Buys An Island In

Another Film Star Buys An Island In The South Pacific

By a Staff Writer

If you happen to own a small, isolated island somewhere in the South Pacific—hold on to it.

One of these days, you may be able to sell it or lease it to a wealthy American, even a film star.

THIS, at any rate, seems to be the lesson to be learned from recent developments in the South Pacific where small, isloated, get-away from-it-all islands are concerned.

Early this year, Hollywood actor Raymond Burr (TV lawyer Perry Mason) bought Naitauba, an island of three square miles in the northern part of Fiji’s Lau Group (PIM, Feb., p. 33), and he is now reported to have moved into his new domain.

In late June, a wealthy Los Angeles furniture manufacturer, Mr. Eric Schiff, asked the American Samoan Government if he could lease tiny, uninhabited Rose Atoll, 140 miles east of Tutuila, so that he could build a Polynesian-style retreat for himself and family (PIM, Aug., p. 85).

And in early August, the Tahiti newspaper Les Nouvelles reported that film star Marlon Brando had bought a two-thirds share in Tetiaroa

Marlon Brando

Atoll, 26 miles from Tahiti, where he intended to establish a haven for “thinkers, writers and artists seeking peace”. .

Brando has spent a lot of his time in Tahiti since he made the film Mutiny on the Bounty there in 1961, and PIM reported as far back as January, 1964 (p. 71) that he was negotiating to buy Tetiaroa.

Tetiaroa is the only atoll in the vicinity of Tahiti. Its 13 islets have a land area of about 1,600 acres, most of which have been planted with coconuts. The largest islet is about two miles long.

Tetiaroa once belonged to Tahiti’s royal Pomare family. They sold it to Dr. W. J. Williams, a Canadian dentist, who was British consul in Tahiti from 1916 to 1935. Dr.

Williams died at Tetiatora in June, 1937.

Ownership of the atoll passed after Dr. Williams’ death to his step daughter. Mrs. Marjorie Doran, and to other relatives.

Brando is now reported to have bought out Mrs. Doran’s interests, and is said to expect to buy out the

other shareholders in the atoll by the end of the year, According to Les Nouvelles, one of the conditions in Brando’s contract allows for the possibility of a French pearl oyster industry being established on the atoll.

Tetiaroa’s lagoon, which has no access from the open sea, was once noted for its fine pearls, but as far as PIM knows, no diving has been carried out there in recent years.

In the days of the Pomares, female members of the family used to go to Tetiaroa for fattening before marriage and to live in the shade of the tuu trees so that their skins would become fair.

A number of the early explorers

visited the atoll and left descriptions of it; but since it passed into Euro pean hands visitors of literary bent have been few.

Among the few who have visited and written about it in the last 50 years are Frederick O’Brien ( Atolls of the Sun), Somerset Maugham (A Writer’s Notebook) , Dr. Kenneth Emory ( Stone Remains in the Society Islands) and Captain J. R. Grey ( World’s End).

Captain Grey was engaged to man age a coconut plantation that Dr.

Williams established on the island, But he arrived there just after the doctor’s death and did not stay long, He thought the plantation could be extremely profitable if properly run.