CENTRAL DISPATCH

THE HAWAII FIVE-0 NEWSLETTER

******************************************************************

  Volume 1                                          October   1999                                           Issue 4 

****************************************

'Five-0' Long Way off

Marilyn Beck's Column - Friday, October 15, 1999

Remember the splashy announcement that a big-screen "Hawaii Five-0" was on the way?  Well, don't count on it happening for a while - likely a long while.

Producer George Litto notes, "We all know the kind of leading man we want - everyone wants Tom Cruise - but at this point, we're still taking little steps.  We don't have a studio set, and until we do, we won't be making offers to a director or a star."  Litto has said that he expected the adaptation of the vintage series to cost between $80 million and $100 million.  Now he says, "It will cost a lot.  It's to when you've got actors today who get $20 million or more.  I only hope to end up with one who doesn't get more."  Litto now estimates that the big screen adaptation of the vintage series won't get underway until next summer - at the earliest.

**************************************************

How do you say Hawaii Five-0 in...

Portuguese   -   Hawaii Cinco Zero

German   -   Hawaii Fuenf Null

Romanian   -   Hawai Cinci    Nul or Hawai Cinci Zero

Italian   -   Hawaii Cinque Zero

Russian   -   Gavaii Pyat Nol

Korean   -   Hawaii Swin

Chinese   -   O-wa-yee Wu Ling

Hawaiian   -   Hawai'i 'Elima 'Ole

(thanks Eduardo!)

***************************************************

The Best and the Worst of Crime-Time TV 

(from the New York Post - Sunday, July 18, 1999

(compiled by Jue Rubi)

Until the 1970's, cop shows - like much in life - were pretty much black and white.  The good guys got the bad guys, eventually.    Beginning in the 80's though, those badges didn't sparkle so bright.    Suddenly, it was the cops who drank too much - even used drugs.  Cops began to get shot in the line of duty.  Ciminals got away with it.  The cop shows got scary - like much in life.

But for every top-drawer series like Law & Order and NYPD Blue,  there was a slinker like Sledge Hammer! and Manimal.

As we continue to countdown to the end of TV's first century millennium, here's the cop shows we think had the most impact on us - and the ones that were just criminal.

The Cop Shows that Rank

1.  Hill Street Blues - Legendary crime drama that changed forever the way TV looked.  Hill Street was a turning point in the history of cop shows.  Kinetic, humming, buzzy, nervous, exhausted, disheartened, senseless, believable.  A milestone.

2.  Dragnet - Sgt. Joe Friday was the most famous TV cop of all time.  The Norman Rockwell of cop shows.

3. Hawaii Five-0 - Captain Cook discovered Hawaii but Jack Lord put it on the map.  TV's longest running crime show - 12 years.

4.  The Fugitive - "Les Mis" in the Midwest.  David Janssen was the doctor - accused of murdering his wife - on the run from a determined cop.  The two-part finale (Aug. 29, 1967) would be the higest rated episode for nine years.

5.  Homicide: Life on the Street - Based on a superb book about a year in the life of a Baltimore homicide squad.  Smart, heart-felt performances from the actors who overcame some lackluster writing.    Departure of Andre Braugher led to its cancellation.

6.  Law & Order - Not a thing wasted.    The show moved at breakneck pace from a team of detectives capturing cariminals to prosecutors looking to convict them.  Sturdy formula and the longest-running drama of the '90s.

7.  The Rockford Files - James Garner played an ex-con turned private eye who was liked by neither the crooks nor the cops.    He was Phillip Marlowe in a trailer.  No other show played the cop-as-loner theme so well.

8. Columbo - Peter Falk raised passive-aggressive to an art - and created a character so solid that, long after he's left the air, everyone knows what a "Columbo type" means.

9.  NYPD Blue - Always in the spotlight for pushing the envelope in terms of profanity and nudity.  But it was killer story lines and dialogue that made this show the benchmark for drama of this decade.

10.  Kojak - Worldwide popular crime show starred Telly Savalas as tough-talking, savvy cop with a sweet tooth.  Who loves ya, baby?  We do.

11.  In the Heat of the Night - Based on the 1967 Oscar-winning film a black detective from the North (Howard Rollins) teams up with a white Mississippi police chief (Carroll O'Connor).  Never got credit (until now) for its sophistacated plots.

12.  Barney Miller - Only comedy to make the list.  About a squad of New York City detectives headed by police captain (Hal Linden).  It practically created the "gang" comedy single-handed.

13.  Diagnosis Murder - Dick Van Dyke makes a triumphant return to TV as a  physician who dabbles in crime solving.

14.  Cagney & Lacey - Frist crime show in which the two central characters were female.  The TV establishment loved it.    During its run, Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly won six consecutive Actress Emmys.

