatic Apollo 13 spaceflight. It was launched on April 11th, 1970, with the goal of returning astronauts to the surface of the moon for the third time. Lovell and Fred Haise were the designated moon walkers; Jack Swigert was supposed to remain in orbit.

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Two days after takeoff, however, an oxygen tank exploded, and the command module, Odyssey, began losing power. “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” Lovell reported (a statement that has endured in the retelling as “Houston, we have a problem.”) The crew aborted the planned moon landing and took refuge in the lunar module, Aquarius, using it for the journey back to Earth.

Marilyn Lovell helped make the astronaut’s wife a heroic archetype: the American housewife accepting her husband’s absences imposed by work... confronting the possibility of his death with dignity

The crisis captivated the world, with Marilyn Lovell in a central role as the wife and mother of four watching the television news to see whether she was about to become a widow.

Those harrowing days were memorialised in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, a 1995 movie that earned nine Oscar nominations, including a best supporting actress nomination for Kathleen Quinlan, who played Marilyn Lovell. (Tom Hanks played Jim Lovell.)

The movie was based on Jim Lovell’s memoir, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, which was written with Jeffrey Kluger and later reissued in paperback as simply Apollo 13.

[ Houston, we have a problem: the myths of Apollo 13 ]

Marilyn Lovell helped make the astronaut’s wife a heroic archetype: the American housewife accepting her husband’s absences imposed by work, sacrificing peace of mind for the sake of his and their country’s grand adventures, confronting the possibility of his death with dignity.

She was born Marilyn Lillie Gerlach in Milwaukee, to Lillie and Carl Gerlach. Her father ran a sweet shop.

As a freshman at Juneau High School in Milwaukee, she often made shy eye contact with a junior who worked behind the cafeteria counter to get free lunches. One day, that boy, Jim Lovell, asked her to the junior prom.

Early on, Jim Lovell worked as a naval test pilot. In 1962, he was chosen as one of the so-called New Nine, the second group of American astronauts (following the Mercury Seven), who also included Neil Armstrong.

The Lovell family settled in Houston near other families of astronauts, a place referred to by the press as Togethersville. Several of the wives – also including Annie Glenn, Betty Grissom and Rene Carpenter – became public figures in their own right.

While many astronauts and their wives eventually divorced, the Lovells remained together, despite the unusual stresses the family faced.

[ Irish contribution to space race to go on display to public ]

Marilyn Lovell hid one of her pregnancies from her husband for four months, worrying that if it became widely known, Nasa would deem her pregnancy to be a distraction and preclude him from flying into space. The success of her furtiveness came to disturb her, though, making her wonder whether her husband simply had not been around long enough to notice she was pregnant, Lily Koppel wrote in her 2013 book, The Astronaut Wives Club.

In an interview, Marilyn Lovell distilled her time in Houston into one sentence: ‘Those were the best years of my life’

Then there were the frantic days when it was unclear whether Apollo 13 would return safely to Earth. Marilyn Lovell, like other astronauts’ wives, devotedly watched television reports by Jules Bergman, the ABC News science correspondent who they felt could be depended on for unvarnished reporting. He gave Jim Lovell a 10 per cent chance of survival.

When Marilyn Lovell’s 12-year-old daughter, Susan, became hysterical on seeing a priest at their door, she found a way to soothe her. “Do you really think the best astronaut either one of us knows is going to forget something as simple as how to turn his spaceship around and fly it home?” she asked her daughter, according to Jim Lovell’s memoir.

[ How should the moon landing be remembered 50 years on? ]

Reporters with notebooks, microphones and television cameras filled up the Lovell family lawn and driveway. She fielded a call from President Richard Nixon.

When parachutes were seen on TV billowing out from the spaceship, guiding it safely to the ocean surface, a couple of famous astronauts in Marilyn Lovell’s living room, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, opened Champagne. Nixon called with a new message: “I wanted to know if you’d care to accompany me to Hawaii to pick up your husband.”

She replied, “Mr President, I’d love to.”

Emerging from her home in a red-, white- and blue-striped dress to speak to reporters, she said: “Isn’t this a great day? I am very thankful and humble, thankful to the men at Mission Control for making it possible for my husband to return to Earth.”

In an interview, Marilyn Lovell distilled her time in Houston into one sentence: “Those were the best years of my life.”

Jim Lovell later worked for a marine company and in telecommunications. He survives Marilyn Lovell, along with their children, Barbara Harrison, Susan Lovell and Jeffrey and James Lovell III; 11 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times