James MacArthur, American actor (Hawaii Five-O, Swiss Family Robinson), died from natural causes he was , 72.

James Gordon MacArthur  was an American actor best known for the role of Danny "Danno" Williams, the reliable second-in-command of the fictional Hawaiian State Police squad Hawaii Five-O  died from natural causes he was , 72..

(December 8, 1937 – October 28, 2010)

 Early life

Born in Los Angeles, California, he was adopted as an infant by playwright Charles MacArthur and actress Helen Hayes. He grew up in Nyack, New York, along with the MacArthurs' biological daughter, Mary. He was educated at Allen-Stevenson School in New York, and later at the Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he starred in basketball, football, and baseball.
In his final year at Solebury, he played guard on the football team; captained the basketball team; was president of his class, the student government, and the Drama Club; rewrote the school's constitution; edited the school paper, The Scribe; and played Scrooge in a local presentation of A Christmas Carol. He also started dating a fellow student, Joyce Bulifant; they were married in November 1958 and divorced nine years later.
MacArthur grew up around the greatest literary and theatrical talent of the time. Lillian Gish was his godmother, and his family guests included Ben Hecht, Harpo Marx, Robert Benchley, Beatrice Lillie, John Barrymore, and John Steinbeck. His first radio role was on Theatre Guild of the Air, in 1948. The Theatre Guild of the Air was the premier radio program of its day, producing one-hour plays that were performed in front of a live audience of 800. Helen Hayes accepted a role in one of the plays, which also had a small part for a child. Her son was asked if he would like to do it, and agreed.

Acting career

He made his stage debut at Olney, Maryland, in 1949, with a two-week stint in The Corn Is Green. His sister Mary was in the play and telephoned their mother to request that James go to Olney to be in it with her. The following summer, he repeated the role at Dennis, Massachusetts, and his theatrical career was underway. In 1954, he played John Day in Life With Father with Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney. He became involved in important Broadway productions only after receiving his training in summer stock.
He also worked as a set painter, lighting director and chief of the parking lot. During a Helen Hayes festival at the Falmouth Playhouse on Cape Cod, he had a few walk-on parts. He also helped the theatre electrician and grew so interested that he was allowed to stay on after his mother's plays had ended. As a result, he lighted the show for Barbara Bel Geddes in The Little Hut and for Gloria Vanderbilt in The Swan. When he visited Paris with his mother as a member of The Skin of Our Teeth Company, he was in charge of making thunder backstage with a sheet of metal.
At the age of 18, he played Hal Ditmar in the television play, Deal a Blow, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Macdonald Carey, Phyllis Thaxter and Edward Arnold. In 1956, Frankenheimer directed the movie version of the play, which was renamed The Young Stranger, with MacArthur again in the starring role. Again his performance was critically acclaimed, earning him a nomination for Most Promising Newcomer at the 1958 BAFTA awards.^{[citation needed]} He made The Light in the Forest and Third Man on the Mountain, for Walt Disney, during summer breaks from Harvard University, where he was studying history. Deciding to make acting his full-time career, he left Harvard in his sophomore year to make two more Disney movies, Kidnapped and Swiss Family Robinson. These are now regarded as classics, and are still popular. In February 2003, Conrad Richter's novel The Light in the Forest was one of the books selected for Ohio's One Book, Two Counties project. MacArthur was a guest speaker, and talked of how the book was turned into the film and of his experiences making the movie.^{[citation needed]}
He made his Broadway debut in 1960, playing opposite Jane Fonda in Invitation to a March, for which he received a Theater World Award. Although he never returned to Broadway, he remained active in theatre, appearing in such productions as Under the Yum Yum Tree, The Moon Is Blue, John Loves Mary (with his then wife, Joyce Bulifant), Barefoot in the Park and Murder at the Howard Johnson's. He then went on to star in such movies as The Interns, Spencer's Mountain, The Truth About Spring and Cry of Battle, as well as in the rather less successful The Love-Ins and The Angry Breed. On the set of The Angry Breed, in 1968, MacArthur met Melody Patterson, who was to become his second wife. They were married on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, in July 1970, but divorced several years later. In 1963, he was a runner-up in the "Top New Male Personality" category of the Golden Laurel Awards.^{[citation needed]}
Between movie and theatre roles, MacArthur was also much in demand for television guest appearances, which included parts in Studio One, G.E. Theatre, Bus Stop the play, Bus Stop the television series, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Eleventh Hour, The Great Adventure, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Combat!, The Virginian, Twelve O'Clock High, and co-starred with his mother Helen Hayes in the 1968 episode "The Pride of the Lioness" on the Tarzan television series. MacArthur also gave a particularly chilling performance as baby-faced opium dealer "Johnny Lubin" in The Untouchables episode, Death For Sale.
Though not all his movie parts were starring roles, and some were quite brief, they were usually pivotal to the plot. His role in The Bedford Incident was that of a young ensign who becomes so rattled by the needling of his Captain (Richard Widmark) that he accidentally fires an ASROC at a Soviet submarine, thus (we are given to understand) starting World War III.
In Battle of the Bulge he again played the role of a young and inexperienced officer. This time, however, the officer finds courage and a sense of responsibility. His brief but memorable appearance in the Clint Eastwood movie, Hang 'Em High eventually led to his role as Dan Williams in Hawaii Five-O, popularizing the catch phrase "Book 'em Danno."

