By all accounts Amelia Earhart (pictured at right) – who would be turning 112 today if she hadn’t disappeared during a trip across the Pacific in 1937 – was a pretty cool lady. All wit, energy and daring, she’s become an incredibly desirable catch for any major actress, with her combination of vintage cool and proto-feminist gusto.

Appropriately, some of the best and brightest of their respective star systems have stepped into peppy Kansas native’s flight goggles. Today, we pay tribute to both Earhart and the women who’ve portrayed her larger than life ambitions and charisma on screen with this listicle of 6 Actresses Who Played Amelia Earhart.

Hilary Swank in Amelia (2009)

For what aims to be the definitive Earhart biopic (coming in the Fall), Swank seems a pretty obvious pick. And, from the looks of the only official picture released so far, she seems to be inhabiting the role nicely. We’re actually pretty excited about this film, especially with director Mira Nair (The Namesake, Monsoon Wedding) at the helm.

Amy Adams in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)

Adams was the bright spark of life in this otherwise annoying and unfunny sequel. She brought a commanding charisma and the threat of sexual aggression to a franchise that wants so stubbornly to stay trapped in boyish quirkiness.

Jane Lynch in The Aviator (2004)

This is an odd case, because even though Lynch (whom you’ve seen and heard in just about every other movie or TV show recently) was cast as Earhart, her scenes never appeared in the final cut of Scorsese’s Howard Hughes period epic. We’re not clear if they were shot then cut, or simply excised from a draft and never even filmed. (Perhaps a commenter with the special edition DVD can clear this up for us?)

Sharon Lawrence in “The 37’s” episode of Star Trek Voyager (1995)

In this first episode from the second season of Voyager, the crew discover that a bunch of famous people who disappeared in the 30s were actually kidnapped by aliens, which affords an appearance by Earhart and her co-pilot from that fateful final journey, Fred Noonan.

Diane Keaton in Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (1994)

Keaton stepped into the title role for this recounting of that fateful final trip across the Pacific, though we’re told this TV movie held off on many of the rumors of romance between Earhart and Noonan that other versions of the story peddled.

Rosalind Russell as fictionalized Earhart named Tonie Carter in Flight for Freedom (1943)

Though her character wasn’t named Earhart, this war-time propaganda movie was based pretty much exactly on the aviator’s life. In addition to a rivalry-romance with a chauvinist male pilot (Fred MacMurray, above), this fictionalized account also has her disappearance being orchestrated by the Navy as part of some secret mission.