[ IN MEMORY OF... ]
STAR-BULLETIN / 1997
Jo Pruden and Dave Donnelly dance together as Fanny and Gardner Church in a Manoa Valley Theatre production of "Painting Churches."
Donnelly’s generosity
touched many
Fans, friends and colleagues mourned yesterday the loss of Star-Bulletin columnist and longtime Hawaii entertainer Dave Donnelly, who died Saturday.
"He lived a busy, ultralively life most of his years, and indeed, so many of us will miss his regular columns immensely," wrote former Hawaii resident and "Hawaii Five-O" fan Jerry Pickard, of Richmond, Canada.
Donnelly, who wrote his column for 35 years, will also be remembered as a KPOI radio disc jockey, as Mr. Checkers on the KGMB-TV children's show "Checkers and Pogo" and as a part-time actor on "Hawaii Five-O" and in local theater. After spending much of Saturday in intensive care at the Queen's Medical Center, 66-year-old Donnelly died just after 6 p.m.
Donnelly dropped a lot of famous names in his column but also slipped in common folk like Waikiki resident Robert Cravens, a freelance photographer.
Cravens was thrilled when Donnelly included him in a column four years ago. Cravens, then a room service waiter, asked a man in a chef's outfit to pass the jelly. He failed to recognize well-known chef and television cooking-show host Ming Tsai.
"He touched a lot of people through his writings, through his human heart, his generosity to the common people of Hawaii," Cravens said.
Cravens met Donnelly in passing when he took photos at events.
"He was a busy man, and he would still take the time to say, 'Hi, how are you?'"
Eddie Sherman, a columnist for MidWeek and formerly with the Honolulu Advertiser, said of Donnelly: "Although we were competitors, we respected each other. In person, we'd throw lines at each other. We'd do roast material to each other.
"It was all in friendship and respect."
Sherman visited Donnelly a couple of weeks ago and saw a struggling, wheelchair-bound Donnelly who "seemed to have aged 100 years."
"I admired his courage because he continued to write his column," he said. "He just stayed in there and slugged right to the end."
Sherman said he also admired Donnelly for his hard work and the respect he had for his job as a columnist.
"I'm sure his work will be missed," he said.
Sherman said he had hoped Donnelly would recover as he did when he escaped death before, while he underwent liver surgery in 1994.
"I think he told me they tied the tag around his toe," Sherman said. "I think he had great intestinal fortitude. ... He came through some rings of fire."
Friend Nick Sylvester, a former Honolulu advertising executive, met Donnelly in 1971 and remained friends over the years, despite his move to the mainland in 1978.
"As I write this, I have tears in my eyes and a huge lump in my throat," Sylvester wrote in an e-mail yesterday.
Whenever Sylvester and his wife would visit Honolulu, they would dine with Donnelly and reminisce of days past, including Donnelly's theater days.
"When our son was born at Queen's Medical Center, Dave announced it in his column," he said. "We named our son Dave.
"He was a wonderful friend. So many folks, Hawaii side and mainland side, will miss him ... always.
"The Star-Bulletin has suffered a tremendous loss, never to be replaced."