Hawaii Five-O

In 1967, Leonard Freeman, the producer of Hang 'Em High, made the pilot for a new television cop show, Hawaii Five-O. Before it went to air, the pilot was well-received by test audiences, except for some dislike of the actor playing Dan Williams. Freeman remembered MacArthur's portrayal of the traveling preacher in Hang 'Em High: He had come on the set and done the scene in one take. He called MacArthur and offered him the role of Dan Williams. Hawaii Five-O ran for twelve years — eleven with MacArthur. Leaving Hawaii Five-O at the end of its eleventh season, MacArthur returned to the theatre, appearing in The Lunch Hour with Cybill Shepherd.

Post- Hawaii Five-O

He appeared in A Bedfull of Foreigners in Chicago in 1984, and in Michigan in 1985. He followed this with The Hasty Heart, before taking a year out of show business. In 1987, he returned to the stage in The Foreigner, then played Mortimer in the national tour of Arsenic and Old Lace with Jean Stapleton, Marion Ross and Larry Storch. In 1989, he followed another stint in The Foreigner with Love Letters and, in 1990–1991, A Bedfull of Foreigners, this time in Las Vegas.
After leaving Hawaii Five-O, McArthur guest-starred on such television shows as Murder, She Wrote, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Vega$, as well as in the mini series Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story and The Night the Bridge Fell Down, and in the 1998 television movie Stormchasers: Revenge of the Twister, with Kelly McGillis.

Semi-retirement

Throughout his career, MacArthur had also found time for various other ventures. From 1959–60, he partnered with actor James Franciscus and Alan Ladd, Jr. in a Beverly Hills telephone answering service; in June 1972, he directed The Honolulu Community Theatre in a production of his father's play The Front Page, and, for a period in the 1990s he was part-owner of Senior World publication, as well as writing the occasional celebrity interview. In 2000 MacArthur was awarded his own "sidewalk star" in Palm Springs. He continued to appear at conventions, collectors' shows, and celebrity sporting events. A keen golfer, he was the winner of the 2002 Frank Sinatra Invitational Charity Golf Tournament.
He also appeared in television and radio specials and interview programs. His most recent appearances include spots on Entertainment Tonight, Christopher's Closeup and the BBC Radio 5 Live obituary program Brief Lives, in which he paid tribute to his Hawaii Five-O castmate, the late Kam Fong. In 1997, MacArthur returned without Jack Lord (who was in declining health) to play Governor Danny Williams in the 1997 unaired pilot of Hawaii Five-O which starred actor Gary Busey. In April 2003, he traveled to Honolulu's historic Hawaii Theatre for a cameo role in Joe Moore's play Dirty Laundry. Negotiations were underway in late 2010 for MacArthur to make a cameo appearance in the new CBS prime time remake of Hawaii Five-0 at the time of his death. On the November 1, 2010 episode, MacArthur's death was mentioned in a short tribute that played before the start of that episode.

