Russell Thaw

Russell William Thaw (October 25, 1910 – May 6, 1984) was an American airplane pilot and childhood actor. While working as the chief pilot for the Guggenheim family, he was sponsored for air races and excursions. He served during World War II in the United States Army Air Force, and later became a test pilot for the Douglas Aircraft Company in California. In 1948 he was the first person to fly the Douglas XF3D-1.

Born in Germany to American parents, Thaw was the only child of Evelyn Nesbit, a famous Gibson Girl model and actress, and her first husband, the erratic millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw. Their lives had received sensational attention after Harry Thaw fatally shot the prominent New York architect Stanford White in 1906 in front of a large crowd at the Madison Square Garden rooftop theatre (four years before Russell Thaw was born). Harry Thaw spent the next several years in mental institutions before eventually being released. The Thaw family did not accept Nesbit's claims about Russell's paternity. He grew up in California, where his mother remarried after divorcing his father. She had a prominent and lucrative acting career, and Thaw appeared as a child actor with his mother in six films of the silent film era, all of which have since been lost.