# Interesting but obscure biographical stories? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 1, 2017, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429 "2017-11-01T20:10:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/1 "2017-11-01T20:10:33Z")
I came across a reference to Lillian Alling this evening, a Russian immigrant to the USA who became homesick and decided to walk back to Russia: > **[Lillian Alling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Alling)** > > Lillian Alling (1896 – after 1929)\[citation needed\] was an Eastern European immigrant to the United States, who in the 1920s attempted a return by foot to her homeland. Her four-year-long journey started in New York, and went westward across Canada, then north through British Columbia, the Yukon, and then west again through Alaska. Whether she successfully crossed the Bering Strait to Russia is unknown. > Because her first appearance in official records was September 10, 1927, when she was arraign... While reading her article on wikpedia there was a link to the story of Carl McCunn, who went on a solitary expedition to the Alaskan wilderness and ended up comitting suicide: > **[Carl McCunn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_McCunn)** > > Carl McCunn (January 25, 1947 – December 18, 1981) was an American wildlife photographer who became stranded in the Alaskan wilderness and eventually died by suicide when he ran out of supplies. > McCunn was the son of Donovan McCunn and Erika Hess. He was born in Munich, Germany, where his father was stationed by the United States Army. He was raised in San Antonio, Texas, graduated from high school in 1964, and enlisted in the United States Navy shortly after dropping out of community college. M... I’m fairly well read and I had never heard of these people before, their wikipedia entries make for interesting reading and I was wondering if anyone had similar links to people otherwise forgotten to history. The story of the Lykov family was also eyebrow raising! > **[Lykov family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family)** > > The Lykov family (Russian: Лыков, romanized: Lykov) is a Russian family of Old Believers. The family of six spent 42 years in partial isolation from human society in an otherwise uninhabited upland of Abakan Range, in Tashtypsky District of Khakassia (southern Siberia). Since 1988, only one daughter, Agafia, survives. In a 2019 interview, Agafia explained how locals were in contact with the family through the years and in the 1950s there was a newspaper article about their family. > Their story... Thank you in advance 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/2 "2017-11-01T20:31:27Z")
> [@Atomic\_Alex](#): > > The story of the Lykov family was also eyebrow raising! > > [Lykov family - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family) Dang, they just wanted to be left alone and now they have a Wikipedia page about them. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/3 "2017-11-01T20:40:25Z")
Jazz musician [Billy Tipton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tipton) lived, and pursued a music career, for decades as a man, with few people, if any, realizing that he was born a woman. Those who had no idea of his birth gender included a number of female romantic partners. As noted on Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > For seven years, Tipton lived with Betty Cox, who was 19 when they became involved. Cox remembered Tipton as “the most fantastic love of my life.” Tipton kept the secret of his extrinsic sexual characteristics from Betty by inventing a story of having been in a serious car accident resulting in damaged genitals and broken ribs, and that it was necessary to bind the damaged chest to protect it. From then on, this was what he would tell the women in his life. His transgender identity was discovered only as he was dying, by paramedics who were trying to save his life. I’d only heard about Tipton because an actress friend of mine portrayed him in an episode of “[E! Mysteries & Scandals](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1184882/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_1)” in the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/4 "2017-11-01T20:51:53Z")
[Jack Parsons doesn’t get enough respect for someone who was practically a comic book character](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)), and I’m not just saying that because his birth name was Marvel and he was in the Suicide Squad. (Hell, he was an inter-company crossover.) He was deeply involved in early rocketry, to the point NASA’s JPL is sometimes referred to as Jack Parsons Lives or Jack Parson’s Lab, and was active in occult ritual magic along with L. Ron Hubbard. Going back to comics, he’s somewhere between Tony Stark and Dr. Strange and I’m sure a movie would have to tone him down even now. ---
