Richard Halliburton

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Richard Halliburton
Image:Halliburton.jpg Richard Halliburton
Born	January 9 1900(1900-01-09) Brownsville, Tennessee, USA
Died	March 24 1939 (aged 39) Pacific Ocean
Occupation	Travel writer, journalist, lecturer
Nationality	American
Writing period	1925 - 1938
Subjects	Travel literature, Adventure, Exploration
Debut works	The Royal Road to Romance

Richard Halliburton (9 January 1900 – presumed dead after 24 March 1939) was an American traveler, adventurer, and author. His final adventure was an attempt to pilot a traditional Chinese sailing ship eastward across the Pacific Ocean; the Sea Dragon radioed mid-way that it was laboring in a typhoon, and it and its crew were not heard from again.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Travel as an unconventional career 3 Lecturer and pioneer of adventure journalism 4 Personal life 5 Around the world flying expedition 6 Final expedition and disappearance 7 Publications 8 Private writing 9 Importance and legacy 10 Works 11 Notes and references 12 Further reading

[edit] Early life and education

Halliburton was born in Brownsville, Tennessee to Wesley and Nelle Halliburton,^[1] who soon moved their family to Memphis, where he grew up. His favorite subject as a schoolboy was geography.^[2] He attended Memphis University School for Boys and the Hutchison School, which was run by a close family friend, Mary G. Hutchison. He graduated from Lawrenceville School, a New Jersey prep school, where he was chief editor of The Lawrence. He graduated from Princeton University, where he was on the editorial board of The Daily Princetonian, and chief editor of The Princetonian Pictorial Magazine. Typical of his personality, he threw himself into all these jobs, undertaking them with enthusiasm and dedication.

[edit] Travel as an unconventional career

Temporarily abandoning college in 1919, he worked his passage across the Atlantic, walked around England and France, then returned to graduate from Princeton. These first adventures helped confirm his desire for travel, and his rejection of conventional careers. He found he did not fit into a structured life, craving spontaneity and adventure. He intended to earn his living from writing about his experiences. Tongue in cheek, he dedicated his first book to his Princeton roommmates, "whose sanity, consistency and respectability … drove [him] to this book".

Although he was not of athletic build, one of his adventures was to swim the length of the Panama Canal. Only ships could navigate the Canal, so registering as the S.S. Halliburton, he paid the lowest toll in history, at 36 cents—based on his length and weight—to swim through its locks, Atlantic to Pacific.

A paragraph in a letter to his father captures his worldview. Wesley had written him about getting wanderlust out of his system so he could return to Memphis and assume "an even tenor" in life. His son responded:

"I hate that expression and as far as I am able I intend to avoid that condition. When impulse and spontaneity fail to make my way uneven then I shall sit up nights inventing means of making my life as conglomerate and vivid as possible…. And when my time comes to die, I’ll be able to die happy, for I will have done and seen and heard and experienced all the joy, pain and thrills—any emotion that any human ever had—and I’ll be especially happy if I am spared a stupid, common death in bed…"^[3]

He did indeed die—or more properly, go missing—in the middle of a tough physical challenge, becoming a "lost hero [...] like George Mallory on Everest in 1924 and Amelia Earhart over the Pacific in 1935".^[2]

[edit] Lecturer and pioneer of adventure journalism

While Halliburton was at Princeton, Field and Stream magazine bought an article of his for $150, which encouraged him to lead an unpractical life of travelling and working through paid correspondence. Upon returning from travel through remote countries, he tried to get publishers interested in his first manuscript, with little success. Through the Feakins Agency, he then contracted for a lecture tour, which turned his fortunes around. On the strength of his lecturing and his appeal as a celebrity, Bobbs-Merrill published his first book, The Royal Road to Romance (1925), which became one of many best-sellers for Halliburton. His rather high-pitched voice and occasional nervousness were offset by his enthusiasm and the vividness of his narrative, making him one of the most successful lecturers of the period between the two World Wars.

It was as a lecturer that Halliburton may have had his greatest influence,^{[citation needed]} because his narrative re-enactments of his adventures helped to popularize a calling that developed into adventure journalism.

[edit] Personal life

Halliburton never married. In his youth he courted girls and was seriously infatuated with at least two, as revealed by his letters to them. As he matured, he became bisexual, as observed by at least one traveling companion. Halliburton kept his sexual orientation secret from his public and his parents, who longed for grandchildren. His correspondence and his relations clearly offer this view of his orientation.^[4] He was a friend, and may have been a lover, of one of the first openly gay film stars, Ramon Novarro.^[5] A biographer of Novarro asserts that Halliburton chose Paul Mooney as crew for his fatal final voyage because the pair were lovers.^[6]

Halliburton commissioned a modernist house from William Alexander Levy, a 27 year old architect. Levy was lovers with Paul Mooney, Halliburton's editor and ghostwriter, and the house was built with three bedrooms, one for each of the men. The concrete box house, suspended between canyon and ocean in Laguna Beach, California, was soon dubbed "Hangover House". It was used under the name of the Heller House by Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead (1943).^[7]

[edit] Around the world flying expedition

In 1931 Halliburton hired Moye Stephens on the strength of a handshake—for no pay, but unlimited expenses^[8]—to fly him around the world in an open cockpit biplane. The modified Stearman C-3B was named the Flying Carpet after the magic carpet of fairy tales, and this became the title of his 1932 best-seller. They embarked on "one of the most fantastic, extended air journeys ever recorded"^[8] taking 18 months to circumnavigate the globe, covering 33,660 miles, and visiting 34 countries.

