Hawaiian Eye | |
---|---|
Created by | Roy Huggins |
Starring | Anthony Eisley Robert Conrad Connie Stevens Poncie Ponce Grant Williams Troy Donahue |
Theme music composer | Jerry Livingston Mack David |
Opening theme | "The Hawaiian Eye Theme" performed by Warren Barker |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 134 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | William T. Orr |
Producers | Stanley Niss Charles Hoffman Ed Jurist Oren W. Haglund (Production manager) |
Production locations | Oahu, Hawaii California |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Production company | Warner Bros. Television |
Original release | |
Network | ABC |
Release | October 7, 1959 – April 2, 1963 |
Related | |
77 Sunset Strip Bourbon Street Beat Surfside 6 |
Hawaiian Eye is an American detective television series that ran from October 1959 to April 1963 on the ABC television network.
Private investigator Tracy Steele (Anthony Eisley) and his half-Hawaiian partner, Tom Lopaka (Robert Conrad), own Hawaiian Eye, a combination detective agency and private security firm, located in Honolulu, Hawaii. Their principal client is the Hawaiian Village Hotel, which in exchange for security services, provides the agency with a luxurious private compound on the hotel grounds. The partners investigate mysteries and protect clients with the sometime help of photographer Cricket Blake (Connie Stevens), who also sings at the hotel's Shell Bar, and a ukulele-playing cab driver Kim Quisado (Poncie Ponce), who has connections throughout the islands. Engineer turned detective Greg McKenzie (Grant Williams), joins the agency later on as a full partner, while hotel social director Philip Barton (Troy Donahue) lends a hand after Tracy Steele departs. [1]
Hawaiian Eye was one of several ABC/Warner Bros. Television detective series of the era situated in different exotic locales. Others included Hollywood-based 77 Sunset Strip ; Bourbon Street Beat , set in New Orleans; and Miami's Surfside 6 . In reality, all were shot on the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, Calif. making it easy for characters—and sometimes whole scripts—to cross over. Although the shows are not spin-offs in the traditional sense, Sunset was the first in this chain of "exotic location detective series". In this regard, Hawaiian Eye was the most viable of the Sunset look-alikes, lasting four seasons. [2] The show's debut coincided with several real-world developments that helped contribute to its longevity. These were the granting of statehood to Hawaii, the advent of mass tourism to the new state brought about by the introduction of jetliners for commercial passenger flights, and the promotional efforts of Henry J. Kaiser, whose real-estate projects in Honolulu included building the hotel complex originally known as Kaiser's Hawaiian Village (later the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel).
The series regulars, who were shown during the opening credits, are listed below in the order in which they debuted during the show's four-year run.
Character | Actor | Role | Seasons |
---|---|---|---|
Thomas Jefferson "Tom" Lopaka | Robert Conrad | Private investigator | 1959–1963 |
Tracy Steele | Anthony Eisley | Private investigator | 1959–1962 |
Chryseis "Cricket" Blake | Connie Stevens | Photographer and singer | 1959–1963 |
Kazuo "Kim" Quisado | Poncie Ponce | Cab driver | 1959–1963 |
Greg McKenzie | Grant Williams | Private investigator | 1960–1963 |
Philip Barton | Troy Donahue | Hotel social director | 1962–1963 |
All of the Warner Bros. detective shows of this era featured a musical interlude, generally performed by a series regular. On occasion, Hawaiian Eye had a guest act perform:
Hawaiian Eye would become the precursor in a long list of other crime action-drama detective and police procedural television shows based in and around Hawaii, including Hawaii Five-O and its reboot series, Magnum, P.I. and its reboot series, Hawaiian Heat , One West Waikiki , Hawaii and NCIS: Hawai'i .
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and created by Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for 12 seasons on CBS from September 20, 1968, to April 5, 1980, and continues in reruns. At the airing of its last episode, it was the longest-running police drama in American television history, and the last scripted primetime show that debuted in the 1960s to leave the air.
Connie Stevens is an American actress and singer. Born in Brooklyn to musician parents, Stevens was raised there until age 12, when she was sent to live with family friends in rural Missouri. In 1953, at age 15, Stevens relocated with her father to Los Angeles.
