Remember, before she went to Mexico and became known as Pancho, she was known as Florence Lowe Barnes... The Barnes part of it stemmed from her marriage to the Rev. Rankin Barnes in 1921. The wedding and the birth of her first and only son Billy nine months later, kept her occupied in a way that must have chafed at the hide of the normally uncontainable, unrestrainable Florence.

One of the outlets she sought out, as soon as she could separate herself from the obligations of being an Episcopal minister's wife, was Hollywood. The bright lights and glamor of it all must have enthralled her, and offered an escape.

One of the earliest movie sets Florence may have seen was a Mary Pickford movie that filmed on her parent's estate. Photographs of Pickford are in the Pancho Barnes Trust Estate Archive.

In 1924, family friend Malcolm St. Clair directed The Lighthouse By the Sea in Laguna Beach, where Pancho and her family maintained sizeable homes. Florence got a job as a stand-in, doubling for actress Louise Fazenda.

In recent days, we've been making scans of some old negatives in the Pancho Archives. Lo and behold, there are two interesting photos which may date from the filming of Lighthouse. The first photo shows Pancho on the beach with a couple of actors — note the movie cameras on the right side of the photo — and then the second photo shows her replaced by an actress. Could it be Louise Fazenda? We're not sure. Based on photos on the internet, I don't think it is her.

Just for kicks, I watched Lighthouse (copies of the film are available on home video) to see if I could spot this scene in the movie. To my surprise, it doesn't appear that this scene or shot appears in that film, nor do these actors. (The movie incidentally is about a blind lighthouse keeper and his innocent daughter, and stars the dog-star Rin Tin Tin!)

The photo makes it look like whatever movie this was, it took place in an Asian or polynesian locale, complete with grass huts. So the question is...who are they...and what movie is this? Anyone out there who knows the silent era, feel free to chime in!

Author Lauren Kessler has written ten books, among them the critically acclaimed Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family and a recently-published biography of Cold War spy Elizabeth Bentley, entitled Clever Girl. Her subjects are often women, especially badly behaved women, because as she notes with a smile, badly behaved women change the world. It's perhaps little surprising then that one of Lauren's books is a biography of Pancho Barnes, The Happy Bottom Riding Club, published in 2000 by Random House.

Last Saturday, Lauren Kessler sat for an interview about her book and Pancho at the historic Fenyes Mansion in Pasadena.

This wonderful location was made available for the interview by the Pasadena Museum of History, and was the perfect locale. After all, Pancho grew up in a similar mansion in nearby San Marino, and may have even known the Fenyes family.

Lauren Kessler's biography of Pancho is a rich, and very readable book that has broad appeal. During the interview, Lauren told director Amanda Pope her belief that Pancho would have made a name for herself in any arena. If airplanes hadn't existed, she still would have probably been famous or, perhaps, infamous.

The interview was wide-ranging, beginning with a discussion of Pancho's childhood, and then touching on her failed marriage, her expedition to Mexico (where she took on the name "Pancho") and her exploits as an aviatrix. Of course no interview would be complete without a discussion of "The Happy Bottom Riding Club". So does Lauren Kessler believe Pancho was a madam? Stay tuned...or read the book! (You can get it on Amazon.com or your local bookstore or library).

Incidentally, we couldn't help but ask Lauren what she's working on now. Turns out her new book Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's will be published on June 4. Based on her work as a minimum-wage caregiver in an elder care facility, this promises to be a heartwarming, and heartbreaking, read.

It's been many months since we wrapped the first phase of shooting on the Pancho documentary. That first round of interviews was really something — we spoke with many of Pancho's favorite friends including R.A. "Bob" Hoover, Buzz Aldrin, Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager, Brig. Gen. Bob Cardenas, Women's Air Service Pilot Babe Story, and others.

After concluding those interviews, we took a hiatus so that we could fundraise for the film. Now, we're back in production! As of this past Saturday, the second phase of interviews is — finally — underway.

Our first interview subjects were Seth and Shirley Hufstedler, accomplished attorneys who became friends with Pancho during her legal cases against the Air Force in the 1950's. Like Pancho, Shirley Hufstedler is a woman who broke the mold. She passed the California bar in 1950, at a time when fewer than 10 women per year accomplished that feat . Later in 1968, she was appointed as a judge on the Ninth Circuit, and was appointed as the first Secretary of Education by President Jimmy Carter.

Shirley first met Pancho and her fourth husband Mac in a law library. At that point, Pancho was acting as her own attorney in a lawsuit against the U.S. Government. At issue was the price the government intended to pay for acquiring the Happy Bottom Riding Club and all of Pancho's ranch land and airport. (The USAF wanted to extend the runway at Edwards, and Pancho's ranch was in the way). After doing some consulting work with Pancho, Shirley brought in her husband Seth, who worked for an attorney who specialized in so-called "taking" cases. In the end, with the help of Seth's firm, Pancho won a judgement for about twice what the government had initially offered.

