Isles in movie
masqueradesIF you're old enough, you may recall that "Blue Hawaii," which was shot in Hawaii, was meant to be Hawaii. It's not always so. Take "6 Days/7 Nights," for example, currently filming on Kauai. Not only have they got the title backwards -- travel packages always have one more day than nights -- Kauai is supposed to be a South Pacific island. It stars Harrison Ford, coming off the hit "Air Force One," and Anne Heche, who's No. 1 with Ellen Degeneres, and who even was visited by her on the Garden Isle ... Now shooting on the North Shore is Matthew Broderick, fresh from Broadway's "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." The answer to the "How to" question, apparently, is to make another "Godzilla" movie, and that's what he's doing. (Don't know if Sarah Jessica Parker is with him at the moment.) In this picture, the North Shore plays the part of Panama, and Jamaica is being impersonated by Kahuku. Hooray for Hollywood! At least the isle film industry is happy.
WHEN Beth Hillyer was a TV news reporter in Hawaii, she worked for the NBC affiliate. After a stint with the NBC station in Tucson, Ariz., she's returning and once again she'll be NBC affiliated. Only when she left, she was with KHON and on her return she'll be on air with KHNL, which left Fox to become the Peacock Network affiliate locally ... Mongolia doesn't get a lot of attention in Hawaii, but when the Mongolian minister of defense visited the East-West Center for a briefing Monday, the EWC's Lee-Jay Cho and Mark Valencia were hosting a major conference on the subject of Northeast Asia development in Ulaan Aaatar, Mongolia ...
THE evening was filled with surprises Sunday at the Don Ho show, and such is not always the case. Sitting in with Ho was Hapa, which joined in with the singer and his band. And stepping up to sing "Ain't No Big Thing" with Don was late composer Kui Lee's widow, Lani, and her daughter, Mahealani. The latter, who teaches hula on the Big Isle, danced a hula to "Lahainaluna," another song written by Kui. The boys from Hapa got a special thrill doing "The Waikiki Beachboy Song," since it was inspired by Kui Lee. It featured a duet with Keli'i Kaneali'i and Ho. The haole half of Hapa, Barry Flanagan, compared histories with Mahealani -- both were born in Manhattan and spent their early childhood in New Jersey. Manhattan's an island, too
THE current album of Na Leo Pilimehana is called "Colours," and they pulled in lots of green when performing at L.A.'s legendary House of Blues. It was the culmination of a two-week West Coast concert tour, and their CD has been on Billboard's World Music Chart for four weeks. The group will be filming an episode of "Island Music, Island Hearts" here, and then it's off to Japan for their first concert tour there. I wonder if they'll add a Japanese song to their repertoire? ...
AFTER open heart surgery and any number of other life-saving operations including an angioplasty, one of Hawaii's best known fishing boat skippers, Dudley Worthy, will tell you he never really thought he'd be having a 60th birthday party. But friends convinced him he was going to make it and so this evening, many of them will gather at Murphy's, where he delivers fresh mahimahi regularly, to celebrate. He hardly looks like a guy about to hang 'em up -- Capt. Worthy just bought a pink Harley! Yeah, he insists it's salmon, but Henry J. Kaiser would have loved it. Besides, Worthy hasn't seen a salmon in years ... Worthy endeavor
Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.