Local actor got first break on TV series ‘Hawaiian Eye’

Last month I wrote about companies that were named after songs, movies and TV shows. One TV show was called “Hawaiian Eye.” Dr. John Corboy named his company the Hawaiian Eye Center based on it.

The day the article appeared, one of the stars of the show, local boy and Kamehameha grad Doug Mossman, called me to tell me “Hawaiian Eye” was not the original name.

“I was a struggling actor in Los Angeles in the late 1950s, trying to get work,” Mossman said. “I heard there was going to be an ABC/Warner Bros. series about Hawaii because statehood had just come in and there was a lot of interest.

“My agent got me an appointment. I met several people, including the assistant to Bill Orr, the ‘big cheese’ in television at the studio.”

William T. Orr produced such hits as “Mr. Roberts,” “F Troop,” “No Time for Sergeants” and “Maverick.”

Orr’s “77 Sunset Strip,” a detective TV show that began in 1958, was a hit. The studio planned to spin off similar shows set in Hawaii (“Hawaiian Eye”), New Orleans (“Bourbon Street Beat”) and Miami (“Surfside 6”) but mostly filmed in Los Angeles.

At one time in the early 1960s, Orr had nine programs on TV at the same time.

“Orr’s assistant asked me if I knew much about Hawaii,” Mossman recalled, “and I said I knew everything about Hawaii. He said, ‘OK, we’ll hire you as a technical adviser.’

“I said, ‘Great, what’s a technical adviser?’ He said, ‘You know the technical things about a place.’ I said ‘OK.’

“At one of my first mornings there, I went into a production meeting. We were looking at old Hawaii footage for possible use on the show. As the last guy hired, I was sitting in the back, at the farthest-away seat.

“Down in the front was the ‘big cheese,’ Bill Orr, and his assistants. At the time they were going to call the show ‘Diamond Head.’

“But then a guy named Peter Gilman wrote a book called ‘Diamond Head,’ so they figured they couldn’t use the name.” (A few years later, in 1963, it was turned into a movie, rumored to be about the life of Benjamin Franklin Dillingham II, starring Charlton Heston.)

Gilman was a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. “Orr said we’ve got to change the name because of that book.

“Bill was in the front, and I’m the back trying to be quiet. ‘Well, it’s a detective show in Hawaii,’ Orr said – ‘Detectives in Hawaii!’ No … that’s not good.

“What’s another word for detective? Gumshoe! ‘Gumshoes in Hawaii!’ No …

“People threw suggestions to him and he’s looking at different possibilities, and I think these are the dumbest things I ever heard,” Mossman continued.

“Detectives are also called private eyes, Orr said. ‘Hawaii Private Eye,’ ‘Hawaiian Private Eye,’ ‘Hawaiian Eye.’ That’s it!

“And he turned to his assistant and said, ‘What do you think?’

“‘Great idea, chief. Fantastic. It’s brilliant.’

“And I’m sitting in the back thinking this is the stupidest thing I ever heard! ‘Hawaiian Eye’? What the hell is that?

“So he goes to his next assistant and says, ‘What do you think?’ ‘Great idea, chief,’ and they’re going down the line. Everybody raved about it.

“And I realized they’re working their way up to me. When they get to me, I think, I’m going to tell them the truth.

“I’m from Hawaii. My family will laugh at me if we ever do a show called ‘Hawaiian Eye’; that’s really stupid. I’m going to tell him. I don’t care what happens.

“They get to me. ‘You! The kid in the back from Hawaii. What do you think?’

“And I said, ‘Great idea, chief, that’s the best idea I ever heard. “Hawaiian Eye” is great! We should do it.’

“The guy next to me, the assistant film editor, had heard me muttering under my breath and laughingly said, ‘What happened to telling them the truth?’

“And I said, ‘Are you crazy? I just got this job!’

“That’s exactly how they named the show ‘Hawaiian Eye.’ I didn’t like it but it worked.

“They had Connie Stevens under contract and had to find a show for her. She was a singer and had worked in Hawaii at Waikiki Lau Yee Chai when she was 16 or 17. She sang with a band and had lied about her age. Connie was delighted to do a show in Hawaii.”

Connie’s real name was Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingoglia, but her character’s name on the show was Cricket Blake.

Her co-star was Robert Conrad, born Conrad Robert Norton Falk. “Hawaiian Eye” was a detective agency and private security firm whose principal client was the Hawaiian Village hotel.

“Conrad had a great physique and took his shirt off at every opportunity,” Mossman recalled. “Some of us joked that we should not give him dialogue, just have him take his shirt off and flex his muscles.”

For many locals the cast favorite was a Filipino man named Poncie Ponce. His real name was Ponciano Hernandez.

“Poncie and I went to school together in Honokaa on the Big Island,” Mossman continued. “His family owned a pool hall there.

“Poncie got a job as a busboy at Ben Blue’s club in Hollywood. Ben hired people as cooks, waiters and busboys who wanted a chance to perform on his stage. This way he only had to give them one paycheck.

“They’d call Poncie up and he’d sing and do impersonations, then he’d go back to being a busboy.”

He also tried out for a late-night Los Angeles amateur talent TV show called “Rocket to Stardom.” Orr from Warner Bros. caught his act and hired him. They asked Mossman to create a role for him.

“I thought he’d make a goofy, wise-cracking cabdriver, and they liked it. We called him Kim the cabdriver. He wore a straw hat and played the ukulele.”

“Hawaiian Eye” ran from 1959-1963. Mossman played Moke, the chief uniformed security officer for the firm.

Mossman went on to co-star in “Hawaii Five-O” from 1974-76. He also had roles on “Magnum, P.I.,” “Jake and the Fatman,” “One West Waikiki” and many other shows.

Mossman’s cousin was Sterling Mossman, the “Hula Cop,” who headlined at Queen’s Surf.

Mossman is retired today and lives in Ewa, although in 2011 he appeared in an episode of the current “Five-0.”

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.