Johnson, Osa (1894–1953)

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Johnson, Osa (1894–1953)

American explorer, film producer, author, and big game hunter. Born Osa Helen Leighty on March 14, 1894, in Chanute, Kansas; died on January 7, 1953, in New York, New York; daughter of Ruby (Holman) Leighty and William Leighty; attended Chanute High School; married Martin Johnson, on May 15, 1910 (killed, January 13, 1937); married Clark H. Getts, on April 29, 1939 (divorced 1949); children: none.

Met Martin Johnson (1905), who would accompany Jack London on the voyage of the Snark (1907–09); graduated from Chanute High School (1910); captured by cannibals (1912); produced her first motion picture with Martin (1912); returned to the Solomon Islands (1914); explored Northern Borneo (1917–19); went on first expedition to Africa (1921); discovered Lake Paradise (1921); secured sponsorship from George Eastman and the American Museum of Natural History (1924); began construction of home at Lake Paradise (1924); visited by duke and duchess of York (1925); visited by George Eastman (1925); became a licensed pilot (1929); purchased Sikorsky airplanes (1932); led an expedition through East Africa to obtain footage for film Stanley and Livingstone (released, 1939).

Selected publications:

I Married Adventure (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1940); Four Years in Paradise (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1941).

Osa Johnson, the well-known explorer and big game hunter, was born Osa Leighty in 1894 and grew up in rural Kansas, the daughter of a railway engineer; her formal education was limited to the local high school in Chanute. At age seven, she asked her father for ten cents, a significant amount of money in 1901, to have a picture of her brother taken by a traveling photographer. Her father hesitated. "All my father earned was a dollar and a quarter a day," Johnson later recalled. "Ten cents would buy a pound of round steak or a gallon of kerosene, or a peck of potatoes, or two yards of calico." At length, Johnson's father agreed, and Osa Johnson had the photograph taken by Martin Johnson, her future husband.

Five years later, Martin Johnson read that author Jack London was planning an expedition to the South Seas aboard the Snark, a ship built by London. Managing to secure employment as the cook, Martin sailed out of San Francisco Bay on April 23, 1907. After a voyage of more than 25,000 miles across the Pacific, and visits to Hawaii, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Australia, Martin returned to the U.S. with enough money to open three theaters in Independence, Kansas. He also brought with him photographs of the trip, which he showed to theater audiences. As fate would have it, a friend of Osa's worked in one of Martin's theaters. When the friend fell ill, Osa was recruited to take her place as a singer.

Shortly thereafter, 16-year-old Osa Leighty, who had never traveled more than 30 miles from her home in Chanute, Kansas, married the 26-year-old adventurer Martin Johnson. Her expectations of married life soon proved to be wildly different from those of her husband. "I looked forward to a happy, quiet, married life, with children and a cozy home in a small city," she wrote. "Then one day Martin came home and said we were going to sell everything and see the world." For the next two years, the Johnsons roamed America. Martin showed photographs of his Snark adventures to vaudeville audiences, while Osa added local color by performing Hawaiian dances and songs taught to her by her husband.

In 1912, the couple journeyed to the Solomon Islands, where the natives still practiced cannibalism. In their luggage, they carried a hand-cranked movie camera, 1,000 feet of film, a rifle, and two revolvers purchased with their life savings. The Johnsons were anxious to photograph the cannibals of Malekula Island but were repeatedly warned against making the attempt. Authorities suggested they visit a less dangerous spot, where they could stage scenes with local inhabitants pretending to be cannibals. The couple refused.

Landing on Malekula, the Johnsons encountered a group of islanders. As Martin filmed the scene, the natives beckoned the couple forward. The crew of their boat refused to follow. In a jungle clearing, the Johnsons were confronted by Nagapate, the local cannibal chief. After attempting to bribe Nagapate with trade goods, Osa was seized. A struggle ensued, in which the couple made a hasty escape, pursued by shrieking warriors. Martin managed to shoot his entire stock of film. Wrote Osa:

At no time since Martin and I started our adventures together can I remember anything to exceed the anxiety we felt over our exposed film.… Light in the tropics offered problems not found in the temperate zones, and what we had—or didn't have—we couldn't possibly know.

The footage was successfully developed in Australia. Upon their return to the United States, the couple presented Captured by Cannibals to astonished audiences. The proceeds of the film allowed them to outfit their next expedition.

