Edouard Corniglion-Molinier

General Édouard Corniglion-Molinier (23 January 1898, in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes – 9 May 1963) was an aviator and member of the French Resistance, a member of the French government during the French Fourth Republic, and, in the 1930-1940s, a movie producer (André Malraux's L'Espoir also known as Man's Hope). He was a friend of Marcel Dassault and André Malraux. Corniglion-Molinier joined the French Army in 1915, falsifying his age. He was trained at the Ambérieu flying school where he obtained his fighter pilot's license on 27 April 1916. He fought as a fighter pilot at the Italian Front, where he contracted malaria. In June 1918, he was transferred to the Western Front where he flew missions until the end of the war. He received seven citations, the Legion of Honor and numerous foreign decorations.

After the war, he studied at the university and became a Doctor of Law. In 1924, he married Raymonde Heudebert, a painter.

In 1927, he bought the Victorine Studios in Nice and he became a film producer and a journalist for Paris-soir.

He also continued to fly in the interwar period. In spring 1934, together with his friend André Malraux , he embarked on a much publicized and dangerous expedition to find the lost capital of the Queen of Sheba, flying several weeks over the deserts in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who were at war with each other.

In November 1936, he was the co-pilot of Jim Mollison in his last major record attempt to fly non-stop from Croydon to Cape Town, South Africa. The attempt ended with a forced landing some 160 km short of Cape Town.

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, he went to Spain with his friend André Malraux to help to organize the small Spanish Republican Air Force.