Death

MacArthur died of natural causes on October 28, 2010, age 72, at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. He was survived by his third wife, H. B. Duntz, and his four children and six grandchildren.^[1] The episode Ho'apono from the 2010 version of Hawaii Five-0 was dedicated to MacArthur. ^[2]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955	Climax!	Hal Ditmar	Deal a Blow
1957	Arthur Murray Party, TheThe Arthur Murray Party	Self	April 30, 1957
1957	Young Stranger, TheThe Young Stranger	Harold James 'Hal' Ditmar
1958	General Electric Theater	Johnny Dundeen	The Young and the Scared
1958	Studio One	Jim Gibson	Ticket to Tahiti
1958	Studio One	Ben Adams	Tongues of Angels
1958	Light in the Forest, TheThe Light in the Forest	Johnny Butler/True Son
1959	Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse	Jamsie Corcoran	The Innocent Assassin
1959	Third Man on the Mountain	Rudi Matt
1959	Wagon Train	(uncredited)	The Jenny Tannen Story
1960	Kidnapped	David Balfour
1960	Night of the Auk	Lt. Mac Hartman
1960	Swiss Family Robinson	Fritz Robinson
1960	Play of the Week	Lieutenant Max	Night of the Auk
1961	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	Johnny Butler/True Son	Archive footage Light in the Forest: True Son's Revenge
1961	Play of the Week	Lt. Max Hartman	Night of the Auk
1961	Untouchables, TheThe Untouchables	Johnny Lubin	Death for Sale
1961	Bus Stop	Thomas 'Tom' Quincy Hagan	And the Pursuit of Evil
1962	Insight	Jim Brown	The Sophomore
1962	Wagon Train	Dick Pederson	The Dick Pederson Story
1962	Interns, TheThe Interns	Dr. Lew Worship
1962	Dick Powell Show, TheThe Dick Powell Show	Jack Doffer	The Court Martial of Captain Wycliff
1963	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	Rudi Matt	Archive footage Banner in the Sky: To Conquer the Mountain
1963	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	Rudi Matt	Archive footage Banner in the Sky: The Killer Mountain
1963	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	David Balfour	Archive footage Kidnapped: Part 1
1963	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	David Balfour	Archife footage Kidnapped: Part 2
1963	Sam Benedict	Bert Stover	Some Fires Die Slowly
1963	Spencer's Mountain	Clayboy Spencer
1963	Arrest and Trial	Deke Palmer	A Shield is for Hiding Behind
1963	Cry of Battle	David McVey
1963	Amos Burke: Secret Agent	Larry Forsythe	Who Killed the Kind Doctor?
1963	Eleventh Hour, TheThe Eleventh Hour	Mason Walker	La Belle Indifference
1963	Great Adventure, TheThe Great Adventure	Lieutenant Alexander	The Hunley
1964	Great Adventure, TheThe Great Adventure	Rodger Young	Rodger Young
1964	Alfred Hitchcock Hour, TheThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour	Dave Snowden	Behind the Locked Door
1965	Truth About Spring, TheThe Truth About Spring	William Ashton
1965	Bedford Incident, TheThe Bedford Incident	Ensign Ralston
1965	Virginian, TheThe Virginian	Johnny Bradford	Jennifer
1965	Battle of the Bulge	Lieutenant Weaver
1966	Ride Beyond Vengeance	The Census Taker
1966	Branded	Lt. Laurence	A Destiny Which Made Us Brothers
1966	12 O'Clock High	Lt. Wilson	The Outsider
1966	Gunsmoke	David McGovern	Harvest
1967	Dateline: Hollywood	Self	June 19, 1967
