Tall Ships Queen Kathleen Merryman received this fun e-mail today from Tacoma resident Michael McSweeney.

My father was the Oscar nominated film editor of Mutiny on the Bounty back in the early 60’s.

We were overjoyed when we found out that the ship, H.M.S. Bounty, was coming for the Tall Ships Festival.

The ship, and the movie, meant a great deal to my father, who died in 1999. He spent eleven months in Tahiti shooting the picture back in 1961 and we grew up hearing tales of Marlon Brando’s and Richard Harris’ antics on and off the set.

We boarded the Bounty early Sunday morning and decided it would be fun to recreate an old MGM publicity photo taken on the Bounty in 1961 of my dad with the director.

Here is a picture of my son, Patrick, and I on the ship taken on July 6, 2008.

Below is the MGM Studios publicity shot of director Lewis Milestone and my dad, Jack McSweeney, sitting on the exact spot on the ship in Tahiti in 1961.

We even got Adam, a Bounty crew member, to play along.

I had the good fortune of interviewing Harry Hilliard last month for a story about the renovation of the old Balfour Dock building on Tacoma's waterfront.

Hilliard, known to most of his friends simply as Harry "The Horse," died in his sleep two weeks later at age 88.

I spoke with Harry because he once worked at the Balfour building, before it fell into disrepair. He was happy to see it's re-birth.

Standing beside his friend Ron Magden on the esplanade outside, Harry described what it was like working on the docks in the days before the "containerization" of the port.

And he gave me a brief version of his life story, which included being orphaned at age 5, and surviving the bombing of a ship he worked on during World War II. (He was in a London pub at the time of the attack.)

His obituary, published in today's paper, offers more details of his colorful life.

I was surprised and honored to read this:

On June 21, 2008 The News Tribune featured Harry on page 1. Harry was very proud of that article. In fact he considered it the summation of his life.

I wish now that I had the chance to talk more with Harry. But I'm pleased that I had the opportunity to meet him even for a brief time. He gave me a glimpse into Tacoma's history -- and the life of a remarkable man.