About
Known to many as "The World's Most Widely Travelled Woman" and the "Queen of Adventure," she became the first woman to ever drive around the world over the course of 5 years in the 1920s. She visited more than 80 countries in her lifetime and was a highly respected travel lecturer, radio speaker, and print journalist. She also became the first woman to fly the Mato Grasso region of Brazil and captured the earliest known footage of its indigenous Bororo people.
Before Fame
She was fascinated by adventure and travel from an early age and when she was 16 years old she responded to an advertisement she saw in the Riviera edition of the Paris Herald seeking a secretary for a round-the-world expedition led by Captain Walter Wanderwell. After securing the job, she gained notoriety and adopted her "stage name" of Aloha Wanderwell.
Trivia
Her extensive footage and filmography are maintained at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood, CA. Captured on 35mm and 16mm film, the archive has preserved much of the rare footage, some of which dates back to as early as the 1920s. In addition to her filmography, which includes titles such as Cape to Cairo and To See the World by Car, she also authored the 1939 memoir "Call to Adventure." She was said to have known up to 14 different languages.
Family Life
She was born Idris Galcia Welsh to parents Margaret Jane Hedley and Robert Welsh. When her mother re-married to Herbert Hall in 1909, she changed her name to Idris Hall. She had a sister named Margaret Verner, who went by the nickname "Miki." She was first married to Polish adventurer and filmmaker Walter Wanderwell, and they had a daughter named Valri and a son named Nile. He was tragically murdered in December of 1932. She wed her 2nd husband, Walter Baker, the following year. She passed away in 1996 at the age of 89.
Associated With
Over the course of her widespread travels, she became close friends with dignitaries from all corners of the world, and often spoke of her travels at public events alongside some of the best-known celebrities, including Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Charlie Chaplin, and Humphrey Bogart.
