A movie star, yes ... but even more so, a real lady and a real patriot.
This delightful woman spent several months each year in Vietnam, traveling there at her own expense and working in military hospitals and forward aid stations when not entertaining the troops. She was trained in her early years as a nurse and she put that training to good use in Vietnam.
I had the occasion to have had a beer with her in her hotel room at the Majestic Hotel in Saigon in 1969 and which came about as follows: I was a Major at that time and was walking through the hotel lobby when I suddenly heard somebody holler 'Hey,soldier' ... well, you don't holler that at a Major, I thought ... and when I turned around to point that out, there stood Martha in her jungle fatigues, red socks and no shoes and she said '... come on in here (to her hotel room) and have a beer with me'. I did and I was in awe the whole time. Just she and I ... and that's a war story that I've always carried with me.
She was subsequently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton and, when she died in 1994, she requested to be buried at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in the military cemetary where she lies today (the only civilian to be so honored).
If you're looking for a real woman ... she was it !!!!