Prince - American Daredevil

W ith a polished walking stick and neatly pressed trousers, Richard Halliburton served as an intrepid globetrotting guide for millions of Americans in the 1920s and 30s. Readers waited with bated breath for each new article and book he wrote. During his career, Halliburton climbed the Matterhorn, nearly fell out of his plane while shooting the first aerial photographs of Mount Everest, and became the first person to swim the full length of the Panama Canal.

With his matinee idol looks, the Tennessee native was a media darling in an era of optimism and increased social openness. But as the Great Depression and looming war pushed America toward social conservatism, Halliburton more actively worked to hide his homosexuality, burnishing his image as a masculine trailblazer. No middle ground existed regarding Halliburtonhe was either adored or abhorred. Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald called the Princeton graduate a poseur, a symbol of nouveau riche depravity. But most found his daredevil persona irresistible.

As chronicled in American Daredevil, Halliburton harnessed the media of his day to gain and maintain a widespread following long before our age of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, and thus became the first adventure journalist. And during the darkest hours of the Great Depression, Halliburton did something remarkable: he inspired generations of authors, journalists, and everyday people who dreamed of fame and glory to explore the world.

Copyright 2016 by Cathryn J. Prince

All rights reserved

Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-61373-159-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Prince, Cathryn J., 1969- author.

Title: The extraordinary life of Richard Halliburton, the worlds first celebrity travel writer / Cathryn J. Prince.

Description: Chicago, Illinois : American Daredevil, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016006134 (print) | LCCN 2016012295 (ebook) | ISBN 9781613731598 | ISBN 9781613731611 (PDF edition) | ISBN 9781613731628 (EPUB edition) | ISBN 9781613731604 (Kindle edition)

Subjects: LCSH: Halliburton, Richard, 1900-1939. | Travel writersUnited StatesBiography. | TravelersUnited StatesBiography. | Voyages and travels.

Classification: LCC G226.H3 P75 2016 (print) | LCC G226.H3 (ebook) | DDC 910.4092dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016006134

Interior design: Nord Compo

Map design: Chris Erichsen

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

F OR P IERRE AND N ATHAN AND Z O

T HE FAIR-HAIRED YOUNG MAN shivered against the cold, despite wearing three sweaters and two pairs of pants. The sky, no longer ashen, stretched a deep blue above the North Sea. The explosion of icy sprays that had drenched the deck of the steel cargo boat for the better part of the transatlantic crossing had finally stopped. Our portholes are fifteen feet above the water, yet only for the last two days they have been open, as the waves have smacked against them unceasingly, wrote twenty-one-year-old Richard Halliburton from aboard the Ipswich in July 1921.

The smell of grease and grime seeped through the Ipswich. It permeated everyones clothes with a mechanical stench. Halliburton didnt mind; there was no place he would rather be. Standing watch on the bridge, he hoped to be the first to sight land.

Thousands of miles away in Memphis, Tennessee, in Halliburtons boyhood room, stacks of geography and adventure books filled the bookcases. For years, the stories like those recounted in his well-thumbed Stories of Adventure transported him far from Tennessee. He had tilted at windmills alongside Don Quixote and slain dragons alongside St. George. With his light blue bound geography book as his magic carpet, he had virtually visited every country in Europe and most in Asia.

Reading about author Harry Francks 1913 adventures as a Panama Canal Zone policeman thrilled him, but it also sparked a competitive streak. Halliburton vowed he wouldnt just visit the canal someday, he would swim its length. Reading about Mount Fuji, he swore to scale its peak. Now he stood not just on the bridge of the Ipswich but also on the verge of living his dreams. He felt an obligation to his own curiosity, and travel was how he could fulfill that.

Meanwhile, his parents, Wesley and Nelle, waited anxiously for word from their son. Their unease weighed on Richard, and ever mindful of their apprehension, he continued to write home often. On the ship, he clambered down the metal stairs to his cabin and settled his lanky frame on his bunk. He meticulously chronicled everything he experienced, smelled, and saw. He wrote home about his impressions of people and places, and confided his angst and excitement. Halliburton stuffed the unfinished letter into his canvas knapsack, which held maps, a compass, a few changes of clothing, paper, and pens. He would post the letter as soon as the ship reached its port of call in Hamburg, Germany. He liked picturing his parents sitting in their living room and slicing open another one of his envelopes.

On July 19, 1898, Wesley Halliburton, twenty-eight, took Nelle Nance, twenty-nine, as his wife in a small ceremony at the Methodist Church in Brownsville, Tennessee, just fifty miles north of Memphis. They would enjoy fifty-three years of marriage. However, by Wesleys account, he wasnt desperately in love with Nelle when he walked her down the aisle. They balanced each other and grew to depend on one another. Time burnished their feelings to a deep admiration and love.

Two years later, on January 9, 1900, Richard Halliburton was born in an old redbrick house. When Richard was still an infant, his parents moved to Memphis, a segregated city, where cotton was king and juke joints lined Beale Street. Wesley hoped to make money buying and selling land in east Arkansas, but the land didnt sell. Then, just when Wesley and Nelle decided to pack it in and move back to Brownsville, some timber on the property sold. It was a fine reversal of fortune.still juts forth, aged to a mint-green patina, and large floor-to-ceiling windows line the first floor. Just steps from leafy Overton Park, the building perfectly suited the young couple with baby in tow.

Intellectually curious, the couple adored traveling and infused their son with a quest for knowledge. They were an upper middle-class couple, both coming from solid families. Wesley Halliburton Sr. was of Scottish ancestry. The name Halliburton traced to an ancestor named Burton who built a chapel for his village in Scotland, and thereafter became known as Holy Burton, which eventually evolved into Halliburton. An avid outdoorsman, Wesley had a penchant for hiking. In 1891 he graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in civil engineering.

French Huguenot and Scottish blood ran through Nelle Nance. She had graduated from the Cincinnati College of Music and taught music at a womens college in Memphis. Always active in her community, be it sitting on a committee or chaperoning a clutch of girls to a symphony or a trip to Europe, Nelle served as the Memphis chapters president of the Nineteenth Century Club, a philanthropic and cultural womens club. Many notable people passed through the double doors of this classic redbrick building with fluted columns. A gracious lady, as Halliburtons friends described her, Nelle appreciated social standing and the importance of connecting with people, traits her son would share. Wesley Halliburton, too, displayed the stuff of which his illustrious son was made, his own curiosity about the world that was reflected in his oldest son.