Hawaii tourists in the mid-1930s had a problem. They went to luau at night and took pictures of the singers and dancers, but the low light and poor cameras caused the pictures to come out too dark to see.
Fritz Herman, then-vice president and manager of Kodak Hawaii, saw the poor pictures daily. Ten years after the Royal Hawaiian Hotel opened in Waikiki, and in the midst of the Great Depression, he and Louise Akeo Silva started a daytime hula show on the lawn behind the beach at San Souci. Herman’s purpose was to sell film.
The free show started off slowly in 1937, long before the Kaimana Beach Hotel was built next door. The Natatorium was on its Ewa side. Herman found a spot on the grass where his hula girls, poi pounders and tree climbers could work.
There were always at least a dozen dancers. Muumuu-clad ukulele ladies played and sang. And, of course, there was the "hula lesson," where tourists were brought up to learn the dance and provide comic relief.
The show grew from once a week in the summer to four times a week year-round. Attendance grew to thousands a day. In the 62 years Kodak sponsored the show, an estimated 20 million attended. They may have taken more than 100 million photos.
During World War II, when tourism plummeted, the show performed for military audiences at USO Shows.
At one point, the bleachers could hold hundreds. Soon after Frank Fasi became mayor, in 1969, he ordered them removed from city property. Gov. John Burns rescued the show, allowing it to move to Kapiolani Park near the Waikiki Shell.
The Kodak Arena was given a new set, with tikis, a canoe, coconut trees, landscaping, a thatch-roof hut and bleachers for 4,000.
Kimo Kahoano was the host for the show’s last 12 years. "There were only three hosts in 65 years," Kahoano recalls. "Fritz Herman, Joe Mitchell and me. …
"The real stars were the wonderful aunties who sang and danced the hula with energy, aloha, and that kolohe, rascal attitude! Our musicians were the best with May Brown leading the ladies, Violet Lilikoi playing that upright bass, and the guitars and ukuleles complementing the vocal harmonies of the Royal Hawaiian Girls Glee Club with Annie Cazimero.
"I will never forget the smiles, applause and pictures taken constantly during and after the show by visitors who came from all over the world."
The show was a Hawaii institution, but times change. Cameras and film improve. Attendance probably peaked in the 1970s. By the 1990s, it dropped to about 2,000 and in the end, was less than 1,000 a day.
Kodak pulled out after 62 years and the Hogan Family Foundation took over for three more. It closed in 2002.
Auntie May Brown joined the show in 1938 as a 12-year-old and took over when Aunty Louise Silva died in 1980. "When I first heard the show was ending, I was kind of happy," Brown told Honolulu Magazine. "I mean, 65 years. Enough is enough."
"It really was heartbreaking for me to hear the show would end after all these years," Brown continues. "It was one of the greatest experiences of my life."
Star-Bulletin editor Urban Allen called the Kodak Hula Show "one of the most potent means of advertising Hawaii to potential visitors. Its fame has spread around the world in countless amateur slide shows and movie performances that have contributed to kindling the spark of desire that brought subsequent visitors to the islands."
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Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
