 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
Robb White | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Robb White III (1909-06-20)June 20, 1909 Baguio,Luzon,Philippines |
| Died | (1990-11-24)November 24, 1990 |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Adventure novels |
| Subject | Maritime, World War II |
| Notable works | The Lion's Paw, Our Virgin Island, Deathwatch |
| Spouse | Rosalie "Rodie" Mason, Joan Gannon, Alice White |
Robb White III (20 June 1909 – 24 Nov. 1990) was an American writer of screenplays, television scripts, and adventure novels. Most of the latter had a maritime setting, often thePacificNavy duringWorld War II. White was best known for juvenile fiction, though he has proven popular with adults as well. Nearly all his books are out of print; nevertheless, White has a devoted following amongbaby boomers, many of whom were introduced to him through inexpensive paperbacks available in American schools in the mid-20th century.
Robb White III was born to Episcopal missionaries, Placidia (Bridges) and Robb White, inBaguio,Luzon, in thePhilippines.[1] At the time, White's father was working with theIgorots, though he later became anArmychaplain, and thus the young family—including Robb's brother and two sisters—traveled extensively before settling inThomasville, Georgia.[2]
On a 1958 episode of the television showThis Is Your Life, White's sister said that "young Bob was the proverbial minister's son, a rebel against all rules and full of deviltry"—as exemplified when the boy rolled eggs off the roof onto a Ladies' Auxiliary meeting on the front lawn.
White had no formal education before entering the Episcopal High School inNew York City,New York. He later attended theUnited States Naval Academy atAnnapolis, graduated as anensign in 1931, and then worked briefly as adraftsman andconstruction engineer forDuPont.
In his 1953 memoir,Our Virgin Island, White says that by 1937 he "had been halfway round the world and back" and "sailed aschooner around the Atlantic for six months."[3]
In 1937, White married Rosalie "Rodie" Mason. The couple settled in Sea Cows Bay on the island ofTortola, where the insects were so severe that White put his typewriter in a boat and wrote in the middle of the bay each day. The pair spent weeks sailing daily throughout the islands in search of a more suitable home.
One afternoon, after landing on what they thought was large and better-knownGreat Camanoe, White walked off in one direction along the beach and Rodie in the other. Meeting less than half an hour later,[4] they realized they had landed on a tiny island, 8-acre (3.2 ha)Marina Cay, which they quickly purchased for $60.
The Whites spent three years on Marina, where they built a small house. These years are detailed in his memoirs,In Privateer's Bay (1939),Our Virgin Island (1953), andTwo on the Isle (1985).
White served in theU.S. Navy duringWorld War II and was present at theBattle of Leyte Gulf (1944), which took place near his birthplace. He flew as a pilot in the war and earned eight medals. He was discharged with the rank oflieutenant commander after five years of service.
At the same time as White's recall, he and Rodie lost Marina Cay. The British government had never issued them a license to hold the land and now formally refused, stating that White's published writings had misrepresented conditions in theBritish Virgin Islands.
Today, the house Robb and Rodie built serves as the reading lounge for a modest-sized resort on the island.
White was determined to be a writer from the age of 13. While working for DuPont, he returned home each day and wrote from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. In 1931, he quit DuPont after selling his first story toThe American Boy for $100.
"A writer's writer, White truly lived his trade".[5] He produced numerous articles and stories forThe Saturday Evening Post,Reader's Digest,The Atlantic Monthly,Esquire, andBoys' Life, as well as theUnited States Naval Institute'sProceedings and various risqué publications; as he told interviewer Tom Weaver, "I wrote as a woman forTrue Stories and got raped in a hayloft about once a month."[6]
White also wrote for television, includingMen of Annapolis andThe Silent Service (both 1957), plus episodes ofPerry Mason (1961–1965). In the late 1950s and early 1960s he worked with directorWilliam Castle on five films:Macabre (1958),House on Haunted Hill (1959),The Tingler (1959),13 Ghosts (1960), andHomicidal (1961).
Despite all this, White is best known for his 24 novels. The earlyRun Masked (1938) was White's only effort at a work of adult-themed literature. Most of his books are adventure stories aimed at younger readers — includingThe Lion's Paw (1946),Deathwatch (1972),Up Periscope (1956) (filmed withJames Garner in 1959),Flight Deck (1961),Torpedo Run (1962), andThe Survivor (1964). The last four of these—and many others—are set in the samePacific Theater where White served during World War II. Others—Lion's Paw, plus the rarerSail Away (1948),Three Against the Sea (1940), andSmuggler's Sloop (1937)—feature youthfulprotagonists working together against the elements.
"White is on record saying that young people appreciate his work most. He attributed this to their good, decent and courageous nature, exactly the kind of people about whom he enjoyed writing. White confided toSomething About the Author that he liked stories that dealt with ordinary people who survived in the face of terrible hardship ... White's work is typically hero-driven, a characteristic that emerges most clearly inDeathwatch, where the protagonist battles not only his human persecutor, but the impersonal harshness of the American desert ... "[5]
Several of his novels were popularized in the school-basedScholastic book sale program in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s; now out of print, these 50-cent paperbacks currently sell for up to $50 on the Internet; rarer White hardbacks can fetch ten times that amount.
In October 2008, a facsimile edition ofThe Lion's Paw was published by White's widow and her daughter.[7]
According to a Central PA newspaper tribute to the author honoring the 100th anniversary of his birth, the widely traveled White was a member of a 1950 Harvard anthropological expedition to the Middle East; "he lived in California, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, the West Indies and the French Riviera."[8]
White died on November 22, 1990.[9]
His daughter Bailey is an author and a commentator on NPR. White's son, Robb IV (1941-2006), was a Georgia boat-builder who penned a 2003 memoir entitledHow to Build a Tin Canoe; shorter writings were collected in 2009'sFlotsam and Jetsam.[10]
|
|
Some of White's works have been adapted to motion pictures.
White's original screenplays forHouse on Haunted Hill and13 Ghosts were both adapted for remakes.[11]
