NONFICTION - May 23, 1993

THEY MARRIED ADVENTURE: The Wandering Lives of Martin & Osa Johnson by Pascal James Imperato and Eleanor M. Imperato (Rutgers University Press: $27.95; 298 pp.) Martin Johnson and his wife, Osa, are neglected figures today, but they were renowned in the ‘20s and ‘30s for their half-Hollywood, half-documentary films of people and wildlife in exotic lands. “An idle, mischievous wastrel”--that’s what a high school principal called Martin Johnson in 1901 after expelling him for producing montage photographs of faculty members in compromising poses. This contemporary description wasn’t inaccurate, according to Johnson’s biographers Pascal and Eleanor Imperato, but there’s much irony in the fact that the young photographer’s skill, however unappreciated at school, would bring him worldwide fame as an adult. Martin’s big break came when Jack London agreed to take him along, as cook, during his sailing adventures in the South Seas aboard the Snark. Osa’s came when Martin recognized how much she could contribute to his films, whether on-screen as a visual interpreter, off-screen as a safari manager or behind the scenes as a crack shot bringing down charging elephants. The writing in “They Married Adventure” is undistinguished and repetitive, yet the Johnson’s many adventures can’t help but hold the reader’s attention. “They Married Adventure” won’t become a No. 1 bestseller--as did Osa’s “I Married Adventure” in 1940, three years after Martin’s death in a plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains--but it’s a good introduction to a trail-blazing couple.