Johnson, Osa, 1894-1953

Osa Johnson (March 14, 1894 – January 7, 1953) was an American adventurer and documentary filmmaker with her spouse Martin Johnson. In the first half of the 20th century the couple captured the public's imagination through their films and books of adventure in exotic, faraway lands. Photographers, explorers, marketers, naturalists and authors, Martin and Osa studied the wildlife and peoples of East and Central Africa, the South Pacific Islands and British North Borneo. They explored then-unknown lands and brought back film footage and photographs, offering many Americans their first understanding of these distant lands. Osa Leighty was born on March 14, 1894, and raised in Chanute, Kansas. In 1917, Martin and Osa departed on a nine-month trip through the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and the Solomon Islands. The highlight of the trip was a brief, but harrowing, encounter with a tribe called the Big Nambas of northern Malekula. Once there, the chief was not going to let them leave. The intervention of a British gunboat helped them escape. The footage they got there inspired the feature film Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Seas (1918).