After receiving the script for 'Hawaii Five-O', Jack Lord recounted, "I sat down with a cup of coffee. It was a 2-hour movie for a feature pilot...It was fresh, it was interesting. The rainbow of ideas was vast because you could do anything." Leonard Freeman shared, "In December of 1965, my wife and I made our first trip to Hawaii. Despite the fact that it rained most of the 10 days we were there, I found this last Eden hauntingly beautiful. In films, I have always strived for realism, a documentary feeling, and that is best achieved by location shooting."
Shot on location in America's 50th tourist-oriented state, "I think the show’s popularity has been cumulative," Jack believed. "Word of mouth has helped...We shoot the entire show on location in Hawaii where the sun, beaches and tropical growth appeal to people living in Fargo (North Dakota) when it's 40 degrees below zero." Centered around a 4-man State Police Unit, Jack remembered, "It was a police show the first couple of years and then we experimented. We found we could do comedy...And we did love stories...And we did spy stories...." Leonard added, "It took 3 years of hard work to get it on the air." Jack was credited for keeping the show alive for 12 years (between 1968 and 1980). "We were supposed to go into production at the beginning of May 1968," Jack recalled. "But we had no scripts, no crew, no trained help and no studio in Hawaii. We were pioneers. No one had ever shot an entire television series in Hawaii before...Finally, on May 26 1968, at the late Henry J. Kaiser’s Koko Head estate, we turned the first camera."
The series, Jack observed, "has given the people of this state a whole industry, the tourist industry, we never had before." Jack described himself as a day person "thank God every day for this experience." He pointed out in 1978, "Even after 11 years there's a smell of reality about our show...Viewers can smell the trees and flowers, the car fumes, incense and laundries. It affects the actors so vividly they reflect the real atmosphere in their performances."
Shot on location in America's 50th tourist-oriented state, "I think the show’s popularity has been cumulative," Jack believed. "Word of mouth has helped...We shoot the entire show on location in Hawaii where the sun, beaches and tropical growth appeal to people living in Fargo (North Dakota) when it's 40 degrees below zero." Centered around a 4-man State Police Unit, Jack remembered, "It was a police show the first couple of years and then we experimented. We found we could do comedy...And we did love stories...And we did spy stories...." Leonard added, "It took 3 years of hard work to get it on the air." Jack was credited for keeping the show alive for 12 years (between 1968 and 1980). "We were supposed to go into production at the beginning of May 1968," Jack recalled. "But we had no scripts, no crew, no trained help and no studio in Hawaii. We were pioneers. No one had ever shot an entire television series in Hawaii before...Finally, on May 26 1968, at the late Henry J. Kaiser’s Koko Head estate, we turned the first camera."
The series, Jack observed, "has given the people of this state a whole industry, the tourist industry, we never had before." Jack described himself as a day person "thank God every day for this experience." He pointed out in 1978, "Even after 11 years there's a smell of reality about our show...Viewers can smell the trees and flowers, the car fumes, incense and laundries. It affects the actors so vividly they reflect the real atmosphere in their performances."
