Oct 3, 2022
This week on SUDDENLY, an
unbelievable true story. At age 19, Estonian-Australian immigrant
Peeter Pedaja had his life changed by a Frank Sinatra film, THE
KISSING BANDIT (1948). You will NEVER guess where this is
going.
Born in 1931, Pedaja spent his entire Estonian
childhood on the run from occupying Germans and Russians, including
an exhaustive three-and-a-half year search for his lost family. He
migrated to Australia by 18 and began hitch-hiking around the
country - once riding a bicycle from Perth to Melbourne in summer,
another time walking almost 300km in three days to win a bet.
At age 19, he saw THE KISSING BANDIT and was inspired.
Brandishing a toy water pistol, he managed to hijack a motorcycle
then hold up a couple in a car before being promptly arrested.
“(Sinatra’s character) in the film never meant to do anything bad
and I didn’t either”, he told the court. “I’ve been honest all my
life and always will be.” He got off with a suspended sentence -
and became known in Australia as “The Kissing Bandit in Real
Life.”
And his adventures were just beginning.
In 1957, he turned up in Darwin having constructed a boat out of
oil drums. Oil drum sea travel had become an obsession. Despite
warnings that the craft was unseaworthy, he was absolutely
determined to cross the Timor Sea and arrive in Indonesia. As he
set off, nobody expected him to even survive the trip...
THE KISSING BANDIT is universally agreed to be the worst ever
Sinatra film, so we got podcasting legend Tim Batt from The Worst
Idea of All Time to join us for this episode. But it turned out
that all this was just beneath the surface - and maybe it had
something to do with the Worst Idea after all.
How this incredible story became lost to history is unclear. But
you’ll hear all about it, for the first time in almost 50 years, on
this week’s SUDDENLY.
Voice acting cast for this episode: Pete Rush as Peeter Pedaja,
Lewis Worthington as Gregory Black, Henry Giardina as Capt. Peter
Petersen, Spike Vincent as Capt. H.I. Phillips and Sue Marsh as
Rosalie Pedaja.
Peeter Pedaja (sometimes spelt Peter Pedaja, alias Stanley Lexton)
was born on August 24th, 1931 in Talllinn, Estonia to Rosalie and
Johannes Pedaja, and died on October 17th, 1985 in Melbourne,
Australia. If you know any more about his amazing life, we would
love to hear from you.
UPDATE: Since the recording of this episode, I've since learned I
was mispronouncing his surname. It's "pe-DAI-ya." I looked all over
the internet for someone pronouncing it and went by what Google
Translate told me, but that turned out to be wrong - sorry!
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