15.  Barnaby Jones - Buddy Ebsen starred as a suave, milk-drinking private eye who specialized in busting insurance cheats.

16.  Naked City - Memorable for just one reason, it's closing line:  "There are 8 million stories in the Naked City.    This has been one of them."

17.  The Untouchables - Robert Stack played archetypal G-man Eliot Ness, squeezed four seasons out of chasing just one criminal - Al Capone.  Only "The Fugitive" equaled that achievement.

18.  Magnum, P.I. - Tom Selleck as a Vietnam vet turned PI to fight Hawaiian crime.  Ended series for a movie career that's been shooting blanks.

19.  The FBI - Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. played Inspector Lewis Erskine, a man of impeccable integrity and little humor.  J. Edgar Hoover approved.

20.  Adam 12 - Jack Webb developed this snappy series about two young-buck cops (Martin Milner and Kent McCord) who patrolled L.A.    The first cop show to make a big deal about how "real" it was.

The Cop Shows that Stank

1-Cop Rock       2-Angeles       3-Manimal     4-Sledge Hammer       5-David Cassidy - Man Undercover      6-Lady Blue

7-Broken Badges     8-Brooklyn South       9-Silk Stalkings     10-The Street       11-DiResta     12-Hooperman

13-Holmes and YoYo     14-Arresting Behavior       15-Bronk     16-Booker       17-Police Academy: The Series

18-Under Suspicion     19-Our Family Honor       20-T and T

(thanks to Kerry Lynch for this article)

**************************************************

Danno Sighting

Anne Gaisior has let us know that James MacArthur was "guest of honor" at a Reading Phillies minor league baseball game in Reading, Pennsylvania on August 25th.  The theme at the game was "Hawaii Five-0 Tribute Night".    He threw out the first pitch of the game and helped judge a hula contest before the game.  His son Jamie was with him.  In addition to Danno, there was a Hawaiian dance troupe, drummers and various games throughout the evening with a Hawaiian theme.  Stadium staff and some fans were wearing Hawaiian shirts.   Leis were given out to all the fans as they entered the stadium.

*************************************************

Guest Starring...Barbara Luna

Kathy Conroy has been in touch with Barbara Luna, who guest starred in the Five-0 episodes A Thousand Pardons -You’re Dead and A Lion in the Street. Kathy asked Luna - as she prefers to be called - some questions regarding Five-0 and her other acting credits and here are the replies she received:

"I truly appreciate the Hawaii Five-0 Fan Club for being excited about my appearing in your newsletter, and I am doubly appreciative of your waiting for me to finally get to these fun questions. I give you an award for patience. Thank you!"

Q. Why did you go into acting?

A. I was a child when I started acting on Broadway. It was my mom's idea. Mom thought it would be a good way to keep me away from gangs and off the streets of New York City.    I grew up in Manhattan.  Acting seemed to choose me.

Q.  What actors/actresses do you admire?

A.  Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Red Buttons, Jane Fonda, Brad Pitt, Whoopi Goldberg, Sly Stallone, Robert DiNiro, Sharon Stone, Jim Carey, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Glen Close.

Q. Is there anything that you’ve done that you’d like to mention?

A.  On the movie with Bob Hoskins where he portrays Noriega.  He is an absolute gem.  My role had been cut down to 4 lines!  I have arrived...I finally made the cutting room floor...first time in my career!  The film is directed by Roger Spotteswood who is in pre-production for the next Arnold S (I’ll leave the spelling to you!) movie. He was soooo good to work with.

Q. How do you think acting has changed since you started in the business?

A.  I don’t think the acting changes as much as the people do.

Q. Are there other members of your family in show business?  

A.  No. My sister Lisa was in two Broadway shows with me when we were children. She never pursued a career in show biz. She’s a wiz in the insurance business. 

Q.  What was your favorite theatrical, movie and TV performance? 

A.  If you mean of my own...I’d have to say ALL of them...Maria Roberts from One Life to Live is right up ther though...so far. If you mean others...Brando in On the Waterfront and in The Godfather. Jane Fonda in Klute, Brad Pitt in almost everything, Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Jim Carey in everything, just to name a few. 

Q.  Have you been back to Hawaii since your last television appearance on Five-0 (1979)? 

A.  Yes, many times It is my favorite place out of all the places I’ve been to. Australia being second.

Q.  Have you seen or spoken to any of the actors, or guest stars since your last appearance? 

A.  Jack Lord - saw him at the polo matches in Hawaii with his lovely wife.    James MacArthur - yes, at a Five-0 reunion several years ago in Los Angeles.    Kam Fong...I’m not sure if either one of these gentlemen (Zulu being the other) were there.  Harry Guardino - yes, New York and LA. Was sad when he passed on.    Barbara Nichols - no.  James Hong - we may have worked together again.    Loretta Swit - had dinner together at the home of Mrs. Guy Williams in May.    Paul Smith - Yes..I love visiting the Ray Courts memorabilia show because I get to see all of my 60’s buddies and fellow workers. Paul was one of the guests last year.    Ross Martin - what year did he pass on?   Bill Smith - saw Bill a couple of weeks ago at William Campbells "Fantasticon" He’s as sweet and fun as ever...but I wish he wouldn’t smoke. 