They took off on Christmas Day 1930 from Los Angeles for New York. There they crated the airplane and took ship for England, where the extended flight began. First they flew to France, then to Spain, the British outpost of Gibraltar, and on into Africa at Fez, Morocco (where Stephens performed aerobatics for the first air meet). They crossed the Atlas mountains and set out across the Sahara to Timbuktu, getting special permission to use fuel caches of the Standard Oil Company.^[8] They flew there and back successfully, and journeyed eastward, spending several weeks in Algeria with the French Foreign Legion, and continuing via Cairo and Damascus, with a side trip to Petra.

In Persia (now Iran), they met the celebrated German aviatrix Elly Beinhorn, whose plane had been forced down because of mechanical failure. They were able to assist her and fly with her. Crown Princess Mahin Banu climbed into the front cockpit for a ride. In neighbouring Iraq, that seat was briefly occupied by the young Crown Prince Ghazi, who they flew over his school yard.

Progressing through many counties in Asia, Halliburton made a point of revisiting the Taj Mahal in India. Among the highlights of the trip was the first aerial photograph of Mount Everest. They performed aerobatics for the Maharajah of Nepal. In Borneo, they were feted by Sylvia Brett, wife of the White Rajah of Sarawak. They gave her a ride, making Ranee Sylvia the first woman to fly in that country. At the Rajang River, they took the chief of the Dyak head hunters for a flight; he gave them 60 kilos of shrunken heads, which they dared not refuse but dumped as soon as possible.^[8] They were the first Americans to fly to the Philippines; in Manila the plane was again loaded onto a ship to cross the ocean. They flew the final leg from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Halliburton, for all his risk-taking, was careful to choose an excellent pilot, whose skill he praised in a letter to his parents (23 January 1932). Once, in the course of an aerobatic display, Stephens aborted a slow roll, having suddenly realised that Halliburton had not fastened his seat belt.^[8] Stephens later became chief test pilot of the Northrop Flying Wing, which evolved into today's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.

The trip cost Halliburton over $50,000, plus fuel; in the first year, the book earned him royalties of $100,000.^[8]

[edit] Final expedition and disappearance

On March 3, 1939, Halliburton began a new journey. With skipper John Welch, engineer Henry Von Fehren, and a crew including young Dartmouth men John Potter and Gordon Torrey, he sailed on the Sea Dragon from Hong Kong, intending to make landfall at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco.^[9]

The Sea Dragon venture was troubled from the start. Construction of the purpose-built Chinese junk was marked by cost over-runs and engineering mistakes. The boat was halfway across the Pacific Ocean when a typhoon struck unexpectedly on March 24. The junk was last sighted by the liner SS President Coolidge, itself battling mountainous seas some 1900 km west of Midway Island. The US liner received a cheerful radio message from the junk skipper minutes later, "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here instead of me." The next message was different: "Southerly gale. Heavy Rain Squalls. High sea. Barometer 29.46. True course 100. Speed 5.5 knots. Position 1200 GCT 31.10 north 155.00 east. All well. When closer may we avail ourselves of your direction finder. Regards Welch." That was the last message anyone heard from the junk. After an extensive US Navy search with several ships and scout planes over thousands of square miles and many days, the effort was called off. In 1945, some wreckage identified as a rudder and believed to belong to the Sea Dragon washed ashore in California.^[9]

Missing at sea since March, Halliburton was declared officially dead October 5, 1939 by the Memphis Chancery Court.

[edit] Publications

While many of Halliburton's stories are self-mocking in that they recount his own irresponsibility, those who knew him recalled him as generous, thoughtful, and modest about his own accomplishments as a successful writer and lecturer, which he achieved through hard work and determination.^{[citation needed]} He styled his impetuosity as a kind of romantic readiness.

His books reflect the times. Colonialism and the "white man's burden" were ending, but he did not question the implicit sense of racial superiority. Consequently, his books provide documentation for attitudes which today would almost universally be condemned as racist. For example, he purchased a slave child in Africa. His writings were determinedly apolitical; he visited Nicaragua when that country was occupied by U.S. troops, but avoided commenting on any aspects of that situation.

