According to Thomas MacEntee's weekly Geneabloggers list of blogging prompts, today is the anniversary of the birth of Helen Hayes, called the First Lady of the American Theater.
I never met her, but I did have the distinct pleasure of meeting and becoming friends with her son, James MacArthur.
I was a "Hawaii Five-0" fan, but liked James MacArthur for years before that, when he was a teenager, starring in such films as The Light in the Forest. I was in elementary school when that film came out.
I wrote a book on the television series "Hawaii Five-0," the original one that aired between 1968 and 1980, with Jack Lord and James MacArthur. I attended a "Five-0" convention in 1996 that began in Burbank, California, and ended in Honolulu. That is where I met Jim.
I talked with Jim a few times, and also had conversations with Kam Fong and his son Dennis Chun, and other cast members such as Herman Wedemeyer (who was just as handsome in 1996 as he had been earlier, during the run of the show) and Doug Mossman. It was a grand time.
Jim MacArthur was a down-to-earth guy. He did not have a pretentious bone in his body, though he very well could have, considering the society he grew up in. He was open, friendly, and funny. And I think I got on his good side when another fan was gushing to him about how "sensitive" and other such adjectives Danny Williams, his character in "Hawaii Five-0," was. I was getting a little gagged myself by the other fan's gloppy sentiment, so in the middle of her litany of adjectives, I inserted, ". . . and sarcastic," and caused Jim nearly to lose his footing and stumble. He laughed out loud. And it was the truth -- one of Danny Williams's most endearing traits in the show, to me, was his sarcasm.
I think that is how we became friends.
I also ran a fan organization for the show. The next year, in 1997, when my book on the series was published, I got a communication through my publisher from Jim, who wanted me to autograph some twenty copies of my book, which he was going to give out as a "thank you"gift to people who had made substantial contributions to a charity he favored. Of course, I was delighted to do so! The publisher shipped the books to me, I inscribed and signed them as Jim had requested and specified, and then I shipped the books to him.
That was a real thrill!
Every now and then, I would receive an e-mail from him. On one occasion, he mentioned that he had read a book which affected him deeply, Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, which was also the book that inspired Ken Burns to make his seminal documentary, The Civil War.
I had a story to tell him. I attended Florida State University from 1965 to 1970, receiving a bachelor's degree in government, and a master's in library science. An American literature course I took as an undergrad was taught by Michael Shaara, long before he wrote The Killer Angels. He had not found the powerful voice that infuses that novel. In fact, he had just published his first novel, The Broken Place. It was not at all as polished -- or as good -- as The Killer Angels, which won a Pulitzer Prize. The earlier book's style was terribly derivative of Ernest Hemingway, whom Professor Shaara admired greatly.
In fact, he had had the opportunity to meet and drink with Hemingway one evening, when the famous writer happened to be in Tallahassee, where FSU is located. Tallahassee in the 1960s was still a rather sleepy little town which happened to have, plunked down in its southern small-town midst, Florida's state capital and one of the largest of its state universities. It was an interesting place in those days -- as long as you weren't poor or black or otherwise marginalized.
So Michael Shaara got to sit and drink and schmooz with Papa Hemingway, and said that when he finally struggled home in the wee hours, three sheets to the wind for having done his best to keep up with Hemingway, he had some explaining to do to his wife.
In the same e-mail in which I told Jim this story about Michael Shaara, I recomended two books written by his son Jeff, which continued the Civil War saga. These are Gods and Generals (which was made into a movie), and The Last Full Measure. They are as good as the original story, I told Jim.
What is the point of all this? I guess the point is that we sometimes have a chance to meet people we never imagine we could meet and talk with. Before 1996, I never though I'd talk to, never mind exchange friendly e-mails with, James MacArthur or any other movie and TV star. And Michael Shaara, before that evening in Tallahassee, probably had no clue that he would ever meet, talk to, and drink with Ernest Hemingway.
These once-in-a-lifetime opportunities make for great family stories!
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