Q.  If you could describe each of the cast members with one word, what would it be? 

A.  Jack Lord...Different   James MacArthur...Considerate     Kam Fong...Proud   Zulu...Fun

Q.  Which episode did you enjoy more (and why)? 

A.  Are you kidding? I enjoyed doing BOTH episodes. I would have done anything on that show. First class producers, first class directors, first class actors...the best crew, first class flight over to Hawaii, best hotel (Colony Surf), best food...rice all day long, pineapple, coconuts, great people. One of my favorite girlfriends Fay McClure lives in Honolulu so we would get to hang out. The islands smell delicious from the gorgeous flowers and they have the most beautiful sunset you’ve ever seen. Sure wish the show would be brought back.   OKAY...IF I had to choose which episode I enjoyed more...I’d of course have to go with A Thousand Pardons. It was a more demanding role with much more to do from an acting stand point...I also got to wear pretty clothes and kiss James MacArthur. Who’s not going to enjoy this?

I think A Lion in the Street was much more Paul’s show...I think I was more the supportive wife, which is not so easy when your leading man is 6’5" and weighs 275 pounds! But he’s such a pussy cat! 

Q.  Are you married, happily dating or ecstatically single? 

A.  No 

Q.  Do you have kids and if so how old are they now? 

A.  No children...by choice. However I enjoyed helping to raise Tane when I was married to Doug McClure 

Q.  What would you say is the best thing hat has happened in your personal life?   

A.  I was born. 

Q.  Is there anything in your life that you haven’t done and want to accomplish?

A.  I haven’t completely stopped being judgmental...I’d like to conquer that...and I want to have a golden retriever.

While Kathy and Luna were setting up these questions, Luna also answered a couple of other questions regarding Jack Lord and James MacArthur.

"Yes, Mr. Jack was a Taskmaster, thank goodness. He really held that show together. I loved the way he worked and everyone else involved with the show. James MacArthur was a peach. In A Thousand Pardons if you remember there’s a scene where I had to play drunk...well I don’t drink so I was a bit concerned about how to play the scene. James convinced me to take a shot of Vodka...after one shot I felt nothing and we were ready to shoot! He said here, have another...nothing was happening so on ACTION I spun myself around and made myself dizzy...when the scene was over, I ran to my trailer and upchucked!!! So much for method acting! Admittedly that is one of my favorite roles!

I also loved working with Paul Smith...as you know he’s very tall. When we were done filming I needed a neck brace. Paul insisted I play his wife because his real wife and I are the same size. Thank god for small favors!

Henry Guardino was one of the best actors I’ve worked with. He gave alot and liked to rehearse.

(Thanks Kathy!)

***************************************************

From the files of Marty Cooper

*******

Cops and Robbers Tales Amid Island Beauty

By Cecil Smith - Long Island Press - January 4, 1970

HONOLULU: The bloated grotesque carcass of a cow lies on a sandy finger of land at Makapuu. Jack Lord, wearing perhaps the only blue business suit in the islands, squats in the sand, a driftwood stick in his hand, orienting himself..."Jimmy (MacArthur) is here, Zulu over there and the cow is here." Director Marvin Chomsky nods, Jack rises, facing the cameras, biting his lip in concentration of the scene. He looks down at the cow, the face rather tired, drawn. He suddenly grins. "Stick around," he says. "We’re barbecuing this for lunch."

The cow is a hideous creature. Make-up man Keester Sweeney, who once worked on the faces of Garbo and Gable, spent the morning painting ulcerous sores and venomus pink splotches on its hide. Beyond, the sea slides up the coral beach in waves as gentle as a baby’s bath. A sweet and feathery wind rustles through the kukui trees The tropic sea glistens on the lush green undergrowth. The exciting setting with the filthy carcass in the foreground is almost symbolic of Hawaii Five-0. If the CBS series with Lord as head of a mythical state police force spends much of its time chasing conventional crooks in conventional cops ’n’ robbers tales, its setting in those incredibly beautiful islands makes it a thing apart.

Lord feels that at times it transcends the conventional. This final show that winds up its second season is a two-part play dealing with the dangers of chemical warfare, in which a scientist (Ed Flanders), sickened by his job, lets loose some of the killing gases on a Chinese farmer’s cows.

"This makes a statement," said Jack Lord. "The kind of statement you can sometimes make in television. Most TV has about a one-and-one-half octave range. Sometimes we hit a two-and-one-half octave."