**Author:** ![Encinitas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Encinitas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Encinitas)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/5 "2017-11-01T20:53:36Z")
The current NYT has an obituary for an obscure 87 year old woman who was world famous at the age of six when she was abducted. “Little June” Robles was missing for 19 days and was finally found in a underground “coffin-like” box, her body covered with prickly heat rash and ant bites, but otherwise in good condition. The kidnappers were never identified or caught. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/obituaries/june-robles-birt-whose-abduction-gripped-the-nation-is-dead-at-87.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb\_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=17&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F10%2F31%2Fobituaries%2Fjune-robles-birt-whose-abduction-gripped-the-nation-is-dead-at-87.html&eventName=Watching-article-click](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/obituaries/june-robles-birt-whose-abduction-gripped-the-nation-is-dead-at-87.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=17&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F10%2F31%2Fobituaries%2Fjune-robles-birt-whose-abduction-gripped-the-nation-is-dead-at-87.html&eventName=Watching-article-click) ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/6 "2017-11-01T21:19:23Z")
I first heard of Josephine Baker years ago. She was an extremely popular black exotic dancer who lived back in the 1920’s as well as one of the first successful black business women. There was a reference to her in the movie _The Triplets of Bellville_. And she was recently featured in a time travel TV series. > **[Josephine Baker](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker)** > > Freda Josephine Baker (née McDonald; June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975), naturalised as Joséphine Baker, was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant. > During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Berg... ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/7 "2017-11-01T21:53:16Z")
> [@Atomic\_Alex](#): > > The story of the Lykov family was also eyebrow raising! [Here](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/) is a good article about the Lykovs from a few years back. You want obscure, I can give you obscure. While doing some genealogical work, I ran across a story that I at least thought was interesting about the man who was the doctor in my grandmother’s community. He was a farmer living in a one-room house with his wife and three children when he decided to try to become a doctor, and ended up being the first licensed physician in South Carolina. (Brief bio starting on page 3 of [this PDF](http://www.andersoncounty.scgen.org/library/pdf-newsletters/2009/2009-Dec.pdf). Be sure to see the photo of him chomping a giant cigar on page 5.) Seems like he was an interesting character. I’d love to find a copy of [this book](http://www.worldcat.org/title/biographical-sketch-of-william-austin-tripp/oclc/951747730). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/8 "2017-11-01T22:16:47Z")
**[Canada Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Lee)**. In his life he was a classically trained musician, a jockey, a lightweight boxer, an actor (and a big success on Broadway), a bandleader, the owner of a nightclub, one of the first DJs, and a civil right activist. He got caught up in the Blacklist and found it hard to get work. His best-know film role was in Hitchcock’s _Lifeboat_, where he fought to give his character more dignity. A biography came out a few years ago. It’s fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/9 "2017-11-01T22:25:08Z")
As a kid, I learned about [Mary Jemison](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jemison). A Scots-Irish girl captured by Seneca in 1755 at the age of 12 and lived her entire life with them. While researching my family tree, I discovered that a great-aunt was descended from the [Hill family](http://www.genealogy.com/forum/general/topics/outlaws/3700/) of Parker County Texas. A family that between 1863 and 1873 saw father, mother, son and two daughters shot and three daughters hanged by vigilantes. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/10 "2017-11-01T22:49:46Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Jazz musician [Billy Tipton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tipton) lived, and pursued a music career, for decades as a man, with few people, if any, realizing that he was born a woman. Those who had no idea of his birth gender included a number of female romantic partners. As noted on Wikipedia: > > His transgender identity was discovered only as he was dying, by paramedics who were trying to save his life. > > I’d only heard about Tipton because an actress friend of mine portrayed him in an episode of “[E! Mysteries & Scandals](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1184882/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_1)” in the 1990s. His wife’s story was even stranger. Yes, that’s possible. :eek: > **[Billy, Kitty's strange story not over yet](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2008/jun/08/billy-kittys-strange-story-not-over-yet/)** > > Who will inherit the $300,000 estate of a former stripper known as the "Irish Venus" who lived on Spokane's South Hill with Billy Tipton, the jazz musician who spent a lifetime masquerading as a man? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/11 "2017-11-02T00:00:51Z")
