Richard Halliburton Totally Explained

Richard Halliburton (7 January 1900– presumed dead 23 March 1939) was an American explorer, athlete, and author. He disappeared during a typhoon (along with his ship and crew) while attempting to pilot a junk eastward across the Pacific Ocean.

Life

Halliburton was born in Brownsville, Tennessee to Wesley and Nelle Halliburton and raised in Memphis. He attended the all-boys college preparatory school Memphis University School. He went to Princeton University and graduated; but he wasn't a model student and soon found he didn't fit into a structured life, instead desiring spontaneity and adventure. He is recorded as paying the lowest toll in history, at 36 cents, when he swam the Panama Canal.

"I hate that expression and as far as I'm able I intend to avoid that condition. When impulse and spontaneity fail to make my way uneven then I'll 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'll 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'm spared a stupid, common death in bed . . . ."

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. He had marginal success as a writer at first, and tried talking about his travels on the public speaking circuit. He considered himself a poor public speaker but was still the lecture circuit's biggest draw.
He never married: it wasn't commonly known when he was alive, but he was gay or bisexual. He didn't disclose his orientation in his writings, but his correspondence has been interpreted that way. He was also a lover of the film star Ramon Novarro.
On March 3, 1939, Halliburton began a new journey in which he attempted to pilot a junk eastward across the Pacific. He departed from Hong Kong aboard a custom-built Chinese junk, named Sea Dragon, intending to sail to San Francisco in time for the Golden Gate International Exposition. On March 24, a typhoon struck unexpectedly and Halliburton, his ship, and crew, failed to return (despite an extensive search, no trace was ever found). The ship was last sighted by the liner SS President Coolidge, battling mountainous seas some 1900 km west of Midway Island. The US liner received a cheerful radio message from the vessel minutes later, "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here instead of me." That was the last message anyone had heard from the junk. In 1945, some wreckage was washed ashore on a Pacific beach in California. It was generally believed to be the wreckage of the Sea Dragon. After his death, his family donated money to build a bell tower in his honor at what is now Rhodes College in Memphis. Richard Halliburton Memorial Tower was dedicated in 1962.

Writings

While many of Halliburton's stories recount his own irresponsibility and document attitudes which today would almost universally be condemned as racist, his books continue to be of great interest for their romantic accounts of escapades ranging from making the first documented winter ascent of Mount Fuji to being the first and only person to swim the length of the Panama Canal in August 1928, registering as a ship and paying a toll of 36 cents, based on his weight of 140 pounds. Halliburton also dived into the cenote of Chichen Itza.
In his Second Book of Marvels, he 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 possibly source for the urban legend that the Great Wall of China could be seen from space. (External Link

) He also personally met the last emperor of China.
In The Royal Road to Romance, he recounted being arrested for taking photos of the guns at Gibraltar. Enamored of seeing a sunset from the Taj Mahal, he hid himself on the grounds and swam in a pool by moonlight.

Lectures

As an adventure journalist, Halliburton was able to also lecture and collect appearance fees related to his status as a celebrity. He was one of the foremost figures on the lecture circuit during the period between the two World Wars.

Works

The Royal Road to Romance (1925)
The Glorious Adventure (1927)
New Worlds to Conquer (1929)
The Flying Carpet (1932)
Seven League Boots (1935)
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)

Notes and references

Townsend, Guy. Richard Halliburton: The Forgotten Myth

. Retrieved April 25, 2005.

Halliburton Tower Turns 40

. Retrieved May 27, 2006.

(External Link

), Retrieved Dec 31, 2006

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