American novelist and writer of adventure and travel books. Charles Nordhoff wrote with his friend James Norman Hall a three-volume novel about the famous eighteenth-century mutiny, in which the crew of the H.M.S. Bounty, a British war vessel, arose against their cruel commander, Captain William Bligh.  The story of Bligh and Fletcher Christian,  the mutineer on the Bounty,  has been adapted for screen in 1935, 1962, and 1984.

"Never, perhaps, in the history of the sea has a captain performed a feat more remarkable than Mr. Bligh's, in navigating a small, open, and unarmed boat-but twenty-three long, and so heavily laden that she was in constant danger of foundering-from the Friendly Islands to Timor, a distance of three thousand, six hundred miles, through groups of islands inhabited ferocious savages, and across a vast uncharted ocean." (in Men Against Sea by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, Boston: Little, Brown and Compny, forty-first printing 1962, p. 6; originally published in 1933)

Charles Nordhoff was born in London, England, of American parents, the son of Walter Nordhoff, and Sarah Cope (Whitall) Nordhoff, who came from an old Philadelphia Quaker family. Nordhoff's grandfather, a Prussian immigrant,  had been a journalist and an author during the Civil War period. A firm believer in the American Dream, he regarded the sunny Southern California as his utopia. Walter was a businessman, who published a novel, The Journey of the Flame (1933),  under the pseudonym Antonio de Fierro Blanco.

In his early childhood Nordhoff moved with his family to the United States. Most of his youth Nordhoff spent on his father's ranch near Ensenada, Baja California. (The drought-prone ranch was never a success.) At the age of fifteen Nordhoff published his first article in a ornithological journal. He attended Stanford University for a year, but transferred to Harvard University, receiving his B.A. in 1909.

Between 1909-11, Nordhoff worked on his father's sugar plantation in Mexico. From 1911 to 1916 he was a secretary and a treasurer at the Tile and Fine Brick Company in California. During WW I he served as an ambulance driver in France. Later after pilot training – it took for approximately three months to earn the military pilot's license –Nordhoff was sent to the front for duty with Escadrille N.99. His flying gear consisted of leather jacket, pants, gloves, goggles, and crash helmet.

At the end of the war Nordhoff was commissioned First Lieutenant in the United States Air Service in Paris. For his military services Nordhoff was awarded the Croix de Guerre. While serving in France, he published a series of articles, 'Letters from the Front,' in the Atlantic Monthly. Nordhoff's reminiscences about the Field Service was collected in a book titled The Fledgling (1919).

Nordhoff and James Norman Hall met after the Armistice of 1918 in Paris, at U.S. Aviation Headquarters. Hall's first impression was quite negative, Nordhoff struck him as being stiff, overbearing, and cold. (James Norman Hall by Robert Roulston, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978, p. 34) Moreover: "The fact that I was from Iowa was anything but in my favor with Nordhoff," recalled Hall, "although his only comment when he learned this was his state, California, was "lousy with Iowans." (The Atlantic,  December 1952 Issue)

They were assigned to write a book, a compilation of facts, and sketches and reminiscences by the members of the Escadrille Lafayette and the Lafayette Flying Corps. Originally the two-volume history was initiated by Edmund L. Gros, an American doctor practicing in Paris and chief of the Liaison Section, United States Air Service. He hired  the writers to edit a stack of personal and official documents. Gros had also helped to form the flying unit and suggested the name Escadrille Lafayette which replaced the previous Escadrille des Voluntaires. Most of their writing Nordhoff and Hall did on Martha's Vineyard. Edgar Hamilton assisted them with the research. "Of all the American volunteers in the French Air Service, no one had an experience more disappointing to himself than Edgar Hamilton. After receiving his military brevet at Avord, he was made a monitrur there . . . the war made this position of Hamilton's a permanent one.  . . . He stuck to his job and he did it well, and all his friends who know the real bitterness of his disappointment, admire and honor him for it." (The Lafayette Flying Corps: Volume I, edited by James Norman Hall & Charles Bernard Nordhoff, associate editor Edgar G. Hamilton, Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920, p. 259)

When Nordhoff and Hall received an advance from Harper's to write travel articles about the South Seas, Hall set off for the Tuamotu Archipelago and Nordhoff for the Cook Islands. Enthralled by the beauty of the Pacific they said in Faery Lands of the South Seas (1921) that"one can't be wholly matter of fact in writing of these islands. They are not real in the ordinary sense, but belong, rather, to the realm of the imagination." Hall returned to the United States for a period, but remaining in Tahiti, Nordhoff married in December 1920 Christianne Vahine Tua Tearae Smidt; they had four daughters and two sons. 

