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“Legendary waterman” Tamayo Perry killed in shark attack while surfing off Oahu in Hawaii
An accomplished surfer and occasional actor died after sustaining fatal injuries in a shark attack off the island of Oahu in Hawaii, authorities said. Tamayo Perry, 49, was also a professional lifeguard for City and County of Honolulu Ocean Safety.
Perry was attacked while he was surfing near Goat Island on Sunday afternoon, Shayne Enright of the Honolulu Emergency Services Department said Sunday at a news conference that was streamed by CBS affiliate Hawaii News Now.
Honolulu Ocean Safety and the city’s fire, police and emergency medical services departments responded to Mālaekahana Beach on Oahu’s North Shore just before 1 p.m. after a caller reported seeing a surfer who appeared to have suffered shark bites and was fatally injured, Enright said.
Lifeguards brought Perry to shore by jet ski and paramedics assisted with the death pronouncement, Enright said.
Perry, who worked as a lifeguard on the North Shore, began his career with the Ocean Safety department in July 2016, Enright said.
Ocean Safety personnel posted shark warnings in the area following the attack, Enright said.
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Honolulu Ocean Safety Acting Chief Kurt Lager, also speaking at the news conference, said Perry was “a lifeguard loved by all.”
“He’s well known on the North Shore. He’s a professional surfer known worldwide,” said Lager. “Tamayo’s personality was infectious, and as much as people loved him, he loved everyone else more.”
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi echoed those sentiments, describing Perry as a “legendary waterman” who was highly-respected. He called the death “a tragic loss.”
Perry initially made a name for himself in Hawaii and beyond in the early 2000s, when fellow athletes began to take note of his distinctive skills, particularly when it came to free surfing the North Shore pipeline, Surfer Magazine reported after his death. He went on to forge a career in Hollywood, making appearances in the film “Blue Crush” in 2002 and the fourth installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise in 2011. Perry also appeared in a 2011 episode of the TV series “Hawaii Five-O.”
John Sullivan, an actor who worked with Perry on an episode of “Hawaii Five-O,” called Perry the “nicest guy on Oahu.”
“He broadcasted positivity wherever he went,” Sullivan told CBS News on Monday.
Deadly shark attacks doubled in 2023 compared with the previous year, according to the International Shark Attack File, a database that keeps track of shark attacks reported around the world. One of the two fatal incidents reported in the U.S. last year happened in Hawaii, although shark attacks overall occurred most frequently in Florida.
Officials warned people in both Florida and Hawaii to remain alert earlier this summer after a series of shark attacks happened in both states on the same day, CBS News national correspondent Manuel Bojorquez reported. In Florida, two teenagers and a woman were attacked by sharks in separate incidents that took place several miles from each other along a stretch of the Florida Panhandle. Meanwhile, in Hawaii, a woman was seriously injured in a shark attack off the coast of Oahu.
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Beryl, the second tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, took shape Friday as it barreled its way toward the Caribbean.
Beryl was expected to strengthen into a hurricane as it approached the Windward Islands in the West Indies, the National Hurricane Center reported in its latest advisory late Friday night.
Beryl was centered about 1,110 miles southeast of Barbados, the hurricane center said, with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour and tropical storm-force winds extending 45 miles from its center. It was moving west at 18 mph.
The system was expected to hit the Windward Islands by late Sunday or Monday, and was forecast to bring anything from 3 to 6 inches of rain to the Windward Islands and Barbados. No watches or warnings were yet in place.
NOAA
Last week, Tropical Storm Alberto brought torrential flooding to portions of southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. It was responsible for at least four deaths in the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon and Veracruz, according to the Associated Press.
The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and lasts through Nov. 30. According to the hurricane center, the season’s first hurricane usually forms in early to mid-August, which would make Beryl unusual if it were to reach hurricane strength. In a report released last month, the NOAA predicted an “above average” hurricane season with 17 to 25 storms, 8 to 13 hurricanes and 4 to 7 major hurricanes of category 3 or higher.
A tropical storm is a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph, while a hurricane is defined as a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds greater than 74 mph.
CBS News
Martin Mull, beloved actor known for “Fernwood 2 Night,” “Roseanne” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” dies at 80
Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development,” has died, his daughter said Friday. He was 80.
Mull’s Daughter, TV writer and comic artist Maggie Mull, said her father died at home on Thursday after “a valiant fight against a long illness.”
Mull, who was also a guitarist and painter, came to national fame with a recurring role on the Norman Lear-created satirical soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and the starring role in its spinoff, “Fernwood 2 Night,” on which he played the host of a satirical talk show.
Mat Hayward/Getty Images for Netflix
“He was known for excelling at every creative discipline imaginable and also for doing Red Roof Inn commercials,” Maggie Mull said in an Instagram post. “He would find that joke funny. He was never not funny. My dad will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, by his friends and coworkers, by fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and —the sign of a truly exceptional person— by many, many dogs.”
Melissa Joan Hart, who acted alongside Mull in the series “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” paid tribute to him on Instagram on Friday, calling him “a wonderful man who I am better for knowing.”
“I have such fond memories of working with him and being in awe of his huge body of work,” she wrote.
Known for his blonde hair and well-trimmed mustache, Mull was born in Chicago, raised in Ohio and Connecticut. He studied art in Rhode Island and Rome. He combined his music and comedy in hip Hollywood clubs in the 1970s.
“In 1976 I was a guitar player and sit-down comic appearing at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me,” Mull told The Associated Press in 1980. “He cast me as the wife beater on ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.’ Four months later I was spun off on my own show.”
In the 1980s he appeared in films including “Mr. Mom” and “Clue,” and in the 1990s had a recurring role on “Roseanne.”
He would later play private eye Gene Parmesan on “Arrested Development,” and would be nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for a guest turn on “Veep.”
