Robb White
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| Born: | 20 June 1909 Baguio, Luzon, Philippines |
|---|---|
| Died: | 24 Nov. 1990 |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Nationality: | American |
| Genres: | Adventure Novels |
| Subjects: | Maritime, World War II |
Robb White (20 June 1909 – 24 Nov. 1990) was a writer of screenplays, TV scripts, and adventure novels; most of the latter had a maritime setting – often the Pacific Navy during World 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 among baby-boomers, many of whom were introduced to him through inexpensive paperbacks available in American schools in the mid-20th century.
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[edit] Schools and Schooners
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 Alexandra, Va. 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 his 1953 memoir Our Virgin Island, White says that by 1937 he “had been halfway round the world and back” and “sailed a schooner around the Atlantic for six months”[1]. During his stint on a Boston-based “floating school” with only one student, White one night swam ashore from five miles out after the schooner was crippled in a storm.
[edit] Their Virgin Island
In 1937, White married Rosalie “Rodie” Mason; the couple settled in Sea Cow Bay on the island of Tortola, where the insects were so bad that White put his typewriter in a boat and wrote in the middle of the bay each day. The pair spent weeks sailing daily through 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 – eight-acre Marina Cay, which they quickly purchased for $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 was recalled to military duty when World War II broke out; he flew as a pilot, fought near his birthplace in the Battle of Leyte Gulf (1944), and served on battleships, submarines, and aircraft carriers; he earned eight medals and retired with the rank of lieutenant 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 the British Virgin Islands.
Today, Marina Cay is home to Pusser's Restaurant and Villa Rentals; the house Robb and Rodie built serves as a reading lounge for the modest tourist complex.
[edit] “A Writer's Writer”
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 to American Boy for $100.
“A writer’s writer, White truly lived his trade”[2]. He produced numerous articles and stories for The Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, Atlantic, Esquire, and Boys’ Life, as well as the Naval Institute’s Proceedings and various risqué publications; as he told interviewer Tom Weaver, “I wrote as a woman for True Stories and got raped in a hayloft about once a month”[3].
White also wrote for TV, including “Men of Annapolis” and “Silent Service” (both 1957), plus episodes of "Perry Mason" (1961-65). In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s 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.
White and Castle turned out five films: Macabre, 13 Ghosts, Homicidal, The Tingler and House on Haunted Hill -- the last two featuring Vincent Price.
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 -- including The Lion’s Paw (1946), Deathwatch (book) (1972), Up Periscope (1956), Flight Deck (1961), and Torpedo Run (1962). The last three of these – and many others – are set in the same Pacific theater where White served during World War II. Others -- Lion’s Paw, plus the rarer Sail Away (1948), Three Against the Sea (1940), and Smuggler’s Sloop (1937) – feature youthful protagonists 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 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. . . . ”[4].
Several of his novels were popularized in the school-based Scholastic book-sale program in the 1950's, 1960's, and early 1970's; 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.
[edit] Later Life
White was a member of the 1950 Harvard anthropological expedition to the Middle East.
Robb and Rodie White were divorced in 1964; they had three children -- Robb, Barbara, and June.
Robb White IV (1941-2006) was a well-known Georgia boat-builder and author of How to Build a Tin Canoe: Confessions of an Old Salt (2003).
June, better known as Bailey White, is a commentator for National Public Radio and author of Mama Makes Up Her Mind (1993), Sleeping at the Starlight Motel (1995), and Quite a Year for Plums (1998).
In the mid-1960’s, White married Joan Gannon, a Beverly Hills stockbroker. According to the Laurel Leaf paperback edition of Deathwatch – the only White book still in print – he was married to Mrs. Alice White at the time of his death in 1990.
He lived in Thomasville, Ga. (where he and Rodie settled after returning from the Caribbean), as well as Malibu and Montecito, Calif., and Lake Havasu City, Az. – the setting for Deathwatch.
[edit] Bibliography
Two on the Isle (memoir, 1985)
Firestorm (1979)
The Long Way Down (1977)
The Frogmen (1973)
Deathwatch (book) (1972)
No Man's Land (1969)
Silent Ship, Silent Sea (1967) Surrender (1966)
The Survivor (1964)
Torpedo Run (1962)
Flight Deck (1961)
Up Periscope (1956)
Midshipman Lee of the Naval Academy (1954)
Our Virgin Island (memoir, 1953)
Deep Danger (1952)
The Haunted Hound (a.k.a., A Dog for Jonathan) (1950)
Candy (1949)
Sail Away (1948)
Secret Sea (1947)
The Lion's Paw (1946)
Sailor in the Sun (1941)
Three Against the Sea (1940)
In Privateer's Bay (nonfiction, 1939)
Midshipman Lee (1938)
Run Masked (aka Jungle Fury)(1938)
The Smuggler's Sloop (1937)
The Nub (1935)
[edit] Awards
1937: New York Herald Tribune prize for best older boys’ book of the year, Smuggler’s Sloop
1972: ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults, Deathwatch
1972: New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, Deathwatch
1973: Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery of the Year, Deathwatch
[edit] Movie Versions
Our Virgin Island was filmed as Virgin Island in 1958; it starred John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, and Ruby Dee.
Up Periscope was directed by Gordon Douglas in 1959, with James Garner, Edmond O’Brien, Frank Gifford, and Edd Byrnes.
Deathwatch was made for TV as Savages in 1974; it featured Andy Griffith as the villain.
White’s scripts inspired remakes of House on Haunted Hill (1999) and Thirteen Ghosts (2001).
[edit] External Links
Complete bibliography: [1]
Robb White info at Internet Movie Database: [2]
Robb White's papers at the University of Southern Mississippi: [3]
Website for Robb White IV: [4]
Current info on Marina Cay, incl. color photo: [5]
[edit] References
- ^ White, Robb, Our Virgin Island (New York: Doubleday, 1953), p. 15.
- ^ "Biographical Sketch." Robb White Papers. 3 June 2003. University of South Mississipi de Grummond Collection. 1 March 2007 <http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/html/research/findaids/white.htm#bio>.
- ^ Weaver, Tom, Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Producers and Writers of the 1940s through 1960s (Jefferson: McFarland, 1991), p. 425.
- ^ "Biographical Sketch." Robb White Papers. 3 June 2003. University of South Mississipi de Grummond Collection. 1 March 2007 <http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/html/research/findaids/white.htm#bio>.
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