1967	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	Cpl. Henry Jenkins	Willie and the Yank: The Deserter Willie and the Yank: The Mosby Raiders
1967	Combat!	Jack Cole	Encounter
1967	Love-Ins, TheThe Love-Ins	Larry Osborne
1967	Insight	Billy Thorp	Some Talk About Pool Rooms and Gin Mills
1967	Hondo	Judd Barton	Hondo and the Mad Dog
1967	Tarzan	Dr. Richard Wilson	The Pride of the Lioness
1967	Bonanza	Jason 'Jase' Fredericks	Check Rein
1967	Death Valley Days	Kit Carson	Spring Rendezvous
1968	Death Valley Days	Kit Carson	The Indian Girl
1968	Angry Breed, TheThe Angry Breed	Deek Stacey
1968	Premiere	Russ Faine	Lassiter
1968	Hang 'Em High	The Preacher
1968– 1979	Hawaii Five-O	Det. Danny Williams	259 episodes
1971	Movie Game, TheThe Movie Game	Self	June 28, 1971 July 4, 1971
1971	Hollywood Squares, TheThe Hollywood Squares	Self	April 12, 1971
1972	Hollywood Squares, TheThe Hollywood Squares	Self	March 6, 1972
1973	Hollywood Squares, TheThe Hollywood Squares	Self	January 1, 1973
1977	Battle of the Network Stars III	Self
1978	Battle of the Network Stars IV	Self
1978	Fantasy Island	Fantasy Island	The Funny Girl/Butch and Sundance
1979	Time Express	Dr. Mark Toland	Garbage Man/Doctor's Wife
1979	Love Boat, TheThe Love Boat	Chet Hanson	The Spider Serenade/The Wife Next Door/The Harder They Fall
1980	34th Annual Tony Awards	Self
1980	Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story	Walt Stomer
1980	Love Boat, TheThe Love Boat	Scott Burgess	The Caller/The Marriage of Convenience/No Girls for Doc/Witness for the Prosecution
1981	Fantasy Island	Bob Graham	The Heroine/The Warrior
1981	Vega$	Jerry Lang	Heist
1981	Walking Tall	Father Adair	The Fire Within
1981	Littlest Hobo, TheThe Littlest Hobo	Jim Haley	Trail of No Return
1983	Scheme of Things, TheThe Scheme of Things	Self
1983	Night the Bridge Fell Down, TheThe Night the Bridge Fell Down	Cal Miller
1983	Love Boat, TheThe Love Boat	Paul Krakauer	I Don't Play Anymore/Gopher's Roommate/Crazy for You
1985	Love Boat, TheThe Love Boat	Marc Silver	Vicki's Gentleman Caller/Partners to the End/The Perfect Arrangement
1989	Adventures of Superboy, TheThe Adventures of Superboy	Hogan	Birdwoman of the Swamps
1991	JFK	uncredited David McVey	Archive footage Cry of Battle
1991	American Masters	Self	Helen Hayes: First Lady of the American Theatre
1994	Wonderful World of Disney: 40 Years of Television Magic, TheThe Wonderful World of Disney: 40 Years of Television Magic	Self
1997	Hawaii Five-O (1997 pilot)	Governor Danny Williams	Unsold pilot episode
1997	Light Lunch	Self	70 Super Cops
1998	Storm Chasers: Revenge of the Twister	Frank Del Rio
2002	Swiss Family Robinson: Adventure in the Making	Narrator	Special thanks
2002	Inside TVLand: 40 Greatest Theme Songs	Self
2002	Inside TVLand: Cops on Camera	Self
2005	100 Greatest Family Films, TheThe 100 Greatest Family Films	Self
2006	100 TV Quotes and Greatest Catch Phases, TheThe 100 TV Quotes and Greatest Catch Phases	Self
2007	Entertainment and TVLand Present: The 50 Greatest TV Icons	Self
2008	Age of Believing: The Disney Live Action Classics, TheThe Age of Believing: The Disney Live Action Classics	Self	Grateful thanks

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