I'm John Batchelor with Josh Dean, The Impossible Factory, his new book, The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Corporation.

Kelly loses his first wife.

As Altheo gave him orders right as she was leaving, you know, you must marry immediately.

You can't take care of yourself.

You're completely impractical.

You'll stop you.

You'll forget to eat dinner.

And Kelly did have health problems complicated by his anxiety.

All the dare of those test pilots, it seemed to have played out in Kelly like it was some

kind of Dorian Gray character.

They wouldn't worry, so he'd worry for them.

It's true. He was plagued by ulcers since college, so probably from diet and maybe some genetics. But then, yeah,

anxiety, apparently took anti-anxiety medications like candy. He became a quite heavy drinker.

And Althea, yes, on her deathbed, apparently, we know this through Kelly, said,

you need to marry.

And she selected his wife, basically.

He married his administrative assistant, a woman named Mary Ellen.

And I like to think, like, Kelly was so ruthlessly efficient about everything that he just decided, you know, Althea helped him decide,

but that he needed a wife, as you said, remind him to eat, make sure he took a day off every now

and again, went on a vacation, had some joy in his life because the stress of his work was killing him.

He has a ranch and he has anxiety all the time.

It leads to ulcers throughout his life, but eventually he has to treat them with surgery.

...