OK. That’s Jean. You have heard her story, and if you’d like to criticise her for not marrying some men who made some poor financial decisions, please do so after setting a world record and crash-landing in a sandstorm. Then go right ahead.
55
Khutulun
c. 1260–1306
Should you ever find yourself at a party speaking to someone new, maybe someone you want to impress, and are totally at a loss for what to say, you should tell that person the story of Khutulun. Their reaction to it will determine if they are worth a moment more of your time.
Khutulun was a Mongol princess who lived from 1260 to 1306, and this was her deal: any man who wished to marry her would have to beat her in a wrestling contest first. Should the suitor win, then YOLO, they’d get married. Should he lose, he’d have to fork over like 100 horses. Needless to say, after years of this policy, Khutulun had amassed great herds of lovely horses, and the Mongolian steppes were littered with the debris of shattered male egos. Eventually, Khutulun did decide to settle down – though she remained undefeated in wrestling, of course. At a certain point a girl runs out of space to keep all her horses, you know?
What we know about Khutulun comes mostly from the guy who invented Backpacking Through Asia For A Summer After College, And Then Bragging About It For The Rest Of Your Life: Marco Polo. He said that Khutulun was ‘so well-made in all her limbs, and so tall and strongly built, that she might almost be taken for a giantess.’ But how much we can trust of his history is hard to tell, because you know how men are with their travelling stories.
Khutulun was the daughter of Khaidu, who led the Chagatai Khanate, a section of the Mongol Empire. In those days, it was NBD for Mongolian queens and princesses to be active in politics and battle, though as a woman, Khutulun couldn’t succeed to the throne. She did, however, remain involved in politics after her father’s death by serving as an adviser and general to her brother Orus, until he was defeated and things went south for the whole family.
That aside, would Khutulun’s story not make for a perfect romcom, in which Jennifer Aniston wrestles Ryan Gosling nearly to his death then rides away, triumphant, upon his herd of beautiful stallions? ‘Looks like the only thing I’ll be riding tonight,’ Khutulun turns to camera, ‘is this magnificent steed.’ She winks and gallops into the sunset.
Get in touch, Hollywood. We’ve had enough stories about underwhelming white men dating super hot women. Give us a wrestling princess blockbuster, please!
56
Pancho Barnes
1901–1975
Pancho Barnes was a hard-drinkin’, swearin’, love-makin’, plane-crashin’ stunt pilot who ran a wartime club in the Mojave desert that may or may not have been a hotbed of prostitution. Pancho was born Florence Leontine Lowe in 1901 and grew up in incredible wealth and privilege in a massive southern California mansion with 32 rooms. What do people do with 32 rooms? Do they know 32 people? Or are most of them just filled with boxes of old school essays that they don’t want to throw away ‘just in case’?
Whatever they did with those 32 rooms, Pancho preferred to spend her days outside riding horses and eventually learning to fly planes, which as we know is every little girl’s true ambition. Her grandfather was an inventor and one of the founders of the California Institute of Technology, today known as CalTech, a place where students go to bid farewell to the sun forever, retreat to their labs, and transform into mole people in the name of science. Pancho was never much of a ‘Florence’, and got her nickname when a friend misremembered the name of Don Quixote’s companion, Sancho; in any case Pancho stuck.
Pancho was meant to be a good, religious society girl, and so was married off to a wet blanket of a husband, the Reverend C. Rankin Barnes. On their wedding night they had a go of it, after which the good reverend announced: ‘I do not like sex. It makes me nervous. I see nothing to it. We shall have no more of it.’ And that was that. Thankfully, though, Pancho’s sexual days were not over as she took a series of lovers and had wild affairs all across the greater Los Angeles area, which were mostly great, except for one guy who stole her plane.
When Pancho learned to fly, her instructor told her, ‘I’ve had thirty-three women students so far and not one of them has soloed,’ as in, flown alone without the instructor there to take over if things went south, or, I suppose, directly downward. ‘I’ve been getting a little discouraged,’ he said, ‘but if you want to learn I suppose I’ll have to try and teach you.’
