On my first trip to Tahiti, I was kissed by the wife of a Bounty mutineer. Or rather, by the actress who portrayed her in the 1962 Hollywood remake of Mutiny on the Bounty. It happened at the airport in Papeete in 1976, where, as I waited to board my flight back home to the United States, a mutual friend introduced me to Tarita Teri‘ipaia, a willowy beauty from Bora Bora. In the movie, Tarita played Maimiti, the Tahitian lover of the mutiny’s leader, Fletcher Christian. Now, she was waiting for the arrival of her former husband and costar Marlon Brando, who was flying in from the Philippines after filming his scenes for Apocalypse Now.
Greeting me with a soft “Ia ora na,” Tarita leaned in and kissed me twice on the cheeks. And I believe it was at that moment that my love affair with Polynesia became a lifelong obsession.
I have since returned to the region many times — I’m now on my 15th visit to Tahiti, the largest mutineers found refuge in 1790.
