TLDR: Richard Boone was the first choice for McGarrett and turned it down to stay on the mainland. Gregory Peck was considered but deemed too expensive.
Robert Brown was formally cast, signed a contract, and was dismissed days before filming began.
Jack Lord read the script on a Wednesday, flew to Hawaii on Friday, and started filming on Monday as a last-minute replacement.
The Steve McGarrett audiences knew for twelve seasons projected such an air of inevitability that it is easy to assume Jack Lord was always the plan.
He was not.
By the time Lord arrived on the Hawaii Five-O set, the role had already passed through the hands of a first choice who declined, a major star deemed too expensive, and a formally cast actor who was fired days before production began.
Lord stepped into a vacancy, not a dream casting.
Richard Boone, First Choice, Said No
Series creator Leonard Freeman’s first instinct for Steve McGarrett was Richard Boone, the craggy, authoritative actor best known at the time for playing the gunslinger Paladin in the CBS western Have Gun, Will Travel.
Boone had the right combination of physical presence and moral intensity that Freeman had in mind for the character. He was officially offered the role.
He turned it down, preferring to remain on the US mainland rather than commit to an extended production schedule in Hawaii. Boone’s reluctance to leave the continent was the first obstacle Freeman had not anticipated.
Gregory Peck, Too Expensive
During the initial development discussions, production executives also considered Gregory Peck, whose combination of moral authority and screen gravitas seemed well suited to a commanding law enforcement figure.
The conversations did not advance far.
Peck was deemed too expensive for a weekly television series, and executives judged it unlikely he would commit to the demands of episodic production regardless of the financial terms. The consideration was brief.
Robert Brown, Actually Cast, Then Fired
The most dramatic chapter in the casting of McGarrett involved Robert Brown, an actor perhaps best known today as the lead of the ABC frontier series Here Come the Brides.
Brown was not merely considered for the role of McGarrett. He was formally cast. He signed a contract. He participated in pre-production preparations.
Days before filming on the pilot was scheduled to begin, CBS network executives reviewed the situation and decided Brown was not right for the part, concluding he projected too soft an image for the hard-edged detective Freeman had conceived.
Brown was dismissed and the role was open again.
Jack Lord, Wednesday to Monday
With Brown gone and filming days away, Freeman turned to Jack Lord.
Lord had spent years accumulating exactly the kind of professional grievances that make a man desperate for a project he can truly control: he had demanded equal billing with Sean Connery in the Bond franchise and lost the Felix Leiter role as a result, then demanded 50 percent ownership of Star Trek and watched William Shatner become Captain Kirk instead.
Hawaii Five-O offered something neither of those projects had: the possibility of genuine creative sovereignty over a production based in a place Lord would come to love.
He read the script on a Wednesday. He was cast immediately. He flew to Hawaii on Friday. He began filming on Monday.
The compressed timeline meant Lord arrived on set with almost no preparation time, which perhaps explains why the character’s most iconic visual elements, the suit, the posture, the delivery, emerged so quickly from Lord’s own instincts rather than from any collaborative development process.
There was simply no time for anything else.
It is a pattern familiar from other classic television casting stories: the role that defined a career was not the intended destination but the last available seat.
The actors who said no, or were pushed out, cleared the way for the performance that outlasted all of them.
Who was originally cast as Steve McGarrett?
Richard Boone was the first choice and turned the role down. Robert Brown was formally cast and signed a contract before being dismissed by network executives days before filming. Jack Lord was brought in as a last-minute replacement, reading the script on a Wednesday and filming on Monday.
Why was Robert Brown fired from Hawaii Five-O?
CBS network executives decided Brown, who later starred in Here Come the Brides, was too soft in his screen presence for the hard-edged character Leonard Freeman had written. He was dismissed days before filming on the pilot began.
Did Jack Lord almost not play Columbo?
Jack Lord played McGarrett, not Columbo. He came very close to playing other iconic roles though, being offered Felix Leiter in Dr. No before demanding equal billing with Connery, and being offered Captain Kirk before demanding 50 percent ownership of Star Trek.