77 Sunset Strip is an American television private detective drama series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith, Richard Long and Edd Byrnes. Each episode was one hour long when aired with commercials. The show ran from 1958 to 1964. The character of detective Stuart Bailey was first used by writer Huggins in his 1946 novel The Double Take, later adapted into the 1948 film I Love Trouble.
The Honolulu Police Department (HPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, headquartered in the Alapa'i Police Headquarters in Honolulu CDP.
The Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort is a resort hotel on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. The resort first opened in 1955, and since has grown to become the largest in the Hilton chain of hotels, and one of largest hotels in the world.
Gilbert Francis Lani Damian Kauhi, also known by the stage names monumously as Zulu and Zoulou, was an American actor and comedian. He is remembered largely for his portrayal of Kono Kalakaua on the long-running television program Hawaii Five-O.
Anthony Eisley was an American actor best known as one of the detective leads, Tracy Steele, in the ABC/Warner Brothers television series Hawaiian Eye. Early in his career, he was credited as Fred Eisley and later was sometimes billed as Tony Eisley.
Edward Byrne Breitenberger, known professionally as Edd Byrnes, was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the television series 77 Sunset Strip. He also was featured in the 1978 film Grease as television teen-dance show host Vince Fontaine, and was a charting recording artist with "Kookie, Kookie ".
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Roger LaVerne Smith was an American television and film actor, producer, and screenwriter. He starred in the television detective series 77 Sunset Strip and in the comedy series Mister Roberts. Smith went on to manage the career of Ann-Margret, his wife of 50 years.
Surfside 6 is an ABC television series that aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centers on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat, and features Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II, Van Williams as Kenny Madison, and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-stars as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht is berthed next to their houseboat. Spanish actress Margarita Sierra also plays a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who works at the Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6.
The U.S. state of Hawaii is referenced extensively in popular media, supported by efforts of the state government.
Don Ralke was an American music arranger, composer, and record producer, working for four decades in the Hollywood studio system in films, television, and pop recordings.
Loretta Ables Sayre is an American actress and singer who performed jazz standards at luxury hotels in Hawaii for three decades. During her career, Ables Sayre performed in a few musicals and guest-starred in several television shows, also doing work in commercials. In her 2007 Broadway debut as Bloody Mary in South Pacific, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and also won the 2008 Theatre World Award.
Poncie Ponce was an American actor, musician and stand-up comedian. Born in Maui, Hawaii, he moved to Los Angeles, where from 1959 to 1963 he played the role of cab driver Kazuo Kim in the Warner Bros. detective series Hawaiian Eye, on the ABC television network. In 1961, Ponce was at the forefront of a growing national interest in martial arts when he opened a karate studio in North Hollywood.
One West Waikiki is an American crime drama television series that aired on CBS from August 4, 1994 until September 8, 1994, and then in first-run syndication for its second season from October 15, 1995 until May 25, 1996. The series was set in Hawaii, and starred Cheryl Ladd and Richard Burgi.
Napua Stevens Poire was a Hawaiian entertainer, singer, hula dancer, musician, teacher, radio-television personality, event producer and author. Noted for her hits such as "Beyond The Reef" and "Hawaiian Hospitality" in the late 1940s, in the 1950s, and later embarked upon a successful media career as a radio DJ for her own show KTRG and presenting her own TV cooking show Napua's Kitchen in the 1960s. She made two guest appearances in the popular series Hawaii Five-O and also presented the Aloha Week and Kamehameha Day hula shows.
Sharon Elizabeth Hugueny was an American actress who had a brief film and television career during the 1960s, appearing in 19 TV episodes and four feature films. The last gave her a co-starring role alongside Peter Fonda in 1964 as one of the title characters in The Young Lovers. Other than a single TV guest shot, she had been away from the cameras for nearly a decade, when an attempted return to filmmaking was cut short by a crippling automobile accident in 1977.
Douglas Kinilau Mossman, also credited as Doug Mossman was an American actor known for his recurring role as Detective Frank Kamana on the original Hawaii Five-O from 1974 to 1976. In addition to playing the role of Kamana, Mossman played twelve additional characters during the series 12 year run. He also had a recurring role as police officer Moke on Hawaiian Eye, as well as appearing in other productions shot in Hawaii.