Scott Glenn wears an Omega Speedmaster

Alan Shepard was competitive about everything. He was competitive about golf, about jet speeds, about who would be first into space, and he won all three. Scott Glenn plays him in Philip Kaufman's 1983 adaptation of Tom Wolfe's book about the Mercury Seven, and Glenn gets Shepard's coiled intensity right: the grin that isn't quite friendly, the charm that has an edge to it.

The watch appears to be an Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch on a steel bracelet. The real Shepard apparently flew Freedom 7 in 1961 without a wristwatch at all. The Breitling Navitimer that belongs in this story is a different astronaut's: Scott Carpenter carried a custom 24-hour Navitimer Cosmonaute on Aurora 7 in 1962, the first Swiss watch worn in space. NASA hadn't yet standardized a watch for the Mercury program. That wouldn't come until 1965, when the Omega Speedmaster survived every test they threw at it and became official flight equipment. The props department for a 1983 film about astronauts would have known the Speedmaster's significance, making it a natural choice regardless of strict historical accuracy.

Glenn was a character actor who worked steadily for fifty years without ever becoming a household name, exactly the unflashy, reliable presence the role of Shepard needed. He plays the first American in space not as a monument but as a working pilot who happens to be the best in the room and knows it.