Hawaii
Damien director
says film finally
getting proper dueSOME three years ago, a Belgian film company hired Australian director Paul Cox ("My First Wife," "Man of Flowers") and visited Kalaupapa to do a film on Father Damien. He hired a virtual unknown, David Wenham, as Damien, and a host of actors including Derek Jacobi, Peter O'Toole, Kris Kristofferson and Leo McKern in supporting roles. Former Star-Bulletin writer Janos Gereben, who some 30 years ago reviewed (along with the late Pierre Bowman) the original version of Aldyth Morris' play as performed in Kalaupapa, kept up his interest in Damien. So when director Cox visited the San Francisco Film Festival to premiere his new film, "The Diaries of Nijinsky," the two met and talked Damien. After the Belgian producer "butchered" the film, according to Cox, there were suits and countersuits and the film never got a proper showing. Now, says Cox, there'll be a "big premiere" for the Damien film -- his version -- in Sydney with U.S. distribution to come. Wenham, meanwhile, has attained some renown for his role in "Moulin Rouge" ...
NO sooner did Deborah Sharkey become a mom, she also became aware of mothers' needs, so she's started Makana Mother & Baby, which for now at least is a mobile maternity store that opens up at Blaisdell Center every couple of weeks. Her customers have included people like KGMB's Kim Gennaula and Lehua Heine of Na Leo Pilimehana, but she's had some unusual ones as well. On Sunday, a frantic woman came in with her mother and infant. They were obviously in a terrible rush with but one thing on their minds: Nursing bras. Apparently they'd just arrived from San Diego and were about to take a seven-day cruise. Two women at an unnamed department store had pointed them toward Sharkey's shop and a cabbie happily drove them there and was waiting. Within minutes, the new mom had those golden nursing bras in hand, and could take to the high seas with alacrity ...
Fiddlin' Friday
WHAT better time to do a little after work fiddling around than Friday. That's when Lisa Gomes will be playing her Irish fiddle in Ferguson's Irish Pub in the Dillingham Transportation Building. The last time she played there she was joined by Danny McDade and friends, singing songs and beating out reels and jigs as the Guinness, Harp and Killian's flowed ...LOCALITE Kent Keith is off on a 29-city tour of the mainland, promoting his new book, "Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World." And look for an interview with him in People magazine ...
Friendly singer
WORD to entertainers -- it pays to be nice. A Sri Lanka businessman who became a regular of Roy's when in Hawaii became friends with singer Wade Cambern. Next thing you know, "Love and Honesty," became a big hit in Sri Lanka for the duo of Cambern and Robi Kahakalau and the two have been invited to travel there to perform ... A dig, but with love, at the petite Perry & Price producer by Michael W. Perry. After showing off the noisy coqui frog from Puerto Rico, Perry commented, "Never before have we had anything this small and this loud -- except for Sweetie Pacarro." ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.
The Week That Was recalls items from Dave's 30 years of columns.Contact Dave by e-mail: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com