His books, which have been re-issued since 2000, continue to be of interest for their romantic accounts of his wide-ranging escapades. Some of these were strenuous athletic feats: a tough climb up the Matterhorn, which he claims was he first real mountain he had tackled; the first documented winter ascent of Mount Fuji; swimming the length of the Panama Canal; swimming across the Hellespont as his hero Lord Byron had done. Some adventures came from getting into trouble with the authorities, or trying to avoid being caught: being arrested for taking photos of the guns at Gibraltar; attempting to enter Mecca, which is forbidden to non-Muslims; hiding in the grounds of the Taj Mahal in order to experience the sunset in solitude and swim in a pool by moonlight. Halliburton dived into the Sacred Cenote of Chichen Itza.

As his reputation grew, he was able to meet the last emperor of China, dine with Haile Selassie, and interview the executioner of the Russian royal family. Later in his career when he was able to raise more finance, he undertook adventures which needed some capital: riding an elephant over the Alps in imitation of Hannibal, flying round the world in a chartered biplane, commissioning the construction of a boat to cross the Pacific.

[edit] Private writing

Halliburton exhibited a fascination with English writer Rupert Brooke, a golden boy who led a romantic and adventurous life, mainly known for his poetry but also for his travel writing. Halliburton corresponded about Brooke with prominent British literary and salon figures, including Lady Violet Asquith Bonham-Carter, Walter de la Mare, Cathleen Nesbitt, Noel Olivier, Alec Waugh, and Virginia Woolf.^[10]

Halliburton wrote over a thousand letters to his parents, some of which were issued in a posthumous collection.^[2]

[edit] Importance and legacy

James O'Reilly, the publisher who decided to reissue Halliburton's first book in the centenary of his birth, characterised his life and work thus: "From the Jazz Age through the Great Depression to the eve of World War II, he thrilled an entire generation of readers." He was "clever, resourceful, undaunted, cheerful in the face of dreadful odds, ever-optimistic about the world and the people around him, always scheming about his next adventure."^[2]

The publisher's note in the posthumous collection of Halliburton's letters to his parents comments that "his manhood spanned the brief interval between the two World Wars" and claims him as a "spokesman for the youth of a generation."^[11]

In his Second Book of Marvels, Halliburton stated, "Astronomers say that the Great Wall is the only man-made thing on our planet visible to the human eye from the moon." Although untrue, this statement was a possible source for the urban legend that the Great Wall of China could be seen from space.^[12] (See Great wall#Visibility from space.)

His papers are collected in the Richard Halliburton Papers at Princeton University Library^[13] and the Richard Halliburton Collection at Paul Barret, Jr. Library at Rhodes College.^[14]

Halliburton's father donated $400,000 to build a bell tower in his honor at what is now Rhodes College in Memphis. The Richard Halliburton Memorial Tower was dedicated in 1962.

Ted Wells considers the building Halliburton commissioned to be one of the "best modern houses in the United States".^[15]

[edit] Works

• The Royal Road to Romance (1925)
  • Covering the Matterhorn, Andorra, the Alhambra, Seville, Gibraltar, Monte Carlo, the Nile, Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, the Khyber Pass, Angkor, Bangkok, Japan and the ascent of Fujiyama.
• The Glorious Adventure (1927)
  • Following the path of Ulysses around the Mediterranean Sea.
• New Worlds to Conquer (1929)
  • Covering Central and South America, including the Panama Canal, the Mayan Well of Death, and Devil's Island.
• The Flying Carpet (1932)
  • See above.
• India Speaks with Richard Halliburton, Grosset & Dunlap-Publishers, New York, 1933
  • "Richard Halliburton, who in the photoplay India Speaks, plays the part of a young American traveling in India and Tibet in search of adventure. The photographs that follow are stills selected from the film taken by several different cameramen sent to Asia for the purpose-film which supplies the authentic background for the photoplay."^[16]
• Seven League Boots (1935)
  • Covering Ethiopia, Russia, Arabia, the Alps.
• Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels: the Occident (1937)
• Richard Halliburton's Second Book of Marvels: the Orient (1938)
• Richard Halliburton: His Story of His Life's Adventure, as Told in Letters to His Mother and Father (1940)

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] Further reading

• Max, Gerry. Horizon Chasers: The Lives and Adventures of Richard Halliburton and Paul Mooney. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2007
• Gilliam, Ron, "Richard Halliburton and Moye Stephens: Traveling Around the World in the Flying Carpet", Aviation History (date unclear)
• Schwartz, David M. "On the Royal Road to Adventures with 'Daring Dick.'" Smithsonian Magazine 19.12 (March 1, 1989):159-160, 162-164, 166, 168, 170, 172, 174-178.
• Townsend, Guy, "Richard Halliburton: The Forgotten Myth", Memphis Magazine, originally published August 1977, reprinted April 2001.
• Fair-Haired Carpeteer, a 1932 Time magazine review of The Flying Carpet
• Forthcoming: Winston Wilde, Haworth Press, volume on "Queer Bonding."fr:Richard Halliburton