James MacArthur

James MacArthur
in The Young Stranger (1957)
Born	James Gordon MacArthur December 8, 1937 (1937-12-08) (age 71) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	actor
Years active	1955 - present
Spouse(s)	Joyce Bulifant (1958-1967) Melody Patterson (1970-1975) H.B. Duntz (1984-)

James Gordon MacArthur (born December 8, 1937, in Los Angeles, California) is an American actor best known for the role of Dan "Danno" Williams, the reliable second-in-command of the fictional Hawaiian State Police squad Hawaii Five-O, a role which won him fans all over the world.

Early life

He was adopted as an infant by Charles MacArthur and Helen Hayes. He grew up in Nyack, New York, along with the MacArthurs' biological daughter, Mary, also an actor. He was educated at Allen-Stevenson School in New York, and later at The Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he starred in basketball, football and baseball.

In his final year at Solebury he played guard on the football team; captained the basketball team; was president of his class, the student government, and the Drama Club; rewrote the school's constitution; edited the school paper, The Scribe; and played Scrooge in a local presentation of A Christmas Carol. He also started dating a fellow student, Joyce Bulifant; they were married in November 1958 and divorced nine years later.

MacArthur grew up around the greatest literary and theatrical talent of the time. Lillian Gish was his godmother, and his family guests included Ben Hecht, Harpo Marx, Robert Benchley, Beatrice Lillie, John Barrymore and John Steinbeck. This presented him with opportunities and challenges not experienced by most other young people.

His first radio role was on Theatre Guild of the Air, in 1948. The Theatre Guild of the Air was the premiere radio program of its day, producing one-hour plays that were performed in front of a live audience of 800. Helen Hayes accepted a role in one of the plays, which also had a small part for a child. Her son was asked if he would like to do it, and agreed to the dismay of Helen Hayes.

Acting career

He made his stage debut at Olney, Maryland, in 1949, with a two-week stint in The Corn is Green. His sister, Mary, was in the play and telephoned their mother to request that James go to Olney to be in it with her. The following summer, he repeated the role at Dennis, Massachusetts, and his theatrical career was underway. In 1954, he played John Day in Life With Father with Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney. He became involved in important Broadway productions only after receiving his training in summer stock.

He also worked as a set painter, lighting director and chief of the parking lot. During a Helen Hayes festival at the Falmouth Playhouse on Cape Cod, he had a few walk-on parts. He also helped the theatre electrician and, in fact, grew so interested that he was allowed to stay on after Miss Hayes' plays had ended. As a result, he lighted the show for Barbara Bel Geddes in The Little Hut and for Gloria Vanderbilt in The Swan. When he visited Paris with his mother as a member of The Skin of Our Teeth Company, he was in charge of making thunder backstage with a sheet of metal.

At the age of 18 he played Hal Ditmar in the TV play Deal a Blow, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring MacDonald Carey, Phyllis Thaxter and Edward Arnold. In scenes with these veterans MacArthur showed he was more than capable of matching experience with ability, and his "sensitive and intelligent" portrayal of the misunderstood teenager teetering on the brink of delinquency was lauded by critics and viewers alike.

In 1956, Frankenheimer directed the movie version of the play, which was renamed The Young Stranger, with MacArthur again in the starring role. Again his performance was critically acclaimed, earning him a nomination for Most Promising Newcomer at the 1958 BAFTA awards.

He made The Light in the Forest and Third Man on the Mountain, for Walt Disney, during summer breaks from Harvard University, where he was studying history. Deciding to make acting his full-time career, he left Harvard in his sophomore year to make two more Disney movies, Kidnapped and Swiss Family Robinson. These are now regarded as classics, and are still popular. In February 2003, Conrad Richter's novel The Light in the Forest was one of the books selected for Ohio's One Book, Two Counties project. MacArthur was a guest speaker, and talked of how the book was turned into the film and of his experiences making the movie. When Swiss Family Robinson was released in DVD format, he was asked to provide background commentary and other 'bonus' material.

He made his Broadway debut in 1960, playing opposite Jane Fonda in Invitation to a March, for which he received a Theater World Award. Although he never returned to Broadway, he remained active in theatre, appearing in such productions as Under the Yum Yum Tree, The Moon Is Blue, John Loves Mary (with his then wife, Joyce Bulifant), Barefoot in the Park and Murder at the Howard Johnson's.

He then went on to star in such movies as The Interns, Spencer's Mountain, The Truth About Spring and Cry of Battle, as well as in the rather less successful The Love-Ins and The Angry Breed.