The show had rough going in its first season, but has achieved solid respectability in the rating and demographics and other TV mumbo jumbo status symbols this season, which pleases Jack and other believers of television out of Hollywood studios and in the real world.

In the strange scheduling of networks, it faces the only other weekly series shot entirely on location - Then Came Bronson. Though Hawaii Five-0 has flown banners proclaiming "Bye, Bye Bronson" and the ratings bear them out, Lord and other disciples of location are bitter the two shows are in competition.

But Hawaii Five-0, though made entirely here, is a Hollywood show. Every foot of film is sent to the mainland for processing and editing. Jack Lord and his cohorts see nothing they make until it plays on television here - a week later than in the states. The show is a huge success in Hawaii, avidly followed by Hawaiians. Scripts are processed through the Hollywood offices of executive producer Leonard Freeman, Lord’s partner. There’s criticism that rarely are these scripts drawn out of the unique circumstances of island living, that they could happen anywhere. This weeks play, for instance, deals with a hippie problem - one much less evident here than on the mainland. Crew and technicians are haoles (mainlanders) on subsistence pay and there’s been no attempt to develop local technical people

But still the series is Hawaii. Eigty percent shot on actual sites. Lord’s hope to "enlarge our tent" and utilize islands other than Oahu has been frustrated by costs, but still Oahu with its mountains and plantations and isolated spots of beach like Makapuu is so varied in locale that much of it seems worlds removed from tourist-swarming Waikiki and metropolitan Honolulu.

*************************************************

A Little Bit of Hawaii in Torrance

Our roving reporter Leilani Kimmel-Dagistion is at it again. Look what she’s found this time!

If you live in Southern California and have a craving for all those wonderful Hawaiian-kine foods you see and hear about on Hawaii Five-0, then you need to visit King’s Hawaiian family Owned Bakery and Restaurant in Torrance, California. The original bakery was opened by Robert Taira in Hilo, Hawaii in 1950. In 1963 he opened the King Street Bakery in Honolulu. The family moved to the mainland in the 70’s and opened the present location in Torrance at 2808 W. Sepulveda. They closed their Hawaii locations shortly afterwards.

King’s Hawaiian bread is a sweet bread derived from a Portuguese recipe with some secret Hawaiiana ingredients. The Torrance Bakery features a 42-foot display case filled with bread, muffins, scones, buns, loaves, cakes, cookies and pies. For King Kamehameha Day on June 11, they featured specially decorated Kamehameha Cakes, Guava Cakes, Fresh Coconut Cakes, Passion Cakes, Carrot Cakes, Chiffon Cakes and Paradise Cakes.

The adjoining restaurant has a giant pineapple centerpiece, fish aquarium and Hawaiian artifacts as decorations. The songs of the islands serenade you in the background and lovely kanes and wahines wearing aloha shirts and speaking pidgin English exemplify Hawaiian hospitality. But the real treat is the food! Featured on the menu are the following items that you are not likely to find anywhere soon - saimin (the national dish of Hawaii), taro leaf lau lau, huli huli chicken, kalua port, chicken long rice and lomi lomi salmon.

There is also a small gift shop which features taro chips, Maui potato chips, Kauai cookies, Hawaiian rubber stampers and Polynesian removable tattoos among other things.

Soon you will be able to enjoy their one-and-only sweet bread nationwide as they are developing an internet based business. Check out their official website at or better yet, make a detour in person to the real place if you’re on the West Coast. You’ll feel like you’re in a time warp of Hawaii in the 60’s.

***************************************************

And now a word from our sponsors:

Anyone interested in copies of Hawaii Five-0 episodes (mostly all full versions) can contact Barbara Brindle at 105 Warren Road, Sparta, NJ 07871.    Barbara's rates are very reasonable and she's very reliable. 

**************************

We are looking for the following Jack Lord episodes on VHS: Dr. Kildare - A Willing Suspension of Disbelief and the movie The True Story of Lynn Stuart. Anyone who may have information about these programs can contactus at either the fan club or email address listed above.

***********************************

Memorial contributions can be made to the Jack and Marie Lord Trust c/o Hawaii Community Foundation, 900 Front Street Mall, Suite 1300, Honolulu, HI 96813. This fund was established in 1988 and was set up by the Lord’s to benefit their favorite charities. We have been assured that while personal responses are not possible, Mrs. Lord is made aware of all contributions.

***********************************

From Jerry Picard: he reminded us that last year Kam Fong underwent surgery for cancer. Jerry spoke to Kam’s son Dennis and who said his dad was a bit down. Anyone interested in sending cards to wish him well may do so. The address is Kam Fong, c/o Dennis Chun, 2578C-2 Pacific Hts. Rd. Honolulu, HI 96813.

************************************

Aloha, see you next year

January, 2000