From the moment sixteen-year-old Idris Hall read the ad in the Paris Herald newspaper, her mind raced with exciting possibilities. BRAINS, BEAUTY AND BREECHES World Tour Offer For a Lucky Young Woman Idris knew she was brilliant. After all, she read all of her father’s adventure books and already knew how to drive a car — some- thing very few girls in 1922 knew how to do. She was beautiful, her hair blond and curly, and she moved her trim, six-foot figure with grace and confidence after years of ballet. And she was a tomboy, so giving up dresses and skirts to wear breeches — short pants fas- tened at the knee — would be easy. She spoke to the man who placed the ad, Captain Walter Wanderwell. Her excitement grew. The next thing she knew, she was trying to persuade her mother to let her join his crazy adven- ture. Idris explained how she would tour the world by automobile, work in front of and behind a movie camera, and give auditorium lectures worldwide. She finally earned her mother’s approval, and Idris Hall changed her name to Aloha Wanderwell. She later said of this moment, “The whole world was out there. I reaching for it, the world reaching for me.”
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