"I never met Nordhoff and am not sure he was living in Tahiti during my various trips, and, except for that terse comment about name order, I never heard Hall speak about him; I judged that he was fed up with visitors who wanted to discuss aspects of their collaboration, one of the most famous in history." (James Michener, in The World Is My Home: A Memoir, New York: Random House, 1992, pp. 58-59)

On his own, Nordhoff published three novels in the 1920s. Picarò (1924) was based on his flying experience and life in Paris. He received a sizable advance for The Pearl Lagoon (1924), a boys' book; it sold well. The Derelict (1928), which featured the same boy hero, Charles Selden, was again furnished with semi-autobiographical details. Will Cuppy considerd it a "superior adventure." "He worked in the morning from seven to to twelve; then, after lunch, from the dock out in front of his house, he took his thirty-six-foot cabin cruiser out to the reef . . . At dusk, Vahine would plant two native torches on the beach, and light them to mark for her husband the way through the pass into the lagoon, and home with his catch." (In Search of Paradise: The Nordhoff-Hall Story by Pauk L. Briand, Jr., New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1966, p. 312)

Falcons of France (1929) was jointly written by Nordhoff and Hall. They often met at the hotel Aina Paré in Papeete, to discuss their work and have some Scotch. At Hall's suggestion the Nordhoff-Hall team began to work on Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), about Captain William Bligh, and the charismatic Fletcher Christian, second-in-command of the vessel. The manuscript was completed in the hotel, their headquarters.

The story was based upon factual events which had been almost forgotten, although John Barrow had released in 1831 an account of the mutiny, entitled The Mutiny & Piratical Seizure of H.M.S.Bounty, which included the journal of James Morrison, the Boatswain's Mate of the Bounty. Morrison published his journal in England, to defend the mutineers. According to a popular belief, Bligh's inhumanity turned out to be more than the usual tyranny of the captain, but the official Bounty logbook shows, that  he did not use the whip often on his men.

The authors decided to put a fictional Captain Roger Byam in the role of the narrator; in part the character was based on Peter Heywood. He had been a midshipman on the Bounty when the ship proceeded upon orders to collect a cargo of breadfruit trees from Tahiti for an experimental transplantion in the West Indies. On the morning of April 28, 1789, the mutiny broke out near the present-day Tonga. Lieutenat Bligh was set adrift in the ship's launch. "I'll take my chances against the law," says Clark Gable (Christian) to Charles Laughton (Bligh) in the 1935 film, "you'll take yours against the sea." The second part, Men against the Sea (1933), focused on Bligh and his eighteen loyalists, and their 3,618-mile safe return on an open longboat from the island of Tofoa to Timor, in the Dutch East Indies. Pitcairn's Island (1934) recounted Christian's journey to an uncharted Pacific island and the later history of the crew members. The last of them were finally discovered in 1808, living peacefully on the island now inhabitated by their descendants. Nordhoff did not visit the island, but Hall made a voyage there in 1933.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) is an entertaining adventure film, starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable."Casting me adrift 3,500 miles from a port of call. You're sending me to my doom, eh? Well, you're wrong, Christian. I'll take this boat, as she floats, to England if I must. I'll live to see you, all of you, hanging from the highest yardarm in the British fleet!" (Charles Laughton as Bligh). Oscar winner for Best Picture; it is also considered one of Gable's best performances. However, the actor had many problems - he had to shave off his mustache and wear wigs and knickers. Laughton obtained exact copies of naval uniforms from Bligh's own surviving London tailor shop. Most of the filming was made off Santa Catalina Island, but much background footage was shot in Tahitian villages. The ships were copies of the original pair, the HMS Bounty and HMS Pandora. Movita Castaneda, who played the chief's daughter  romantically attached to Gable, was later married to Marlon Brando, starring as Christian in the 1962 remake, Mutiny on the Bounty. This was a troubled project, in which Lewis Milestone replaced Carol Reed - scenes also reputedly shot by Andrew Marton, George Seaton, Richard Thorpe, Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann. However, also this adaptation has its good moments. To create good relationships between the Navy and Pacific natives Trevor Howard tells Brando to make love to Chief Hitihiti's daughter. Brando asks "Is that an order, sir? Might I have it entered in a log?" and continues tongue-in-cheek: "You see, it is a rather different thing than being asked to fight for one's country." The film ends in Brando's overlong death scene. - The Bounty (1984), directed by Roger Donaldson,  starring Anthony Hopkins as Bligh and Mel Gibson as Christian. William Bligh is summoned before a court martial to explain the events leading up to the mutiny. Spectacular score by Bronislau Kaper. This production did not have much to do with the Nordhoff-Hall books. "A steel-hulled boat cost $4 million to convert into an exact replica of the ninety-foot HMS Bounty. Among thousands of Tahitian extras employed, many of the otherwise beautiful women had had bad teeth or none, so new dentures numbered among the many location expenses; after a day's work, the teeth were collected to insure the women's return to the next day (they finally got to keep them)." (Retakes: Behind the Scenes of 500 Classic Moves by John Eastman, New York: Ballantine Books, 1989, p. 43) All these Hollywood productions portrayed Bligh in a negative light. Actually, he was not a sadistic tyrant.

