Robb White's 100th anniversary ("Up Periscope," 1956)
- From: Lenona <lenona321@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:05:55 -0700 (PDT)
Born in Baguio, Luzon, the Philippines, he moved to Alexandria,
Virginia in the 1920s. Not to be confused with his son, the Georgia
boatbuilder/writer (1941-2006). He died in 1990.
"Up Periscope" was filmed in 1959, with James Garner and Edmond
O'Brien. "Deathwatch" (1972) won three awards, including the 1973
Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery of the Year.
"Our Virgin Island was filmed as Virgin Island in 1958; it starred
John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, and Ruby Dee."
On the back cover of the SBS edition of "Up Periscope":
"Suspended 350 feet below surface lies the Shark, engines barely
idling. Overhead a Japanese ship cruises, doggedly sounding the
depths. The sub must be found...and destroyed.
"The thick silence is broken by a loud, hard CLICK. Ken Braden looks
at his companions. He can't help blurting out, 'What's that?'
"Then it comes.
"WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM....."
http://www.grovebook.com/GA32.htm
(book covers - the cover for "Secret Sea" is not the most familiar
one)
http://susanabraham2007.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/image3.jpg
(cover of "Secret Sea")
http://www.allreaders.com/Board.asp?BoardID=28520
(60 pages of fan comments, though some confuse White with his son)
http://www.thelionspaw.org/reviews.htm
http://www.thelionspaw.org/Fan_Comments.htm
(reviews for the 1946 "The Lion's Paw," which is finally back in
print as of 2008)
Excerpts from the site:
Already 9 yrs old, Nick, Penny’s younger brother, knew he did not want
to be adopted by Mrs. Wertz. On Penny’s 12th birthday, Nick announced
“I’m going to run away.” At their ages, they weren’t cute babies,
running away was the only way out of the orphanage….After walking all
night, all the way to the sea, Penny and Nick collapsed and hid under
the sails of a boat in the harbor. The next morning they found their
sleepy faces at the wrong end of a dripping wet mop, standard
punishment for stowaways, insisted one of the owners of the sailboat.
The boat owner, Ben, was just 15 yrs old, a boy whose father the U.S.
Navy insisted was MIA in the Pacific during World War II. The only
way Ben could think of to prevent his uncle from selling his father’s
boat to a willing and waiting purchaser, and fulfill the boy’s mission
to make good on a promise he made to his father, was to sail her out
to sea.
That is the beginning of the tale of “The Lion’s Paw”. The three
children are chased on a thrilling adventure steering the sailboat
Ben’s father made, hundreds of miles through the inland waterways of
Florida - on the St. Lucie Canal, from the Atlantic Coast all the way
to the Island of Captiva in the Gulf of Mexico - keeping one step
ahead of the Coast Guard, bounty hunters, alligators and tropical
storms that threaten to deprive them of their quest for freedom.
http://www.thelionspaw.org/bio.htm
(includes photo of White)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robb_White
(includes bibliography)
Excerpts:
Robb White III was born to Episcopal missionaries in Baguio, Luzon, in
the Philippines. At the time, White's father was working with the
Igorots, though he later became an Army chaplain, and thus the young
family — including Robb's brother and two sisters — traveled
extensively before settling in the Southern United States.
On a 1958 episode of TV's "This 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 in Alexandria, Virginia. He later attended the U.S. Naval
Academy at Annapolis, graduated as an ensign in 1931, and then worked
briefly as a draftsman and construction engineer for DuPont.......
.......In 1937, White married Rosalie "Rodie" Mason; the couple settled
in Sea Cow Bay on the island of Tortola (Virgin Islands), 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 a large and well-
known island, White walked off in one direction along the beach and
Rodie in the other. Meeting less than half an hour later, they
realized they had landed on a tiny island — 8-acre (3.2 ha) Marina
Cay, which they quickly purchased for US $60.
The Whites spent three years on Marina, hacking a cistern out of the
rough, rocky land and shipping in enough concrete to build a small,
sturdy house. These adventurous years — during which the couple
weathered a typhoon, fended off a randy Nazi skipper, aided Jewish
refugees, and survived a surprise a visit from White's mother-in-law —
are detailed in his memoirs In Privateer's Bay (1939), Our Virgin
Island (1953), and Two on the Isle (1985).......
........White also wrote for TV, including "Men of Annapolis" and
"Silent Service" (both 1957), plus episodes of Perry Mason
(1961-1965). In the late 1950s and early 1960s he teamed with horror
film director William Castle, best known for gimmicks such as a free
"ghost viewer" and a vibrating electrical device mounted beneath the
theater seats........
........Despite all this, White is best known for his 24 novels. The
early Run 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..............
..........."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 to Something About the Author that he liked stories
which 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 in Deathwatch where the protagonist battles
not only his human persecutor, but the impersonal harshness of the
American desert.......
.........He lived in Thomasville, Georgia (where he and Rodie settled
after returning from the Caribbean), Malibu and Montecito, Calif.,
England, Ireland, Scotland, the West Indies and the French Riviera, as
well as Lake Havasu City, Arizona — the setting for Deathwatch.......
http://www.bareboatsbvi.com/marina_cay.html
(skyview of Marina Cay)
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/robb-white-aya/
(beginning of the "Authors and Artists for Young Adults" entry for
White)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0925380/
(filmography - as writer - includes two movies with Vincent Price)
"Father of NPR commentator and author (Mama Makes Up Her Mind,
Sleeping at the Starlight Motel) Bailey White. With first wife
Rosalie, Robb White had three children: Robb, Barbara and June."
http://wbeditor.typepad.com/rudderpost/2006/05/robb_white_arti.html
(about his son)
Lenona.
.
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