The Talon Children have so far escaped Wikipledia. Their story can be fouind here: [https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta60](https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta60) In the late 1600s, they were captured by the Karankawas, a tribe of giant cannibals on the south Texas coast Very little is known about this tribe, except what was related when the captive children were rescued and interviewed. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/12 "2017-11-02T00:16:54Z")
I just finished reading [Jungle of Stone](https://www.amazon.com/Jungle-Stone-Extraordinary-Catherwood-Civilization-ebook/dp/B0105V62Z0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509580386&sr=8-1&keywords=jungle+of+stone), about the Central American explorers [John L. Stephens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lloyd_Stephens) and [Frederick Catherwood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Catherwood). Their investigation of the ruins of the Maya civilization was fascinating, but that was just one tiny piece of their lives. I kept turning the page and finding out about how one or the other was involved in some extraordinary new 19th century event or adventure. Also there’s the [de Védrines](https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/08/aristocrats-and-demons-201008), a family of French aristocrats who were conned, enslaved and tortured by a con man for a decade – in the 21st century. Cave explorer [Floyd Collins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Collins) was the most famous man in the U.S. for about two weeks in 1925, and has been celebrated in books, movies and music ever since. [Joyce Hatto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Hatto) was a concert pianist who was discovered to be a fraud. In another thread about a possible sailing hoax, we’ve been discussing the story of [Donald Crowhurst](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst), who faked a sailboat race around the world. [Eadward Muybridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge)had a crazy life as a photographer and early experimenter with motion pictures, and also killed his wife’s lover. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/13 "2017-11-02T00:27:36Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Jazz musician [Billy Tipton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tipton) lived, and pursued a music career, for decades as a man, with few people, if any, realizing that he was born a woman. Those who had no idea of his birth gender included a number of female romantic partners. As noted on Wikipedia: > > His transgender identity was discovered only as he was dying, by paramedics who were trying to save his life. > > I’d only heard about Tipton because an actress friend of mine portrayed him in an episode of “[E! Mysteries & Scandals](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1184882/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_1)” in the 1990s. > **[What’s the story on the female jazz musician who lived as a man?](https://www.straightdope.com/21342213/what-s-the-story-on-the-female-jazz-musician-who-lived-as-a-man)** The Master speaks ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/14 "2017-11-02T09:04:11Z")
George McJunkin was born a slave, and spent his adulthood as a cowboy in the old west. He learned what he could about what he could, which was as lot. He noted differences in the sizes of buffalo bone piled together, and observed that different kinds of arrowheads were found, according to the size of the bones, and theorized that the buffalos of different sizes were millennia apart in age, and therefore, so were Clovis points and Folsom points. This revelation turned on its head the prevailing theories about indigenous Americans. > **[George McJunkin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McJunkin)** > > George McJunkin (1856–1922) was an African American cowboy, amateur archaeologist and historian. McJunkin discovered the Folsom site in New Mexico in 1908. > Born to slaves in Midway, Texas, McJunkin was approximately 9 years old when the Civil War ended. He worked as a cowboy for freighters. He reportedly learned how to read from fellow cow punchers. McJunkin taught himself to read, write, speak Spanish, play the fiddle and guitar, eventually becoming an amateur archaeologist and historian. In 18... ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/15 "2017-11-02T10:51:35Z")
In 1932, nine year old [Lennie Gwyther](http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-nineyearold-who-rode-a-pony-1000km-to-sydney-20150121-12v3kq.html) rode his pony 1000 miles from his home town of Leongatha to Sydney to see the opening of the new Harbour Bridge. His parents let him go on the trip as a reward for having taken on all the farm work while his dad was laid up in hospital with a broken leg. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/16 "2017-11-02T13:20:57Z")
