Pancho Barnes' Wildly Unusual Life, Her Battle With US Air Force, & Richard Halliburton

(Not to mention that she knew John Wayne, General Jimmy Doolittle, Test Pilot Chuck Yeager, Aimee Semple McPherson, and many movie stars.Read on.)

The man who would pilot Richard’s biplane on their round-the-world flight, Moye Stephens brought Richard to Pancho Barnes' San Marino mansion. Stephens knew Pancho as a fellow pilot.

In a Sunday, November 20, 1932 letter from Hollywood, Richard wrote his parents that on Saturday afternoon he went to visit Pancho Barnes, “the woman flyer I’m so fond of, and she took me to Ramon Novarro’s, a lot of drunk movie people were there, so we left early.” Such a good boy, he. The line was clearly for mom and dad.

Stephens was about to marry an Italian contessa. Richard added that on December 4th he would be taking her to Moye’s wedding, although he would miss it, “an especially fine one.”

Richard had already met Hollywood’s Roman Novarro, who became another romantic interest in his life.

Richard Halliburton, Pancho Barnes and John Wayne

In his life Richard met many unusual people but maybe the most remarkable was Pancho Barnes and she is worthy of note because of her personality and character.  She had two precepts in life: When you have a choice, choose happy, and Nothing exceeds like excess.  She lived on her own terms and cussed like a test pilot. Unable to get a divorce from her minister husband, each Sunday she climbed into her plane, took off, and dove down over his church, buzzing it with the engine’s roar drowning-out morning services.