The Original “Hawaii Five-O” Cast, Where They Are Now, and Who We Have Lost

TLDR: The original Hawaii Five-O ran from 1968 to 1980 with a core cast that has almost entirely passed away.

Jack Lord died in 1998, James MacArthur in 2010, Zulu in 2004, and Kam Fong in 2002.

Peggy Ryan, who played McGarrett’s secretary Jenny Sherman for seven seasons, also died in 2004, teaching tap dance until two days before her death at age 80.

---

The original Hawaii Five-O ran for twelve seasons and built one of the most recognizable ensemble casts in American television history.

Most of them are gone now. What follows is a record of what happened to the principal cast members after the show ended and how each of them left the world.

Jack Lord (Steve McGarrett)

Jack Lord retired from acting entirely when the show ended in 1980, moving permanently into the Kahala Beach apartment in Honolulu he and his wife Marie had shared throughout the production.

He spent his final years painting and supporting Hawaiian charities. By the late 1980s he was showing signs of cognitive decline.

By the early 1990s his Alzheimer’s disease had progressed severely, and his wife Marie served as his full-time caregiver and protective shield against the public.

She denied the reports when they surfaced in the local press. He died on January 21, 1998, at their Kahala apartment, from congestive heart failure, at age 77.

His estate, valued at approximately $40 million, was left entirely to Hawaiian charitable causes.

James MacArthur (Danny “Danno” Williams)

James MacArthur left the series after Season 11 in 1979, walked away from acting, and invested his television earnings into Hawaiian real estate.

His later years were marked by stability and family life following a third marriage that brought him personal peace after a turbulent earlier period.

He served on the board of the Helen Hayes Awards in Washington, D.C., and presented the annual Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play in honor of his father.

He died on October 28, 2010, at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, at age 72, from cancer.

He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Nyack, New York, alongside his sister Mary and his parents Helen Hayes and Charles MacArthur.

Zulu (Kono Kalakaua)

Gilbert Lani Kauhi, the native Hawaiian actor who played Detective Kono Kalakaua for the first four seasons, was fired from the show in 1972 following a confrontation with the unit publicist.

After his dismissal, he remained a prominent figure in Hawaiian entertainment, securing a five-year headlining contract at the C’est Si Bon Showroom in Waikiki’s Pagoda Hotel and later a long residency at Duke Kahanamoku’s club.

His post-television career was complicated by a trademark dispute over his stage name: following a split with his business manager, she registered “Zulu” as a trademark, forcing him to perform briefly under the alternative spelling “Zoulou.”

In 1986, his vehicle struck and killed a cyclist training for the Ironman Triathlon in Kona.

He was convicted of second-degree negligent homicide, resulting in a $500 fine and one year of probation. His later years were defined by serious health problems, including chronic diabetes, multiple strokes, two heart attacks, and a kidney transplant that his body eventually rejected.

He died on May 3, 2004, at age 66, at the Hilo Medical Center from diabetic complications.

Per his final wishes, his ashes were scattered into the ocean off Waikiki Beach by his old friends from the beachboy community who had known him before the television fame.

Kam Fong (Chin Ho Kelly)

Kam Fong, a retired Honolulu police officer before he became an actor, played Detective Chin Ho Kelly for ten seasons before requesting to be written out of the show in 1978 due to creative frustration with the repetitive scripts.

His character was killed in the Season 10 finale, shot while working undercover. The abruptness of the departure and the absence of any on-screen funeral reflected the production’s unsentimental approach to supporting characters during this period.

The show’s handling of Fong’s character produced one of the more memorable casting errors in television history.

When producer Stephen Cannell filmed an unaired 1997 pilot for a proposed Hawaii Five-O revival, he was apparently unaware that Chin Ho had been murdered nineteen years earlier.

He cast Fong to reprise his role. Fong, happy to work again, did not correct the production. The error was discovered after filming completed, and the pilot was never aired. Kam Fong died in 2002.

Al Harrington (Ben Kokua)

Al Harrington joined the cast in Season 5 as Detective Ben Kokua, brought in to fill the gap left by Zulu’s departure. He played the role for three seasons before his screen appearances were systematically reduced and he was quietly phased out.

In interviews, Harrington attributed his marginalization to the fact that his growing popularity with fans had become a source of friction with Jack Lord, who guarded his position as the show’s unquestioned center.

Harrington went on to build a long career in Hawaiian television and entertainment after his departure from the series.

Peggy Ryan (Jenny Sherman, McGarrett’s Secretary)

The only significant recurring female presence in the original series was Peggy Ryan, who played Jenny Sherman, Steve McGarrett’s secretary, from 1969 to 1976.

She was a fixture of the Five-O office for seven seasons, the woman who answered the phones and managed the administrative reality behind McGarrett’s world, and she was considerably more interesting than that description suggests.

Born Margaret O’Rene Ryan in 1924, she had been a professional performer since the age of three, when she joined her parents’ vaudeville act.

By her early teens she was making films at Universal Pictures alongside Donald O’Connor and Gloria Jean in a run of wartime musicals that made her a recognizable face to a generation of moviegoers.

She settled in Hawaii after her third marriage, to Honolulu newspaper columnist Eddie Sherman, and was living quietly on the islands when she was cast in the show.

The character took her name from her husband’s.

After leaving Hawaii Five-O in 1976, she moved to Las Vegas in the early 1980s and spent the rest of her working life teaching tap dancing, eventually running her own dance studio on East Sahara Avenue and performing in local revues well into her seventies.

She was teaching dance until two days before she was admitted to hospital.

Peggy Ryan died on October 30, 2004, at age 80, from complications following multiple strokes.

She was still performing in a jazz, tap, and comedic revue called “Viva Las Divas” in the summer of the year she died.