On the set of The Angry Breed, in 1968, MacArthur met Melody Patterson, who was to become his second wife. They were married on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, in July 1970, but divorced several years later. In 1963, he was a runner-up in the 'Top New Male Personality' category of the Golden Laurel Awards.

Between movie and theatre roles, MacArthur was also much in demand for television guest appearances, which included parts in Studio One, G.E. Theatre, Bus Stop the play, Bus Stop the television series, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Eleventh Hour, The Great Adventure, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Great Adventure, Combat!, The Virginian, Twelve O'Clock High, and co-starred with his mother Helen Hayes in the 1968 episode "The Pride of the Lioness" on the Tarzan TV series. MacArthur also gave a particularly chilling performance as baby-faced opium dealer 'Johnny Lubin' in The Untouchables episode, Death For Sale.

Though not all his movie parts were starring roles, and some were quite brief, they were usually pivotal to the plot. His role in The Bedford Incident was that of a young ensign who becomes so rattled by the needling of his Captain (Richard Widmark) that he accidentally fires a nuclear-tipped ASROC at Soviet submarine, thus (we are given to understand) starting World War III.

In Battle of the Bulge he again played the role of a young and inexperienced officer. This time, however, the officer finds courage and a sense of responsibility. His brief but memorable appearance in the Clint Eastwood movie, Hang 'Em High eventually led to his role as Dan Williams in Hawaii Five-0.

Hawaii Five-0

In 1967, Leonard Freeman, the producer of Hang 'Em High, made the pilot for a new television cop show, Hawaii Five-0. Before it went to air, the pilot was well-received by test audiences, except for some dislike of the actor in role of Dan Williams. Freeman remembered MacArthur's portrayal of the traveling preacher in Hang 'Em High: he had come on the set and done the scene in one take. He called MacArthur and offered him the role of Dan Williams.

Hawaii Five-O, one of television's most successful shows, ran for twelve years—eleven with MacArthur. Leaving Hawaii Five-O at the end of its eleventh season, MacArthur returned to the theatre in The Lunch Hour with Cybill Shepherd.

He appeared in A Bedfull of Foreigners in Chicago in 1984, and in Michigan in 1985. He followed this with The Hasty Heart, before taking a year out of showbusiness. In 1987, he returned to the stage in The Foreigner, then played Mortimer in the national tour of Arsenic and Old Lace with Jean Stapleton, Marion Ross and Larry Storch. In 1989, he followed another stint in The Foreigner with Love Letters and, in 1990 – 1991, A Bedfull of Foreigners, this time in Las Vegas.

Since leaving Hawaii Five-O, McArthur has guest-starred on such TV shows as Murder, She Wrote, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Vega$, as well as in the mini series Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story and The Night the Bridge Fell Down, and in the 1998 TV movie Stormchasers: Revenge of the Twister, with Kelly McGillis.

Semi-retirement

Throughout his career, MacArthur has also found time for various other ventures. During 1959-60 he was a partner with actor James Franciscus and Alan Ladd, Jr. in a Beverly Hills telephone answering service; in June 1972, he directed The Honolulu Community Theatre in a production of his father's play The Front Page; and, for a period in the 1990s he was part-owner of Senior World publication as well as writing the occasional celebrity interview.

In 2000 MacArthur was awarded his own 'sidewalk star' in Palm Springs. Today he enjoys spending time with his third wife, H. B. Duntz, and his four children and six grandchildren. He continues to appear at conventions, collectors' shows, and celebrity sporting events. A keen golfer, he was the winner of the 2002 Frank Sinatra Invitational Charity Golf Tournament.

He still appears in television and radio specials and interview programs. His most recent appearances include spots on Entertainment Tonight, Christopher's Closeup and the British BBC 5 Radio obituary program Brief Lives, in which he paid tribute to late Hawaii Five-0 cast-mate, Kam Fong.

In April 2003, he traveled to Honolulu for a cameo role in Joe Moore's play Dirty Laundry, appearing as a priest accused of molestation.

With many of his films now being released on DVD, he has found a new audience, providing interviews and behind-the-scenes commentary for his mother's movies as well as his own.

Rumors persist of a possible movie version of Hawaii Five-0, leaving fans with the hope that MacArthur will once more be seen in the role that he made famous, though he comments, "I certainly would not be playing Danno but perhaps some sort of character ... maybe an old man leering at the young girls on the beach!!" He is also developing a one-man show based on his life and career.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James MacArthur

• James MacArthur Official Website
• James MacArthur at the Internet Movie Database
• James MacArthur at the Internet Broadway Database