Tales of the South Pacific He is never seen by the other characters in Michener's short story until a search-and-rescue party finds his head impaled on a stake. The character of Emile de Becque in Michener's short story has eight mixed-race illegitimate daughters by four different women, none of whom he married, when he meets the nurse Ensign Nellie Forbush; in the musical, he has two legitimate mixed-race children by a Polynesian woman whom he had married and who had died. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" was made into a feature film in 1958. It was adapted as a made-for television film 2001.
Nellie Zabel Willhite Nellie Zabel Willhite Eleanor "Nellie" Zabel Willhite (Born November 22, 1892 in Box Elder, South Dakota – September 2, 1991) was the first deaf woman to earn a pilot’s license, as well as South Dakota’s first female pilot. Willhite became deaf at age two due to measles. She earned her pilot's license in 1928. She was a founding member of the Ninety-Nines, an organization which was founded in 1929 with 99 female pilots as founding members, and is dedicated to the advancement of aviation and support for women in aviation. Willhite started the first South Dakota chapter of the Ninety-Nines