Not totally obscure but probably more than Billie Tipton who I thought was pretty widely known, at least postmortem. I think Rick Rescorla’s story is fascinating. > **[Rick Rescorla](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla)** > > Cyril Richard Rescorla (May 27, 1939 – September 11, 2001) was a British-American soldier, police officer, educator and private security specialist. He served as a British Army paratrooper during the Cyprus Emergency and a commissioned officer in the United States Army during the Vietnam War. He rose to the rank of colonel in the Army before entering the private sector, where he worked in corporate security. > As the director of security for the financial services firm Morgan Stanley at the Worl... Interesting biographical fact: the band Radio Head is named after a Talking Heads song called Radiohead. David Byrne wrote the song Radiohead about actor Steve Tobolowsky and his psychic abilities. The band Radio ahead is named after Ned Ryerson. He does genuinely believe he is psychic ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/17 "2017-11-02T14:33:10Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > [Jack Parsons doesn’t get enough respect for someone who was practically a comic book character](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)), and I’m not just saying that because his birth name was Marvel and he was in the Suicide Squad. (Hell, he was an inter-company crossover.) He was deeply involved in early rocketry, to the point NASA’s JPL is sometimes referred to as Jack Parsons Lives or Jack Parson’s Lab, and was active in occult ritual magic along with L. Ron Hubbard. Going back to comics, he’s somewhere between Tony Stark and Dr. Strange and I’m sure a movie would have to tone him down even now. Parsons isn’t really that obscure. He’s not exactly a household name, but you don’t have to look far for info on him. There’s a published biography of him, [B\sex and Rockets\*\* by John Carter (not the Warlord of Mars) > **[Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/241887.Sex_and_Rockets)** > > In his short 37 years, John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons em… There are also plenty of pop culture references to him (se _The Big Book of Conspiracies_ from Paradox Press, for instance, or any of the bios of L. Ron Hubbard or the early history of Scientology) ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/18 "2017-11-02T15:04:44Z")
> [@Atomic\_Alex](#): > > I came across a reference to Lillian Alling this evening, a Russian immigrant to the USA who became homesick and decided to walk back to Russia: Interesting. I am distantly related to [Mary Draper Ingles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Draper_Ingles), who also walked home–though it wasn’t quite as far away. I’ve always found the idea of being able to walk home to be a powerful one. The only time I’ve had a full-on homesick breakdown was when I was alone on the wrong side of an ocean. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/19 "2017-11-02T22:15:58Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I think Rick Rescorla’s story is fascinating. > [Rick Rescorla - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla) I thought he seemed like an interesting man even before reading this. Wow. If he was still alive, he could do Dos Equus commercials! :eek: How about these people? This book was a decent best-seller in the late 1980s, and a documentary film has been in the works for almost as long. > **[Paddle to the Amazon: The Ultimate 12,000-Mile Canoe Adventure: Starkell, Don:...](https://www.amazon.com/Paddle-Amazon-Ultimate-000-Mile-Adventure/dp/0771082568)** > > Paddle to the Amazon: The Ultimate 12,000-Mile Canoe Adventure \[Starkell, Don\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Paddle to the Amazon: The Ultimate 12,000-Mile Canoe Adventure The father started out with his two sons; one dropped out early on, and I found out recently that the one who finished lives in my area. He keeps a very low profile and sees himself as a professional musician, not an explorer. Don Starkell later did a similar journey through the Northwest Passage, which cost him all his fingers and toes, and he died not long afterwards from a brain tumor. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429/20 "2017-11-02T22:48:41Z")
He’s largely forgotten now, but [Richard Halliburton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Halliburton) was very famous at the peak of his career in the 1920s-1930s. He was a professional adventurer who undertook outrageous adventures and then wrote books about them. He is most famous for swimming the length of the Panama Canal and paying the lowest toll, 36 cents (based on his tonnage). He also crossed the Alps on an elephant, descended into the Mayan Well of Death, spent the night in a cell block on Devil’s Island twice, climbed the Matterhorn, swam the Hellespont, and on and on. He died trying to sail a Chinese junk across the Pacific from Hong Kong to San Francisco. My favorite looney adventure of his was when he decided to emulate Robinson Crusoe and had the captain of the ship he was on put him ashore on Tobago, which he believed to be the model for Crusoe’s island. [He took up life in a cave, made a set of clothes out of goatskin, and recruited one of the bemused locals to play Friday (under the name “Toosday”) in a grass skirt.](http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/b7d6314cce6443138e925209533cb622/robinson-crusoe-shows-friday-the-use-of-firearms-c45fy8.jpg) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-but-obscure-biographical-stories/800429.md?page=2)