Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Colorful magistrate,
isle actor Frederick
Titcomb dies

By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin

James Titcomb said he got out of a few speeding tickets because of the respect police had for his father, Judge Frederick James Kealiimahiai Titcomb.

Judge Titcomb, as he was known for years, died March 10 of congestive heart failure. He was 77.

Titcomb, of Honolulu, served as a District Court judge for 30 years.

He lost an election to Dan Inouye in 1960, appeared in the television show "Hawaii Five-O" and was a member of the Screen Actors Guild.

"Within the judiciary, he was highly respected and well liked by his fellow magistrates, as well as clerks and bailiffs," said his son James, a Honolulu firefighter. "He was known as a fair and impartial jurist with an uncommon compassion for his fellow man."

Titcomb came from a colorful line of Chinese-Hawaiian-British ancestry. His great-great-grandfather, Charles Titcomb, came to Hawaii in the mid-1800s from New England. He tried to grow silk, then coffee and finally sugar.

He married into nobility and associated with Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma. He liked the Queen so much he named his Kauai plantation Emmasville.

Titcomb's mother, Helen Goo, of Hawaiian-Chinese ancestry, married the late William Titcomb. "His mother, we called Puna, was real strict and raised him with traditional Chinese and Hawaiian values, such as a strong work ethic," James Titcomb said.

Titcomb graduated from St. Louis School and dropped out of Washington State College to enter the Army during World War II. After the war, he graduated, then attended Cornell University, where he met his first wife, Norma. They returned to Hawaii, and Titcomb taught at Roosevelt High School for three years.

He passed the Hawaii state bar exam in 1956 and began his career as a city prosecutor. He won more than 40 consecutive jury convictions.

Hoping for a chance in the 1962 elections when Hawaii would gain a second U.S. Senate seat, Titcomb accepted the Republican Party's push to run against Sen. Dan Inouye in 1960 for the U.S. House of Representatives. After losing, Titcomb suffered a heart attack, which ended his political aspirations.

He was appointed a district court judge in 1962, all the while pursuing his other love, acting.

Columnist Eddie Sherman once joked, "Hawaii's best actor is public prosecutor Fred Titcomb."

Of all the things the public may remember him for, Titcomb's children will remember him for his "sense of family."

Titcomb is survived by his wife, Marcia; other sons William and Robert; daughters Dr. Carol Hartley and Laura Goode; 16 grandchildren; one great-grandson, and former wife Norma. Call: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at Borthwick Mortuary. Service: 7:30 p.m. Private burial. Aloha attire. No flowers.