The recent news that Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park are departing the Hawaii Five-0 remake that has aired since 2010 has created a stir.
Example: IndieWire posted a July 6 article about why the departures are “a huge problem” for the series that’s entering its eighth season.
As it turns out, the makeup of the Five-O (official spelling of the original show) is an issue goes back to the very beginning of the original series.
In 1996, the Spy Commander attended a Five-O convention in Los Angeles. One part of the event included an auction. One of the items up for auction was a photocopy of the first-draft script for the pilot episode written by creator Leonard Freeman.
The Spy Commander lost out in the auction, but had a chance to examine said script.
In that first version, the Five-O team only had one white member, Steve McGarrett (initially American actor Robert Brown, but replaced by Jack Lord days before filming). Five-O’s second-in-command was Kono Kalakaua, described as a Hawaiian in his mid-20s.
Another Five-O member was named Lee, who was described as a heavy-set Hawaiian. Rounding out the cast was Chin Ho, who worked for the Honolulu Police Department but was also a liaison with Five-O.
Between that script and filming of the pilot, Five-O got another white member, Danny “Danno” Williams (Tim O’Kelly in the pilot, James MacArthur in the series); the Lee character got the Kono name; and Chin Ho was made a full-fledged member of Five-O.
As an aside, arch villain Wo Fat was named after a restaurant in Honolulu. The character of Chin Ho Kelly was named after Chinn Ho, a successful Hawaiian businessman.
Filed under: The Other Spies | Tagged: CBS, Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park, Hawaii Five-0, Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Leonard Freeman, Robert Brown | Leave a comment »