biography
| name: |
Johnson, Martin (Elmer)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1884–1937)
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| biography:
| Photographic explorer and lecturer, born in Rockford, Illinois. Drawn to travel as a youth, he took up photography and was engaged by Jack London to sail on the Snark cruise that ended abruptly with London's illness (1907–9). On his return to the USA, he opened a theatre in Independence, IL, where he showed pictures of his trip as he lectured. Osa Leighty (1894–1953), born in Chanute, Kansas, USA, met him after attending such a show, and they were married in 1910. They soon began the travels that took them to the South Pacific and Africa, where they photographed the native peoples and wildlife. They took up flying, and were the first people to fly over Africa's Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya and to photograph them from the air. The Johnsons produced some 20 motion pictures to accompany the lectures they gave throughout the USA. Although nothing more than travelogues and lacking sophistication in everything from anthropology to zoology, the films did provide many Americans with their first view of these exotic places. Martin died in an aeroplane crash in Los Angeles. Osa then visited Africa (1938) and wrote a best-selling account of their lives, I Married Adventure (1940), and many children's books, including Osa Johnson's Jungle Friends (1939). She married again (1939) but was divorced, and she retained her fascination with Africa to the end. |
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