REEL FACE: | REAL FACE: |
Taraji P. Henson
Born: September 11, 1970 Birthplace: Washington, District of Columbia, USA | Katherine Johnson
Born: August 26, 1918 Birthplace: White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, USA |
Octavia Spencer
Born: May 25, 1970 Birthplace: Montgomery, Alabama, USA | Dorothy Vaughan
Born: September 20, 1910 Birthplace: Kansas City, Missouri, USA Death: November 10, 2008, Hampton, Virginia, USA |
Janelle Monáe
Born: December 1, 1985 Birthplace: Kansas City, Kansas, USA | Mary Jackson
Born: April 9, 1921 Birthplace: Hampton, Virginia, USA Death: February 11, 2005, Hampton, Virginia, USA |
Mahershala Ali
Born: February 16, 1974 Birthplace: Oakland, California, USA | Lieutenant Colonel Jim Johnson
Birthplace: USA |
Glen Powell
Born: October 21, 1988 Birthplace: Austin, Texas, USA | John Glenn
Born: July 18, 1921 Birthplace: Cambridge, Ohio, USA Death: December 8, 2016, Columbus, Ohio, USA |
Not exactly. In researching the Hidden Figures true story, we learned that Kevin Costner's character, Al Harrison, is based on three different directors at NASA Langley during Katherine Johnson's time at the research facility. The movie's director, Theodore Melfi, was unable to secure the rights to the guy he wanted, so he decided to make Costner's Al Harrison a composite character. -Today Show
Yes. Born in 1918, Katherine G. Johnson's impressive intellect was evident from the time she was a child. She was fascinated with numbers and became a high school freshman by age 10. In her hometown of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, school for African-Americans normally stopped at the eighth grade for those who could afford to attend. Katherine's father, Joshua, was determined to see his children reach their potential, so he drove the family 120 miles to Institute, West Virginia, where blacks could pursue an education past the eighth grade, through high school, and into college. He rented a house for the family to stay during the school year and journeyed back and forth to White Sulphur Springs for his job at a hotel. He did this for eight years, so that each of his four children could go to high school and college. Katherine proved to be so smart that she skipped several grades, graduating high school at age 14 and from West Virginia State College at 18. -NASA
Yes. "At the time the black women came to work at Langley [in 1943], this was a time of segregation," says Hidden Figures author Margot Lee Shetterly. "Even though they were just starting these brand new, very interesting jobs as professional mathematicians, they nonetheless had to abide by the state law, which was that there were segregated work rooms for them, there were segregated bathrooms, and there were segregated cafeterias. On their table in the cafeteria was a sign that said 'colored computers,' which sort of sounds like an iMac or something, right, today? But this referred to the black women who were doing this mathematical work." They were essentially human computers. -Al Jazeera
No. In fact-checking the Hidden Figures movie, we learned that white collar statistician Paul Stafford, portrayed by Jim Parsons, is a fictional character. He was created to represent certain racist and sexist attitudes that existed during the 1950s. In the film, he thwarts every effort Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) makes to get ahead, including reducing her job qualifications to secretarial duty, omitting her byline on official reports, and telling her it's not appropriate for women to attend space program briefings. By the end of the movie, Stafford's fictional storyline includes the character having a change of heart, which is emphasized when he brings Katherine a cup of coffee.
No. Hard-nosed supervisor Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst) is a fictional character created to represent some of the unconscious bias and prejudice of the era. She is at best a composite of some of the supervisors who worked at NASA Langley.
