James MacArthur

Famed television actor James MacArthur, Lieutenant Dan Williams on Hawaii Five-O, passed away on the 28th. I was a big Hawaii Five-0 fan when I was a boy (still am), and a particular fan of MacArthur; I sort of idolized him at age 12. In recent years he has maintained a very nice personal website and "digital scrapbook," worth checking out:

http://www.jamesmacarthur.com/

His likable personality comes across strongly at this site. He was an interesting, thoughtful man, and he led a very interesting life (including his rearing as the adopted son of actress Helen Hayes and playwright Charles MacArthur). There has been quite an outpouring of affection for MacArthur in many forums these past couple of days.

As with virtually any actor, if you dig through MacArthur's IMDB credits you find some offbeat items. Although the young MacArthur was generally a wholesome presence, in films like Third Man on the Mountain or Spencer's Mountain, in his very first film, The Young Stranger, he plays a somewhat troubled kid. In a 1961 Untouchables episode, he is a punk gangster. Later, he goes all-out Sixties in The Love-Ins (a thinly disguised telling of the exploits of Timothy Leary) and The Angry Breed, my personal favorite, in which he plays Deek Stacey, the arrogant, sexy leader of a neo-Nazi biker gang! No, you didn't misread that.