Pancho proved that whiny loser well wrong, and not only quickly learned to fly solo, which she described as, ‘one of the highlights of my life,’ but became a stunt pilot for Hollywood in the 1930s in films like Hell’s Angels. She’d got her start in the film industry first as a stand-in, then a script girl, and an animal handler, hiring out her horses that she’d taught to run alongside moving trains as cowboys leapt on their backs, and other horsey stunts. In fact, Pancho herself was the stunt double from time to time for cowardly cowboy actors. (To be fair, I probably wouldn’t want to jump off a moving train onto a horse either.) In the same year, Pancho founded the Motion Picture Pilots’ Association, the first ever union for her profession, which she set up because she was pissed off by how little she and other stunt pilots were paid to risk their lives on set.
Pancho flew all over the south-west, and into Mexico where she charged $10 per ride to pick up pleasure-seekers and fly them around a bit. Once, annoyed by an instructor giving her a ‘check ride’ to verify her pilot’s licence, Pancho cut the engine mid-flight to freak him out and demonstrate how far beyond him she was in skill. Her fame grew steadily as a ‘lady pilot’, which is like being a pilot, but you’re not a man. She entered women’s flying competitions, including the first ever women’s race in 1929, known as the ‘Powder Puff Derby’. She competed against Amelia Earhart, who’d become a rival when Amelia called Pancho a ‘marginal’ pilot in her book. Pancho had beaten Amelia’s air speed record in 1930. Classic women, always at each other’s throats, getting jealous of other women’s air speed records.
Pancho fell on hard times during the Great Depression of the 1930s, as almost everyone did. She bought some property in the Mojave Desert, and eventually opened up a club on it that came to be cheekily known as the Happy Bottom Riding Club. During World War II, airmen and Pancho’s Hollywood pals would come to the desert to drop their rank and military hierarchies and unwind, as Pancho supplied them with liquor. Once, after hearing the Feds were on their way, she buried a load of smuggled Mexican booze in the desert to hide it – but a storm overnight hid the booze’s location, and it was lost forever. Good news for anyone who lives near the Mojave Desert and wants an excuse for a treasure hunt.
Pancho also supplied her club patrons with young aspiring Hollywood starlets, leading to the accusation by some that she was actually running a brothel. She replied by putting up the following sign in her club:
WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BUSTLING AND HUSTLING THAT MAY GO ON HERE. LOTS OF PEOPLE BUSTLE AND SOME HUSTLE, BUT THAT’S THEIR BUSINESS AND A VERY OLD ONE.
Another critic, Bill Bridgeman, decried her establishment in his book, saying the place was ‘run by an extremely ugly old woman’.
She replied with quite a sick burn, according to the biography The Lady Who Tamed Pegasus: ‘Ugly, I’ll accept, but extremely ugly is taking it too far. I’ll get that sonofabitch when I write my book. Problem with Bill was that he was chasing one of my girls and having trouble catching her. He asked me to give him a little help or put in a good word for him, so to speak. I told him that he was a big grown man and that he shouldn’t have to have any help in his girl chasing. He really got pissed off and has been sorta mad at me ever since.’ Pancho remained fundamentally chill though, conceding that, ‘Bill is a damned good pilot and after I take my pound of flesh for his smart ass remarks we’ll have a few belly laughs and everything will be OK.’ She reportedly also said of the critics moralising about her club: ‘We had more fun in a week than those
weenies had in a lifetime.’
Pancho was pretty relaxed about everything she did. She even ran to be a member of the LA County Board of Supervisors, an election she lost despite the fact that she’d written her name in skywriting every afternoon of her campaign. What more could voters want from a candidate? She said of her opponent Buron Fitts: ‘I used to razz Buron because he blushed so easily.’22 She wasn’t bothered when she lost, though, saying that she ‘didn’t take anything too seriously, including or perhaps particularly, politics.’ Maybe she was only ever in it for the opportunity to write her name in the sky.
The top military brass weren’t keen on the Happy Bottom Club, and so authorities eventually tried to seize the land to build up an air force base. Pancho would fight a lengthy court battle to contest the move, which became known as the ‘Battle of the Mojave’, but the club mysteriously burned down before she could win her suit. The club was never rebuilt, and the land today comprises the Edwards Air Force Base – which may, come to think of it, make your search for the mysterious lost Mexican liquor a little more difficult.
