Death Of James

Norman Hall

End of Tahiti’s Famous Literary Partnership

THAT famous and distinguished Ameri can writer, James Norman Hall, died suddenly at his home in Tahiti on the night of July 5. He was about 60 years old.

The writing partnership of Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall made literary history. Their trilogy of the ’thirties, “Mutiny,” “Men Against the Sea,” and “Pitcairn’s Island,” won them top-rank recognition throughout the world, and substantial riches. The film based on their first book—in which Charles Laughton so memorably portrayed Cap tain Bligh—was an outstanding produc tion of that decade. After that. Nordhoff and Hall, sometimes alone but generally as collaborators, wrote several books, and countless articles. They were first-class literary craftsmen, and much of their work will live.

The two young Americans became asso rted when they went to World War I as aviators; and, as America was not then in the war, they joined the famous French Lafayette Squadron, and saw much ser vice. After the war, seeking peace, beauty and freedom from care, they went to gether to Tahiti, married French Tahitian girls, and settled down there. For years before the Bounty trilogy brought fame and fortune, they earned a modest living as writers. Both were highly esteemed in Tahiti.

Nordhoff’s marriage was not a success; and in the late ’Thirties he left Tahiti and settled in California. He was in poor health, and he died there in 1947. Hall’s marriage, on the other hand, was very happy; and he and his wife retained their home outside of Papeete, where they were highly respected and greatly loved. Inti mate friends liked to visit Norman Hall in his “beach bungalow”—a personal .den which he established a little distance from his big house, and where he could write and read at leisure. Papeete will miss this genial, friendly and unaffected American.

Mr. and Mrs. Hall had a small family.

A married daughter lives in Honolulu, and their only son, now a young man, has also lived there recently.