Hero of the Month: Kamuela C. Searle
Rumors have persisted to this day about the injury Kamuela C. Searle sustained on the set of Son of Tarzan (1920) and whether or not he actually died from them. A native of Hawaii, he supposedly met Cecil B. Demille on the beach in 1915 and was told by the great man to head to Hollywood. Before doing that Searle enlisted in the Army during WWI, where he was injured in France and shipped back home.
Arriving in Hollywood, Searle made his screen debut with a small part in Demille’s Male and Female (1919). He followed it up playing a seaman in The Sea Wolf (1920). Then came his big break, playing Korak, the title character in National Film Company’s serial adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Son of Tarzan (1920). During the filming of the penultimate moment in the final chapter, Searle was injured by an elephant that picked him up while he was tied to a stake, the severity of it never being fully documented.
Searle’s last film was another small role for Demille in Fool’s Paradise (1921). Searle left acting to pursue an artistic career, painting and sculpting. Sadly he died just a few years later in 1924 from cancer.
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