{"id":22704,"date":"2021-04-22T16:16:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T21:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=22704"},"modified":"2021-04-22T16:16:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T21:16:55","slug":"obit-watch-april-22-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=22704","title":{"rendered":"Obit watch: April 22, 2021."},"content":{"rendered":"

Tempest Storm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I went back and forth on posting this, even though Lawrence<\/a> sent me the obit from the Las Vegas paper. But what pushed me into posting this was that the NYT<\/strong> obit was from Margalit Fox, and she clearly had some fun writing it.<\/p>\n

Routinely named in the same ardent breath as the great 20th-century ecdysiasts Lili St. Cyr, Blaze Starr and Gypsy Rose Lee, Ms. Storm was every inch as ecdysiastical as they, and for far longer. Almost certainly the last of her ilk, she was, at her height in the 1950s and early \u201960s, famous the world over, as celebrated for her flame-red tresses as for her vaunted 40-inch bust.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

Playing burlesque stages in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Bay Area, London and elsewhere, she was reported to earn $100,000 a year in the mid-1950s (the equivalent of about $950,000 today). Her breasts were said to be insured with Lloyd\u2019s of London for $1 million. \u201cTempest in a D-Cup,\u201d the headlines called her; \u201cThe Girl Who Goes 3-D Two Better.\u201d<\/a>
\nVisiting the University of Colorado in 1955, Ms. Storm precipitated a riot among eager male students that caused hundreds of dollars\u2019 worth of damage \u2014 by doing nothing more than removing her mink coat.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

Along the way she acquired four husbands and many lovers, among whom she said were John F. Kennedy (\u201cHe was a great man in everything he did,\u201d she said) and Elvis Presley (\u201cHe really was the King\u201d), while losing, night after night, her mink, gloves, gown, pearls and hat \u2014 though retaining her G-string and fishnet bra, and with them her virtue.<\/a>
\n\u201cI think taking off all your clothes \u2014 and I\u2019ve never taken off all my clothes \u2014 is not only immoral but boring,\u201d Ms. Storm told The Wall Street Journal in 1969. \u201cThere has to be something left to the imagination. If you take everything off, you please a few morons and chase all the nice people away.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Peter Warner<\/a>, sailor. You probably never heard of him, but his story is fascinating.<\/p>\n

Especially the part about the shipwrecked boys.<\/p>\n

The story of the 1966 rescue, which made Mr. Warner a celebrity in Australia, began during a return sail from Nuku\u2019alofa, the capital of Tonga, where he and his crew had unsuccessfully requested the right to fish in the country\u2019s waters. Casually casting his binoculars at a nearby uninhabited island, \u2018Ata, he noticed a burned patch of ground.<\/a>
\n\u201cI thought, that\u2019s strange that a fire should start in the tropics on an uninhabited island,\u201d he said in a 2020 video interview. \u201cSo we decided to investigate further.\u201d<\/a>
\nAs they approached, they saw a naked teenage boy rushing into the water toward them; five more quickly followed. Recalling that some island nations imprisoned convicts on islands like \u2018Ata, he told his crew to load their rifles.<\/a>
\nBut when the boy, Tevita Fatai Latu, who also went by the name Stephen, reached the boat, he told Mr. Warner that he and his friends had been stranded for more than a year, living off the land and trying to signal for help from passing ships.<\/a>
\nMr. Warner, still skeptical, radioed Nuku\u2019alofa.<\/a>
\n\u201cAfter 20 minutes,\u201d he said, \u201ca very tearful operator came on the radio, and then amongst tears he said: \u2018It\u2019s true. These boys had been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. And now you have found them.\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The boys had been shipwrecked for 15 months.<\/p>\n

At first the boys lived off raw fish, coconuts and birds\u2019 eggs. After about three months, they found the ruins of a village, and their fortunes improved \u2014 among the rubble they discovered a machete, domesticated taro plants and a flock of chickens descended from the ones left behind by the previous inhabitants. They also managed to start a fire, which they kept burning for the rest of their stay.<\/a>
\nThey built a makeshift settlement, with a thatched-roof hut, a garden and, for recreation, a badminton court and an open-air gymnasium, complete with a bench press. One of the boys, Kolo Fekitoa, fashioned a guitar out of debris from the boat, and they began and ended every day with songs and prayer.<\/a>
\nThey established a strict duty roster, rotating among resting, gathering food and watching for ships. If a fight broke out, the antagonists had to walk to opposite ends of the island and return, ideally having cooled off. When Stephen broke his leg, the others fashioned a splint; his leg healed perfectly.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Warner was 90.<\/p>\n

His death was confirmed by his daughter Janet Warner, who said he had been swept overboard by a rogue wave while sailing near the mouth of the Richmond River, an area he had known for decades. A companion on the boat, who was also knocked into the water, pulled Mr. Warner to shore, but attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the record, NYT<\/strong> obits for Felix Silla<\/a> and Richard Rush<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tempest Storm. I went back and forth on posting this, even though Lawrence sent me the obit from the Las Vegas paper. But what pushed me into posting this was that the NYT obit was from Margalit Fox, and she clearly had some fun writing it. Routinely named in the same ardent breath as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,31,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boats","category-movies","category-obits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22706,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704\/revisions\/22706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}