The Johnsons returned to the Solomon Islands in 1914, intent on producing a complete film record of the cannibals of Malekula. This time they landed on Malekula with a trustworthy party of armed men. Perhaps awed by this display of force, Chief Nagapate was cooperative, not to mention considerably charmed by Osa Johnson. She remembered that "every day he laid gifts of wild fruit, coconuts and yams at the door of the hut.… He followed me about … and I grew increasingly uneasy." The Johnsons shot thousands of feet of film, then sold the rights to Cannibals of the South Seas to the Robertson-Cole Company. The film opened to capacity audiences on Broadway. The company also agreed to finance a film on the head hunters of Borneo.

Between 1917 and 1919, the Johnsons traversed the interior of Borneo, filming the natives. So concerned were British officials with Osa's safety that they insisted a police escort, an interpreter, and a government launch travel with the couple. Martin Johnson began the expedition by filming the indigenous wildlife of Borneo. As occurred on many occasions, animals, this time water buffaloes, took exception to their presence and charged the party. Wrote Osa:

Frightened at what seemed the certain destruction of our one and only motion picture camera, and with it the end of our expedition … I let out a scream that for noise and shrillness must have been startling indeed, for the lead buffalo threw up his head and swerved off, the rest of the herd following him.

The Johnsons also captured the activities of local villagers on film. The inhabitants demonstrated the use of blowguns and the parang, a machete-like weapon upon which hung the scalps of their victims.

During the 1920s, the couple's interests focused increasingly on Africa. When they arrived in Kenya in 1921, Nairobi came as a surprise. Osa remembered their first sight of the Kenyan capital fondly:

For no reason I can think of I had expected to see a somewhat squalid tropical village

such as we had found in the South Seas, and I was totally unprepared for the clean, white, modern city it proved to be. Our taxi took us smoothly over paved streets flanked by office buildings and department stores and let us out at a hotel.

The Johnsons quickly adapted to life in Africa. Both learned how to hunt. Osa, however, proved the more adept of the two and became a crack shot. She was soon providing security for her husband as he filmed the wildlife of the African plains. On numerous occasions, she saved his life. She also became an accomplished hunter. During their first year in Kenya, Martin perfected the use of blinds for wildlife photography.

At the suggestion of game warden Blaney Percival, the couple set off to explore an uncharted lake in the north. On their journey, they passed Mount Kenya, rising majestically out of the plains, and photographed their first rhinos and lions.

Against all odds, the Johnsons found the lake. Every conceivable animal could be found at the water's edge. "It's paradise," Osa remarked, while standing on a hilltop. And so the lake received its name. After pitching camp, they set to work. The Johnsons stayed at Lake Paradise for three months, during which they shot thousands of feet of film. Their financial resources exhausted, the couple returned to Nairobi.

Martin conceived an ambitious plan to spend the next four years at Lake Paradise, recording the vanishing wildlife of Africa. However, the couple were in no financial position to raise the necessary funds. In 1922, they returned to the U.S. and sought out George Eastman, founder of the Eastman-Kodak Company. After some discussion, the industrialist agreed to invest $10,000 in the scheme. The Johnsons also secured the sponsorship of the American Museum of Natural History.

On December 1, 1923, they set sail for Africa once more. By the spring of 1924, with the help of native labor, the Johnsons began construction on their compound at Lake Paradise, assembling several out-buildings, including a modern photographic laboratory. Osa went to great lengths to make their new home as comfortable as possible; the results were surprisingly pleasant, she recalled:

Our living room was fourteen by seventeen feet, with a big screened veranda across the front, and our bedroom, fifteen feet square, boasted a large pink stucco bathroom which opened off the end wall. I was delighted to find the clay which gave us this delicate shade. In no time at all, of course, I had put frilled sash curtains at all the windows.

In due course, Osa added a bountiful garden and discovered that asparagus, spinach, black cranberries, coffee, and mushrooms grew wild in the surrounding forest.

The couple settled into a regular routine, completing their documentary record of the area's wildlife. As Osa explained:

During the rains, when water was available on desert and plain, we could be found there in our blinds, photographing gazelle, antelope, giraffe, zebra, wart-hog and lion. During the drier weather, we divided our time among the numerous waterholes and the forests about Lake Paradise where steadily we built up a film record of the buffalo, rhino and, most important of all, the elephant.