57
Julie D’Aubigny
c. 1670/1673–1707
Julie D’Aubigny lived in 17th-century France, and her interests included impaling men with her sword, having affairs with hot men and women, and opera singing, presumably not all at the same time.
Her father was a secretary to an important member of the court of Louis XIV, the Compte d’Armagnac, who was in charge of all the king’s horses. Whether or not he was also in charge of all the king’s men, or putting Humpty Dumpty together again, is unknown. History is full of paedophiles, and so when young Julie was either 13 or 15, she became Armagnac’s ‘mistress’, which is gross.
Julie was taught by royal tutors, so received an uncommon education for a girl of her station. We know that her dad liked swords and women, but her mother’s identity has been lost to history. A love of swords (and women, as we’ll see) passed straight on to Julie, as her father insisted she learn to fence, perhaps in order to protect herself, or perhaps because it was cool. She was described as having a fiery personality, which is often just a way of saying a woman had a personality.
After about two years of grossness, Armagnac found Julie some wet blanket of a husband, Jean Maupin, whose last name would later be her stage name, La Maupin. But Julie was not about to settle into domestic life. Within about five minutes of marriage, she’d fallen in love with a swordsman, Henri de Seranne, who whisked her away to Marseille where he said he had property. Once in Marseille, or perhaps even en route to Marseille, Henri turned to her and said, ‘So, babes, when I said I had property in Marseille? What I actually meant was that I don’t have property in Marseille.’ Ladies: if your man says he has property in Marseille, make sure you double check it’s true before you buy your plane tickets!
Instead of enjoying a relaxing life of property ownership, then, the couple got to work, performing in fencing and singing exhibitions for cash. Julie often dressed in men’s clothing, for the practicality of it but also ’cause it’s an absolute look. Once while fencing before a crowd, some punk in the audience shouted out that he, a man, believed that Julie must also be a man, and not a woman, as had been advertised. The story goes that Julie proved him wrong by swiftly whipping her tits out. Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to make a man shut up.
The couple’s fortunes improved when they were accepted to the Marseille Academy of Music, promoting them from the world of haphazard theatre to that of legitimate musicians and performers that rich people pay money to see. Julie, however, would throw away this fine opportunity in hot pursuit of a young lady named Cecilia Bortigal, who was perhaps from Bortugal. Cecilia’s parents took fearful note of Julie’s courtship of their precious Ceciliakins, and sent her to a convent for her own protection from this lesbian menace. Joke’s on them, though, because convents are full of women.
Determined to rescue her fair Cecilia, Julie went to the convent and said that yes, she absolutely wanted to be a nun. She loved Jesus and everything. Wanted to marry him, yup, that’s why she was there. Once inside, Julie plotted a MAD ESCAPE in which she laid the DEAD BODY of a RECENTLY DECEASED NUN in Cecilia’s cell, then SET FIRE TO IT so that everyone would think she had died. They then fled over the convent’s walls and into the world, triumphant to be reunited, until they got bored and broke up. Burning a body and breaking out of a nunnery would be hard to top in a relationship. Their plot discovered, Julie was charged with all of the bat-shit crimes her escape had necessitated.
Julie was then on the run from the law for a while, and not wanting to face justice for the Burning Nun Incident, lay low in various towns around France. Julie’s version of lying low, however, entailed singing, fencing, and getting in brawls. Once, near Tours, she fought off three men in a tavern fight, stabbing one straight through the shoulder. It’s OK, though, because they became lovers after that.
Eventually, Julie wanted to get back to Paris. Luckily her creepy old paedo friend, Armagnac, was mates with the king and arranged for her pardon. Thanks to her paedos in high places, Julie returned to Paris and scored an audition at the Paris Opera along with her lover du jour, Gabril-Vincent Thervenard. When he was accepted into the company, he said he’d only join if his weird-ass stabby sexy singing girlfriend got in too, and so they were both accepted, and rose to stardom in the opera.
Let’s just stop here for a second to consider our own boring lives. Yes. Wow. OK, carry on.
