James Gordon MacArthur (December 8, 1937 – October 28, 2010) 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.
James MacArthur, an actor best known for portraying Detective Danny "Danno" Williams on the original "Hawaii Five-0," the TV series that turned "Book 'em, Danno" into a national catchphrase, has died. He was 72.
From 1968 to 1979, MacArthur appeared on "Hawaii Five-0" as the chief assistant to Detective Steve McGarrett, played by Jack Lord, who often ended episodes of the police drama by uttering the famous line.
Born Dec. 8, 1937, in Los Angeles, James Gordon MacArthur was the adopted son of Helen Hayes, an actress who was dubbed the first lady of the American theater, and Charles MacArthur, a playwright and screenwriter who co-wrote the play "The Front Page." His older sister, Mary, died of polio at 19 in 1949.
His parents tried to keep their young son away from the theater, but he often had opportunities for walk-on parts, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1962, and he debuted on stage when he was 8 as a Welsh boy in "The Corn Is Green" in summer stock in Maryland.
He attended Harvard University but eventually left to pursue a film career that featured him as a tortured teen in such dramatic films as "The Young Stranger" (1957) and "Light in the Forest" (1958), one of four Disney movies he made.
Married 25 years to Helen Beth Duntz, a former professional golfer; four children, Charles P. MacArthur, James D. MacArthur, Mary McClure and Juliette Rappaport; and seven grandchildren.
(source: Wikipedia)
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