The Johnsons were not completely isolated. In 1925, they received a visit from the duke and duchess of York (Elizabeth Bowes Lyon ). The royal couple, having seen several of the Johnsons' films, was anxious to meet them. The duke, later George VI, was especially intrigued by the Johnsons' photographic equipment. Martin attempted to give the future king a crash course in filmmaking; a year later, Osa received a letter from the duke informing her that he had purchased several cameras and was attempting to master them. The royal couple was equally impressed by Osa and Martin Johnson's ambitious project to develop a film library of African wildlife.

No sooner had the duke and duchess taken their leave than a message appeared announcing the imminent arrival of George Eastman and Daniel Pomeroy of the American Museum of Natural Science. Pomeroy, the curator of the African Hall, announced his intention of completing the museum's collection of African animals. As Osa was given the task of filling out the institution's impala collection, her skill as a hunter came in handy. The visit was an unqualified success, with Eastman spending much of his time experimenting with his newly developed 16mm cine camera. The Johnsons then undertook a film study of lions. Deciding that Nairobi was better suited as a base than Lake Paradise, they rented a large house on the outskirts of the city.

On May 16, 1927, the couple arrived in New York City and began to edit their lion footage into separate versions for commercial and institutional release. While there, they were offered several lucrative personal-appearance contracts but declined them all. Instead, the Johnsons decided to return to Africa in the company of Eastman. The 75-year-old industrialist was in failing health, and his fondest wish was to visit the continent once more.

After spending several months with Eastman, the couple traveled to the Serengeti Plains to photograph more lions, using night photography to round out their film record. Osa explained the technique:

The method followed was to set four flash lamps on firmly planted poles about six feet above the ground, then fasten the cameras securely to solid platforms three feet in front of and below each lamp. These were connected with dry batteries and controlled by a long "firing" wire. The cameras, especially made for the purpose, took pictures automatically at a speed of one-three-hundredths of a second when the light from the flash was at its maximum.

In 1929, the Johnsons were joined in Africa by a sound crew. Their film Simba had just been released in the U.S. to popular acclaim. The first wildlife filmmakers to employ sound in their productions, the Johnsons produced a film on gorillas, Congorilla, shot in the Belgian Congo.

Back in the U.S., the couple purchased two Sikorsky monoplanes, which they christened Osa's Ark and Spirit of Africa, and became licensed pilots. Sailing to Cape Town, South Africa, they landed on January 23, 1933, along with their disassembled aircraft. They then flew Osa's Ark and Spirit of Africa to Kenya and built an aircraft hangar in Nairobi. The use of airplanes gave Osa Johnson undreamt-of freedom:

Mountains, jungle, plain, were a vast panorama beneath us; great elephant migrations, herds of thousands, also flocks of white herons and countless giraffe and plains game were spotted one moment from the air and the next moment were being recorded by our cameras. We were able to land in ordinarily inaccessible places where white men had never been, and here saw natives of strange, remote tribes.

Because of Osa's health, the Johnsons' stay in Africa was cut short, and they returned to America. After Osa's release from a hospital, the couple undertook a series of speaking engagements. Disaster struck on January 13, 1937. On a return flight from a speaking engagement in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Western Air Express plane they were traveling on crashed near Los Angeles. Martin was killed and Osa, along with 11 others, was injured.

In later years, Osa Johnson maintained a busy schedule: she designed toy animals for the National Wildlife Federation, published several children's books, and assumed the presidency of Martin Johnson Pictures, the couple's production company. In 1938, she led an expedition through East Africa to obtain footage for 20th Century-Fox's production of Stanley and Livingstone, a film that starred Spencer Tracy.

Two years after Martin's death, she married Clark Getts, but the union lasted only a decade. Despite a heart condition, Osa Johnson displayed an irrepressible wanderlust. She considered "everything in the city so artificial" and was planning another expedition to Africa just before she died in New York City on January 7, 1953.

Although the films of Osa and Martin Johnson provided a glimpse into worlds previously unknown to their audience, they betrayed a distinctly eurocentric point of view, which marks them as both quaint and dated. The films she and her husband produced neither sought to seriously interpret the cultures or the animals they recorded, nor did they attempt any profound anthropological or environmental analysis. As Donald Pickens noted, Osa Johnson's contribution to exploration was "explaining exotic places to a mass audience. She did not challenge the cultural and racial assumptions of her day. Guides and porters remained 'black boys,' and her Africa was nearly identical to Hollywood's." The Johnsons were first and foremost popularizers of the nature and travelogue genre of filmmaking. Even so, Osa and Martin Johnson pioneered the use of sound recordings and aerial photography in documentary film production. Many museums screened their films, and the Johnsons were popular staples of the lecture circuit.