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.
Tales of the South Pacific "Our Heroine", about Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque. Characters from other stories, such as Bill Harbison, Bus Adams, and Luther Billis, play minor or supporting roles. Some of the characters from the stories were merged and simplified to serve the format of the musical. For example, the coastwatcher in the musical is an American Marine (Lt. Cable) assisted by an expatriate French plantation owner (Emile de Becque). In Michener's short story "The Cave" the coastwatcher is an English expatriate assisted by native islanders, and is a disembodied voice on a short-wave radio identifying himself only as "The Remittance Man".