Paul Mooney (writer)
Encyclopedia
Paul Mooney was a freelance journalist and photo-journalist today best known for his collaborative work with adventurer and travel writer Richard Halliburton
.
, and James Mooney
, an ethnologist for the Smithsonian Institution
and an expert on American Indian lore such as the Ghost Dance
.
Mooney, armed with a natural gift for astute observation and expository writing, set forth on a life of adventure in 1923 or 1924 by boarding a freighter bound for Salonika and Constantinople
. The Ottoman Empire
had recently collapsed and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
was emerging as the leader of the secular Republic of Turkey. Returning to the United States, Mooney considered school at Catholic University
before seeking his fortune in New York City where he wrote advertising copy for a travel agency. In 1927 he lived briefly in Paris; he also sojourned, within this period abroad, in a community in Brittany.
Attractive, fun-loving and personally engaging, Mooney, though aloof by nature and often temperamental, made friends easily; these included, besides the artists Leslie Powell and Don Forbes, writer and raconteur Eugene MacCown (who, besides a famous portrait of shipping heiress Nancy Cunard
, painted a portrait of Paul), and possibly writer René Crevel
. Like his father an ardent Irish patriot
, he sought out writer James Joyce
and others of the expatriate Irish community living in Paris. Returning to New York, he published in 1927 Seven Poems, verses which, according to his biographer Gerry Max, "speak of adventure, unrequited love, triumphant love, carnal love, death and burial."
promoters and fliers, he mingled with oilman Erle Halliburton, actor Ramon Novarro
, aviator Moye W. Stephens
, and aviatrix Florence "Pancho" Barnes
. Also befriending him was Harry Hay
, later a gay activist, with whom he argued politics and human rights issues.
About 1930, Mooney met travel writer Richard Halliburton
, author of the best-selling The Royal Road to Romance (1925), The Glorious Adventure (1927) and New Worlds To Conquer (1929). The last, and most gifted, in a line of secretaries Halliburton had taken on over his career, Mooney most notably assisted him in preparing for publication The Flying Carpet (1932), Seven League Boots (1935) - these among the last great road narratives of the classic travel book
era, and the two Books of Marvels, arguably the two most influential young adult travel books ever written (The Occident [1937]; The Orient [1938]). Independently, Mooney assisted ex-Nazi Kurt Ludecke
in writing the 833-page I Knew Hitler (1937), an early study of the Fuehrer
and "a masterpiece of political self-vindication".
In 1937, when Halliburton decided to settle down in Laguna Beach, California, Mooney suggested to him that he contract William Alexander Levy
, a recent graduate of the New York University
School of Architecture, to design and build a house for him. Called Hangover House
because it stood on a ridge some six hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean and precipitously overlooked Aliso Canyon, Mooney managed its construction. Of concrete and steel, the innovative house included such features as a dumbwaiter
, heatilator, and a bastion
-like retaining wall
. Today architectural historians
consider it among the early masterpieces of modern residential housing design in Southern California
.
in San Francisco. Written with Halliburton (who alone signed them) and sent to subscribers who helped, among others, to finance the Sea Dragon Expedition, The Letters From The Sea Dragon, of which four of a projected seven exist, offer eye-witness reports of the expanding Japanese presence in the Pacific. Mooney, with his journalistic skills, may also have assisted Halliburton in preparing for the San Francisco News and the Bell Syndicate the more generally circulated articles, a projected fifteen in number, which were called collectively The Log of the Sea Dragon.
The Sea Dragon sailed eastward in early 1939. Nine hundred miles southeast of Yokohama
, on March 23, 1939, the ship headed into a typhoon. Neither the ship nor its crew was ever seen again.
Richard Halliburton
Richard Halliburton was an American traveler, adventurer, and author. Best known today for having swum the length of the Panama Canal and paying the lowest toll in its history—thirty-six cents—Halliburton was headline news for most of his brief career...
.
Early life
Born in Washington, D. C., on November 4, 1904, Mooney was the son of Ione Lee Gaut Mooney (died 1955), an important figure in the Daughters of the American RevolutionDaughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership organization for women who are descended from a person involved in United States' independence....
, and James Mooney
James Mooney
James Mooney was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. He did major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as those on the Great Plains...
, an ethnologist for the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
and an expert on American Indian lore such as the Ghost Dance
Ghost Dance
The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement which was incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times...
.
Mooney, armed with a natural gift for astute observation and expository writing, set forth on a life of adventure in 1923 or 1924 by boarding a freighter bound for Salonika and Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. The Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
had recently collapsed and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....
was emerging as the leader of the secular Republic of Turkey. Returning to the United States, Mooney considered school at Catholic University
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
before seeking his fortune in New York City where he wrote advertising copy for a travel agency. In 1927 he lived briefly in Paris; he also sojourned, within this period abroad, in a community in Brittany.
Attractive, fun-loving and personally engaging, Mooney, though aloof by nature and often temperamental, made friends easily; these included, besides the artists Leslie Powell and Don Forbes, writer and raconteur Eugene MacCown (who, besides a famous portrait of shipping heiress Nancy Cunard
Nancy Cunard
Nancy Clara Cunard was a writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class but strongly rejected her family's values, devoting much of her life to fighting racism and fascism...
, painted a portrait of Paul), and possibly writer René Crevel
René Crevel
René Crevel was a French writer involved with the surrealist movement.-Life:Crevel was born in Paris to a family of Parisian bourgeoisie. He had a traumatic religious upbringing. At the age of fourteen, during a difficult stage of his life, his father committed suicide by hanging himself. Crevel...