Nordhoff and Hall's novel came out at the height of the Great Depression, and turned out to be a runaway success for its publishers. Set in a different period of history, in an exotic location, Mutiny on the Bounty offered a glimpse into another world, but it also told an uplifting story of survival and a new beginning.  Book-of-the-Month Club subscribers were informed that the writers were "two young Americans, let down and disillusioned by the war in which they were aviators" and they had "left this disturbing civilization." ('HMAV Bounty and the Great Depression,' in The South Seas: A Reception History from Daniel Defoe to Dorothy Lamour by Sean Brawley and Chris Dixon, 2015, p. 222) The Australian historian Greg Dening has estimated that twenty-five million people read the book in the three years following its publication. (Mr Bligh's Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty by Greg Dening, 1992, p. 355) In the United States, the novel benefited significantly from its status as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and serialization in the Saturday Evening Post.

Nordhoff and Hall published six more co-authored novels, although the last three were largely written by Hall. They did not repeat the popularity of the Bounty trilogy. Several of these books were adapted for screen. Hurricane (1936) inspired John Ford's film of 1937, starring Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall. The story was set on the isle of Manikoora, where the evil French colonial governor brutally rules an island paradise, but cannot rule the forces of nature. The climatic hurricane sequence was staged by second-unit director James Basevi with the help of associate director Stuart Heisler. Its special effects were unequalled for decades. Otherwise the production was hampered by phoney studio settings, and the screenwriter Ben Hecht summarized his feelings when he saw its footage: "I think it stinks." Hecht wrote new dialogue scenes that Ford passively shot. The story was remade in 1979. Dino de Laurentiis's production, starring Jason Robards, Mia Farrow, Max von Sydow, and Trevor Howard, was considered by critics a failure. No More Gas (1940), a family story, was filmed in 1942 under the title The Tuttles of Tahiti, and Botany Bay (1941), a historical melodrama, in 1952. Hall and Nordhoff repeated the confrontation between a sadistic captain and his young opponent. This time the action was set on a convict ship. Michael Curtiz's  Passage to Marseille, starring Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains and Michele Morgan, was based on the novelette Men Without Country (1942), about convicts who escape from the prison colony of French Guinea to join the Free French forces. The studio delayed the release of the movie until February of 1944. Peter Lorre played "the worst rogue of the lot," who, nevertheless, dies for the cause. Men Without Country was mostly Hall's work. 

Nordhoff was not a faithful husband and as a revenge, Vahine took a lover. The marriage ended in divorce. Nordhoff then had a Tahitian mistress, Teuria, with whom he had three children in three years, none of whom he legally recognized. (In Search of Paradise: The Nordhoff-Hall Story, pp. 341-345) Nordhoff moved to California where he married in June 1941 Laura Grainger Whiley, an interior decorator. They had met at a coctail party. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Nordhoff gave up plans of returning to Tahiti.

