Duke Kahanamoku’s athleticism, handsome face and powerful build made the already famous Olympic champion swimmer and surfer a natural for the movies. Indeed, in 1925 Hollywood beckoned and Kahanamoku moved to Southern California.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com) lists 14 feature films in which Kahanamoku appeared, most of them from 1925 to 1930. However, there may have been more, according to Bishop Museum historian DeSoto Brown.

“While Duke did appear in a number of Hollywood films, mostly in the 1920s, the downside is most no longer exist because they were made on nitrate film, which deteriorates over time, literally into dust,” he said, unless proper care is taken. Silent movies, in particular, suffered this fate because once “talkies” arrived there was little economic motivation to preserve them.

“So we don’t even know how many movies Duke was in,” especially because he was sometimes uncredited, according to Brown, who worked on archival aspects of Bishop Museum’s new exhibit commemorating Kahanamoku’s 125th birthday. The exhibit, which runs through Nov. 30, includes a computer terminal screening clips from his various films.

“Duke was capable of appearing in films as any type of exotic character,” Brown said.

The pure hawaiian portrayed Native Americans, North Africans, Southeast Asians and South Seas islanders. But Kahanamoku also played Native Hawaiians, a fact that is often overlooked, said Steven Fredrick, a Honolulu historian and movie buff specializing in presenting vintage island films.

“There’s a big misconception about the roles Duke played in the movies. Lots of authors say Duke never played a Hawaiian. That’s incorrect,” he said. “In 1927’s ‘Hula’ he’s the Hawaiian paniolo that rides to the rescue of Clara Bow, warning the dam is flooding.”

Kahanamoku’s first feature, “Adventure,” was based on Jack London’s novel of the same name and set in the Solomon Islands. The athlete-cum-actor portrays Noah Noa, whom London called a “big Tahitian” in his book. African-American actor Noble Johnson — the Melanesian chief in 1933’s “King Kong” — portrayed the character Googomy, who leads an indigenous uprising.

The 1925 movie was made by Victor Fleming, who would later direct two of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters: 1939’s “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.” In addition to launching Kahanamoku’s acting career, Fleming helmed three other motion pictures he appeared in, including an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim.” In that film Kahanamoku plays Tamb’ Itam, the Malay villager who becomes Jim’s loyal servant and adviser. (In another Conrad screen adaptation, set near Malaysia, Kahanamoku played a character called Jaffir in 1929’s “The Rescue,” starring Ronald Colman.)

Also from the silent-film era: Kahanamoku had roles as an American Indian chief (“The Pony Express,” 1925), a Barbary pirate captain (“Old Ironsides,” 1926) and a lifeguard in the 1925 comedy short “No Father to Guide Him,” by Hal Roach, producer of Little Rascals and Laurel and Hardy shorts.

Set in Fiji, the 1930 melodrama “Girl of the Port” had a firewalking subplot, with Kahanamoku as a character named Kalita. He depicted another Pacific islander, Manua, in the 1930 talkie “Isle of Escape,” co-starring two veterans of island-themed films: Betty Compson of “The Bonded Woman” and “The White Flower,” both made in Hawaii in the early 1920s, and Monte Blue, who starred in “White Shadows in the South Seas” (1928). The latter film was directed by Robert Flaherty, who is better known as a pioneering documentary filmmaker.

Kahanamoku’s last two features were among his most noteworthy movies. In the 1948 seafaring drama “Wake of the Red Witch,” Kahanamoku played Ua Nuke, a Polynesian chief who appears in front of an Easter Island-style moai statue in a luau scene with star John Wayne. Brown said the two Dukes became friends and that a scene depicting Kahanamoku as Honolulu’s sheriff was shot for Wayne’s 1952 film “Big Jim McLain” but ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Billed as “Native Chief,” Kahanamoku also appeared in “Mr. Roberts” (1955), starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney and Jack Lemmon, who scored a best supporting actor Oscar as Ensign Pulver. Partially shot at Kaneohe Bay and the first feature using Kualoa Ranch as a location, “Mr. Roberts” was co-directed by Hollywood giant John Ford.

According to Brown, Kahanamoku became friends with Ford, and the director was in the audience when the TV program “This Is Your Life” honored the Hawaiian in 1957.

Brown described Kahanamoku as a capable actor, and Fredrick said his youth, looks, physique and charisma played well during the silent-film era.

“The camera just loved him — the profile, his expressions. As he aged, Duke became more of an elder statesman, more subdued in his acting style, more low-key, more controlled,” said Fredrick, who is offering Kahanamoku-themed walking tours in Waikiki this month and in September (stevestoursandfilms.vpweb.com).

Kahanamoku, who died in 1968, is even glimpsed in the opening montage of one of the most recent Hollywood movies shot in Hawaii, Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha” — released 90 years after he first surfed onto the silver screen.

No wonder Duke Kahanamoku is, as Brown dubbed him, “the most famous Hawaiian to have ever lived.”

Former Makaha resident Ed Rampell co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book” (Mutual Publishing).