. Like his father an ardent Irish patriot
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
, he sought out writer James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and others of the expatriate Irish community living in Paris. Returning to New York, he published in 1927 Seven Poems, verses which, according to his biographer Gerry Max, "speak of adventure, unrequited love, triumphant love, carnal love, death and burial."
Life in Los Angeles
About 1929, Mooney established himself in the Los Angeles area. Soon to become a fixture among the new wave of aviationAviation history
The history of aviation has extended over more than two thousand years from the earliest attempts in kites and gliders to powered heavier-than-air, supersonic and hypersonic flight.The first form of man-made flying objects were kites...
promoters and fliers, he mingled with oilman Erle Halliburton, actor Ramon Novarro
Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro was a Mexican leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "Sex Symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino...
, aviator Moye W. Stephens
Moye W. Stephens
Moye Wicks Stephens was an American aviator and businessman. He was a pioneer in aviation, circumnavigating the globe with adventure writer Richard Halliburton in 1931, and co-founding Northrop Aircraft, Inc.-Family:...
, and aviatrix Florence "Pancho" Barnes
Pancho Barnes
Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes was a pioneer aviator, the founder of the first test pilots union and the owner of the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a bar and restaurant. She broke Amelia Earhart's air speed record in 1930...
. Also befriending him was Harry Hay
Harry Hay
Henry "Harry" Hay, Jr. was a labor advocate, teacher and early leader in the American LGBT rights movement. He is known for his roles in helping to found several gay organizations, including the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States.Hay was exposed early in...
, later a gay activist, with whom he argued politics and human rights issues.
About 1930, Mooney met travel writer Richard Halliburton
Richard Halliburton
Richard Halliburton was an American traveler, adventurer, and author. Best known today for having swum the length of the Panama Canal and paying the lowest toll in its history—thirty-six cents—Halliburton was headline news for most of his brief career...
, author of the best-selling The Royal Road to Romance (1925), The Glorious Adventure (1927) and New Worlds To Conquer (1929). The last, and most gifted, in a line of secretaries Halliburton had taken on over his career, Mooney most notably assisted him in preparing for publication The Flying Carpet (1932), Seven League Boots (1935) - these among the last great road narratives of the classic travel book
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
era, and the two Books of Marvels, arguably the two most influential young adult travel books ever written (The Occident [1937]; The Orient [1938]). Independently, Mooney assisted ex-Nazi Kurt Ludecke
Kurt Ludecke
Kurt Ludecke was an ardent German nationalist, a playboy and international traveler who joined the Nazi party in the early 1920s and who used his social connections to raise money for the NSDAP...
in writing the 833-page I Knew Hitler (1937), an early study of the Fuehrer
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and "a masterpiece of political self-vindication".
In 1937, when Halliburton decided to settle down in Laguna Beach, California, Mooney suggested to him that he contract William Alexander Levy
William Alexander Levy
William Alexander Levy , later William Alexander, was an American architect and interior designer.Early in his career, he was influenced by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. At New York University's new School of Architecture, he studied under Raymond Bossange and Ely Jacques Kahn...
, a recent graduate of the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
School of Architecture, to design and build a house for him. Called Hangover House
Hangover House
Hangover House was designed and built by William Alexander for his friend the travel writer Richard Halliburton...
because it stood on a ridge some six hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean and precipitously overlooked Aliso Canyon, Mooney managed its construction. Of concrete and steel, the innovative house included such features as a dumbwaiter
Dumbwaiter (elevator)
Dumbwaiters are small freight elevators intended to carry objects rather than people. Dumbwaiters found within modern structures, including both commercial and private buildings, are often connected between two floors...
, heatilator, and a bastion
Bastion
A bastion, or a bulwark, is a structure projecting outward from the main enclosure of a fortification, situated in both corners of a straight wall , facilitating active defence against assaulting troops...
-like retaining wall
Retaining wall
Retaining walls are built in order to hold back earth which would otherwise move downwards. Their purpose is to stabilize slopes and provide useful areas at different elevations, e.g...
. Today architectural historians
History of architecture
The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates.-Neolithic architecture:Neolithic architecture is the architecture of the Neolithic period...
consider it among the early masterpieces of modern residential housing design in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
.
Sea Dragon Expedition
In 1938, Mooney, as his mimeograph operator, accompanied Halliburton to China on his final expedition: they planned to sail a Wenchow-styled Chinese junk, christened the Sea Dragon, across the Pacific from Hong Kong to the Golden Gate International ExpositionGolden Gate International Exposition
The Golden Gate International Exposition , held at San Francisco, California's Treasure Island, was a World's Fair that celebrated, among other things, the city's two newly-built bridges. The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was dedicated in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge was dedicated in 1937...
in San Francisco. Written with Halliburton (who alone signed them) and sent to subscribers who helped, among others, to finance the Sea Dragon Expedition, The Letters From The Sea Dragon, of which four of a projected seven exist, offer eye-witness reports of the expanding Japanese presence in the Pacific. Mooney, with his journalistic skills, may also have assisted Halliburton in preparing for the San Francisco News and the Bell Syndicate the more generally circulated articles, a projected fifteen in number, which were called collectively The Log of the Sea Dragon.
The Sea Dragon sailed eastward in early 1939. Nine hundred miles southeast of Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
, on March 23, 1939, the ship headed into a typhoon. Neither the ship nor its crew was ever seen again.