"If I had my life to live over again, I should do the necessary groundwork and become a professional anthropologist," Nordhoff once said. "All my life I have loved shooting, fishing, sailing or traveling through the wild country alone or with a single companion." ('About the Author,' in The Pearl Lagoon by Charles Bernard Nordhoff, 3rd printing, 1960) Following a severe depression and heavy drinking, Nordhoff died on April 10, 1947, apparently by suicide, but it was announced that he had died of a heart attack. There was no autopsy. His body was cremated. Nordhoff left behind an unfinished novel, written in collaboration with Tod Ford.

For further reading: 'HMAV Bounty and the Great Depression,' in The South Seas: A Reception History from Daniel Defoe to Dorothy Lamour by Sean Brawley and Chris Dixon (2015); 'Nordhoff, Charles,' in World Authors 1900-1950, Volume 3, edited by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); Gentlemen Volunteers: The Story of the American Ambulance Drivers in the Great War by Arlen Hansen (1996); 'Nordhoff, Charles,' in Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers, edited by Kay Mussell, Alison Light, Aruna Vasudevan (1994); Mr Bligh's Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty by Greg Dening (1992); In Search of Paradise: The Nordhoff-Hall Story by Pauk L. Briand, Jr. (1966)

Selected works:

• The Lafayette Flying Corps, 1920 (with J.N. Hall)
• Faery Lands of the South Seas, 1921 (with J.N. Hall)
• Picarò, 1924
• The Pearl Lagoon, 1924
• The Delerict, 1928
• Falcons of France, 1929 (with J.N. Hall)
• Mutiny on the Bounty, 1932 (with J.N. Hall; also titled: Mutiny!) - Kapina laivassa (suom Anna Talaskivi, 1936) - Film adaptations: 1935, prod. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), screenplay Talbot Jennings and Jules Furthman, dir.  Frank Loyd, starring Charles Laughton, Clark Gable; 1962, screenplay Charles Lederer, prod. Arcola Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), dir.  Lewis Milestone, starring Trevor Howard, Marlon Brando.
• Men Against Sea, 1933 (with J.N. Hall) - Meren voittajat (suom. T.J. Kivilahti, 1966)
• Pitcairn's Island, 1934 (with J.N. Hall)
• The Hurricane, 1936 (with J.N. Hall) - Myrskyn kourissa (suom. Werner Anttila, 1938) - Film adaptations: 1937, prod. Samuel Goldwyn Company, screenplay Dudley Nichols, adaptation Oliver H.P. Garrett, dir.  John Ford, starring Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, and Raymond Massey; 1979 (TV version retitled Forbidden Paradise) , prod. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Famous Films, dir.  Jan Troell, starring Jason Robards, Mia Farrow, Max von Sydow.
• The Dark River, 1938, (with J.N. Hall)
• No More Gas, 1940 (with J.N. Hall) - Film adaptation: The Tuttles of Tahiti, 1942, prod. Sol Lesser Productions, dir.  Charles Vidor, starring Charles Laughton, Jon Hall, Peggy Drake, Victor Francen. 
• In Yankee Windjammers / I Served in Windjammers, 1940
• Botany Bay, 1941 (with J.N. Hall) - Film adaptation 1952, prod. Paramount Pictures, dir.  John Farrow, screenplay by Jonathan Latimer, starring James Mason, Alan Ladd, Patricia Medina, Cedric Hardwicke.
• Men Without a Country, 1942 (with J.N. Hall) - Film adaptation: Passage to Marseille, 1944, prod. Warner Bros. Pictures, screenplay Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt, dir.  Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Philip Dorn.
• High Barbaree, 1945 (with J.N. Hall) - Film adaptation 1947, prod. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), dir.  Jack Conway, starring Van Johnson, June Allyson, Thomas Mitchell, Marilyn Maxwell.
• The Far Lands, 1950
• Faery Lands of the South Seas, 2001 (with James Norman Hall, introduction by Mike and Carol Resnick, series editors)
  
• Falcons of France, 2011 (Husband Press; first published in 1929)
  
• The Bounty Trilogy, 2022 (Kindle Edition)