Julie’s fiery personality carried her through her years of stardom and further affairs. Once, she was creeped on by a tenor in the opera company who thought he was hot shit. Wanting to settle scores, she went out at night dressed as a man and challenged him to a fight, which she won, pocketing his watch and snuffbox. He hadn’t recognised her, which is pretty ridiculous no matter how manly her clothes may have been, and the next day at work described the story of how he had been menaced by a gang of burly men. At this point, Julie was like, ‘Surprise, bitch!’ and produced his stolen watch and snuffbox.
Julie’s most over-the-top duel, however, occurred at a ball at the Palais-Royal in 1696. Dressed as a fancy man as usual, Julie had been letching on a pretty young marquise, possibly even kissing her, when three of the girl’s suitors marched over to defend her honour and challenge Julie to a duel. She was like, ‘OK meet u outside lol,’ and then grievously harmed, or even killed, the gallant defenders of the marquise. Julie strode back into the ball, shouted out to everyone ‘Hey, someone should probably get these three assholes a doctor,’ and then went to Brussels to lie low for a while. Sometimes you just have to remove yourself from a hot situation till things chill out a bit.
Julie spent some years shagging her way round Europe like a posh kid on a gap year, until enough time had passed since the Ball Incident for her to safely return to Paris and to the stage, in 1698. Her stardom was unblemished, and only rose to greater heights. She took on 41 acting roles, and performed for the king and nobility. When some guy talked shit about one of her female co-performers, Julie stuck her sword through his arm. Julie was a good friend.
Things were going well when she once again fell in love, this time with the Marquise de Florensac. They were happy together for a few years until he suddenly died from a swift illness, leaving Julie devastated. So unhappy was Julie with the loss of Florensac that she retired from the stage, and retreated into a life of, surprisingly enough, prayer and repentance.
She died a few years later, in 1707, at the age of 37. Perhaps only then did all the men who she’d stuck holes in finally feel safe.
58
Lilian Bland
1878–1971
There are plenty of ladies in these pages who enjoyed the timeless pleasure of flying around in tiny, perilous planes, so we must take a moment to recognise the one who may have been the first woman to fly, Lilian Bland. Lilian was born in Kent in 1878, but in her 20s went to live with her widowed father in Carnmoney in what is now Northern Ireland. He
r plane, which she built herself, was called the Mayfly, and was about as delicate as its insect namesake. When she finally got it off the ground, she managed to get up about 30 feet in the air and fly a quarter of a mile before running out of steam and landing, which may not sound like much to us land-dwellers but is undoubtedly higher than if any of us tried to fly in an aircraft we’d built ourselves.23
Lilian first got a taste for certain-death flying as the passenger of a pilot boyfriend she had, who wouldn’t let her have a go at the controls, which is a big red flag, ladies! She then asked the pilot Louis Bleriot, who had flown across the Channel from France to England, if she could come along as a passenger some time. He also said no, at which point Lilian knew if she wanted to hurtle through the air toward the certainty of grievous injury, she’d have to do it herself, and so in 1909 set about building the Mayfly. At first it was an unpowered glider, but then she installed a 20-horsepower engine, which just doesn’t seem like enough horses to get a girl into the sky. The engine’s petrol tank was late to arrive, so she fashioned one out of a whisky bottle and used her deaf aunt’s ear trumpet as a funnel for the fuel.
What makes Lilian Bland wonderful is not only her pioneering flying, but the absolute lack of fucks she gave in her day-to-day life. She was born into a wealthy family as, let’s face it, you’d have to be if you wanted to take up the hobby of crashing planes for a laugh, but she was far from an elegant lady. Lilian wore trousers – ANOTHER ONE, SOMEONE CALL THE POLICE ALREADY – shot rifles, smoked, did martial arts, drank, gambled, rode horses but DIDN’T do it the ladylike side-saddle way, and enjoyed a casual swear from time to time. Her father was so stressed about Lilian’s flying that, in the manner of posh fathers, he offered to buy her a car instead. Unfortunately for him, she was also a reckless driver. She ended up working as a car dealer for Ford, as well as a photographer and a journalist, which is cool, but not as cool as flying planes tbh.
100 Nasty Women of History Page 16