Unfortunately, Pancho's legal victory was something of a Pyrrhic one. Although she gained a lot of money in the settlement, she lost her ranch and with it her association with Edwards Air Force Base.

Shirley and Seth kept in touch with Pancho after her legal victory, and took a memorable trip with her and Mac to Mexico. One of the most memorable aspects of the trip was that Pancho's ex-husband Don Shalita came along just for the fun of it!!

Shirley also shared some nice memories of Pancho's force-of-nature personality, quick wit, and sense of fearlessness, and spoke about some of the anecdotes Pancho related about her adventures in Mexico in the 1920's and 30's.

All in all, it was a great day, and a great way for us to get "back in the saddle" with the filming.

On May 29, 1968, one of the world's premiere collections of antique aircraft, the Movieland of the Air Museum, went on the auction block. One of the most eagerly-anticipated parts of the auction was for the Travelair R613K, Pancho Barnes' "Mystery Ship". It wasn't the star of the show, however. That designation fell to a Sopwith Camel flown by a Canadian pilot named Roy Brown — the one that ended the career of Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen!

The bidding on Brown's plane went into the stratosphere, for those days, selling for a price of $40,000 (imagine what it would be worth now?!) The drama surrounding that auction was extraordinary, but nothing could compare to the situation that unfolded as Lot 56, the Mystery Ship, went under the hammer. Even before the plane's number came up, whispers began to be exchanged. The older lady in the corner, wearing riding breeches, a cowboy shirt, and high-heeled boots, isn't that...couldn't that be...no. But it was: Pancho Barnes had shown up the auction, intent upon getting her plane back!

According to Don Dwiggins, who recounted the auction in an article for Aviation Graphic, the bidding on the Mystery Ship was short-lived but quite painful for Pancho. She "winced at each price rise" and must have been close to giving up on the chase, when suddenly the hammer fell. The other bidders had realized exactly who that lady was who was trying to buy the plane. No matter how much they might have wanted it, and how much money they had, there wasn't anyone who wanted to be known as the person who stole Pancho's plane.

Dwiggins remembered the moment this way:

"Yippee!" Pancho yelled, real tears in her eyes. "I got my baby back."

The photo above, which shows Pancho with her son Billy and his wife, says it all.

As fate would have it, though, Pancho never did get to fly her Mystery Ship again. According to biographer Barbara Schultz, Billy suspected (probably correctly) that it was too much plane for an older person like Pancho to handle! His approach to restoring the plane was deliberate, which is another way of saying slow. Billy simply hoped his mother would forget about flying the plane! To get some sense into her, he challenged her to take a first step, and get a real pilot's license. That proved to be a tall order, and Pancho remained grounded at the time of her death in 1975. Sadly, Billy died a short time later when the P-51 Mustang he flew in air shows suffered an in-flight fire and crashed into the desert near Lancaster. It was a tragedy of the sort that happens in aviation, but fortunately Pancho was not around to see it.

The final chapter on R613K has yet to be written. For a many years the plane remained at Billy Barnes' aviation service at Fox Field in Lancaster in a state of partial restoration. Eventually it was sold to a private collector. Last we heard, the plane was at Biggins Hill Airport in England, and nearly completely renovated to flying condition. Attempts to contact the owner or restoration crew have thus far come to naught, but surely some day we'll get in touch. When we do, you'll read about it here.

Incidentally, there is a Mystery Ship flying in the United States today. It's a replica of a sister ship to Pancho's, the famed R614K flown by Doug Davis. More on this in a future journal!

So, owing to a personal debt, Pancho lost her "Mystery Ship" to her friend and one-time colleague, Paul Mantz. The "king of the stunt pilots" used the plane extensively in the 30's. We've even found some motion picture footage of it flying in the 1934 Los Angeles Air Races, presumably with Mantz at the controls. In 1939, Mantz rebuilt the plane in an attempt to break Tex Rankin's outside loop record. According to aviation writer Don Dwiggins, Mantz doubled the number of ground wires and added a 330-hp Wright Whirlwind specially equipped to allow inverted flight. Mantz never made the attempt, and the plane ended up sitting in a lonely corner, unused and in disrepair. Eventually the plane became part of the "Movieland of the Air Museum" which Mantz formed with another famous stunter and friend of Pancho's, Frank Tallman.

In 1965, Mantz came out of retirement to film stunts for the epic film "The Flight of the Phoenix". After performing a successful low level pass in front of the cameras, Mantz came around for a second pass. His kitbashed airplane hit a small hillock, went out of control and crashed, and Mantz was killed. It was an unexpected, awful turn of events.

In the aftermath of Mantz' death, Tallman decided to sell off many of the historic aircraft in the Museum, including the Mystery Ship, a P-40E Kittyhawk, a Sopwith Camel, a Curtiss 1A Gulfhawk, and a replica Ryan B-1. The auction got considerable attention worldwide, since it was filled with special planes. One of the most desireable, of course, was the Mystery Ship. By now, however, the plane was a shadow of its former self. A dusty, faded aircraft, it needed a lot of work before it would ever be flight worthy (see photo).