Yes. Before the days of electronic computers that we're familiar with today, the women hired at NASA to calculate trajectories, the results of wind tunnel tests, etc. had the job title of "computer." In simple terms, these were mathematicians who performed computations. Even when electronic computers were first used at NASA, human computers like Katherine Johnson still often performed the calculations by hand to verify the results of their electronic counterparts. -NASA
Yes. As we explored the Hidden Figures true story, we discovered that Dorothy Vaughan became NACA's first black supervisor in 1948, five years before Katherine Johnson started working there. Vaughan was also an advocate and voice for the women in the "West Computers" pool. The movie shows her leading the women down the hall to their next assignment, an obvious nod to the team of astronauts walking down the hall in the 1983 movie The Right Stuff. -PopularMechanics.com
Yes. "I asked permission to go," says Katherine, "and they said, 'Well, the girls don't usually go,' and I said, 'Well, is there a law?' They said, 'No.' Then my boss said, 'Let her go.' And I began attending the briefings." In the Hidden Figures movie (watch the trailer), Jim Parsons' character, Paul Stafford, tells Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) that women don't go to the briefings. "There's no protocol for women attending," Stafford states. After she continues to question this unspoken rule, their boss, Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), decides to let her attend the briefing.
Not exactly. In Margot Lee Shetterly's book, this is something that is experienced more by Mary Jackson (portrayed by Janelle Monáe) than Katherine Johnson. Mary went to work on a project on NASA Langley's East Side alongside several white computers. She was not familiar with those buildings and when she asked a group of white women where the bathroom was, they giggled at her and offered no help. The closest bathroom was for whites. Humiliated and angry, Mary set off on a time-consuming search for a colored bathroom. Unlike in the movie, there were colored bathrooms on the East Side but not in every building. The sprint across the campus in the movie might be somewhat of an exaggeration, but finding a bathroom was indeed a point of frustration.
As for Katherine Johnson herself, Shetterly writes that when Katherine started working there, she didn't even realize that the bathrooms at Langley were segregated. This is because the bathrooms for white employees were unmarked and there weren't many colored bathrooms to be seen. It took a couple years before she was confronted with her mistake, but she simply ignored the comment and continued to use the white restrooms. No one brought it up again and she refused to enter the colored bathrooms.
Katherine Johnson's first husband, James Francis Goble, died in December 1956 from an inoperable tumor located at the base of his skull. His health had been slowly declining for a year and he had spent much of that time in the hospital. He had to quit his job as a painter at the Newport News shipyard (he had previously been a chemistry teacher but gave up the job in 1953 when the family moved so that Katherine could take the position at NASA). Before his death, Katherine had promised her husband that she would keep their three adolescent daughters on a path to college. She now had to play the role of both mother and sole breadwinner. Katherine established new rules around the house and assigned chores to the children, including having their mother's clothes ironed and ready in the morning and having dinner ready when she got home. -Hidden Figures book
Yes. "We did get to meet the astronauts," says the real Katherine Johnson. "They weren't as excited as we were, and we just looked at them in awe." -WHROTV
Yes. Fact-checking the Hidden Figures movie confirmed that John Glenn personally requested that Katherine recheck the electronic computer's calculations for his February 1962 flight aboard the Mercury-Atlas 6 capsule Friendship 7—the NASA mission that concluded with him becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. The scene in the movie unfolded in almost exactly the same way it does in real life, with Glenn's request for Katherine taken nearly verbatim from the transcripts. He even refers to her as "the girl." "Get the girl to check the numbers... If she says the numbers are good... I'm ready to go." -NASA
In researching Katherine Johnson's biography, we learned that she was hired in 1953 and retired from NASA in 1986, for a career that spanned approximately 33 years. Prior to NASA, she had worked as a school teacher and a stay-at-home mom. -NASA
"You might get the indication in the movie that these were the only people doing those jobs, when in reality we know they worked in teams, and those teams had other teams," author Margot Shetterly explained. "There were sections, branches, divisions, and they all went up to a director. There were so many people required to make this happen. ... But I understand you can't make a movie with 300 characters. It is simply not possible." -Space.com
Broaden your knowledge of the Hidden Figures true story by viewing the Katherine G. Johnson interview and documentary below. Then watch an interview with Tracy Drain, a current NASA scientist who discusses her journey to NASA and the real-life women who inspired the movie.