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What happened to all the nightclubs in Waikiki? There used to be at least 25 Oahu nightclubs with entertainment every night. Most had a dinner show and later a cocktail show or two.
Over a million visitors a year went to Duke Kahanamoku’s, the Royal Hawaiian’s Monarch Room, Kahala Hilton, Queen’s Surf, C’est Si Bon and the Outrigger Main Showroom, to name a few.
Some of these clubs could hold hundreds of people. The Hilton Dome could seat 1,000.
Most of the shows were led by a star entertainer like Don Ho, Dick Jensen, Al Harrington, Melveen Leed, John Rowles, Danny Kaleikini, Loyal Garner or Jim Nabors. Thousands of local dancers and singers, as well as backstage staff, were employed and well paid.
My rough estimate is that Oahu showrooms generated about $500 million a year in revenue (in today’s dollars).
I was chatting with Jack Cione, who turned 95 this week. He owned 13 nightclubs at one time in Honolulu, such as Forbidden City, Le Boom Boom Club and the Dunes. His clubs were more likely to feature topless dancers and naked waiters.
“One night in 1968, the manager of the Royal Hawaiian came to see me. He said, ‘How would you like to put on a Polynesian show in the Monarch Room?’
“And I said, ‘Oh, I’d love to. That’s a wonderful idea.’”
“The Royal Hawaiian Hotel has the nicest showroom, the Monarch Room, overlooking the beach,” Cione said. His show was called “Her Little Island.”
Ed Kenny, who had performed on Broadway, was the lead singer along with Beverly Noa and Marlene Sai. They were paid $5,000 to $10,000 a month (in today’s dollars), and all went out on their own and got their own shows. They were very talented, Cione said.
“Jack ‘Tihati’ Thompson was my Samoan slap dancer. He demonstrated all the ways to wear a lavalava. Al Harrington was my fire dancer. We had six musicians and about 30 performers.”
“Coats and ties were still required for men, but the Monarch Room was not air-conditioned. The performers came offstage covered in sweat,” Cione said. “The audience was often perspiring so I dropped that requirement.”
Ed Kenny was not happy with the new rule. It was too casual for him. One day he said, “Can you tell me what an Italian from Chicago knows about doing a Hawaiian show?”
“We didn’t talk for weeks,” Cione continued. “Plus, he thought of himself as a star, and wanted everyone to treat him as such. He was a good entertainer but he was a troublemaker. He didn’t get along with the other people in the show. He left our production soon thereafter for greener pastures.”
Memorable shows
I asked Jack to tell me about some of his favorite Hawaiian shows and headliners.
“Mahi Beamer was here when I first arrived in Hawaii in 1957,” Cione said. “He had the nicest show outside under the stars at the Queen’s Surf, on Waikiki Beach. It was a beautiful dinner.
“Mahi Beamer was a young chanter, singer and dancer. Everything about him was wonderful. That’s one of the first shows I saw when I moved here, and I was really impressed.”
Beamer left the Queen’s Surf in 1959 and performed at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas for 13 years.
Alfred Apaka
Alfred Apaka — the “Golden Voice of Hawaii” — was in the Tapa Room at Hilton Hawaiian Village. “It was my wife Maydelle’s favorite show. He was very handsome. We became friends with Alfred Apaka and his son, Jeff.
“When his dad passed away, I put together Jeff’s first show at the Royal Hawaiian Monarch Room, and it got fantastic reviews.”
In 1969, Jack and Cha Thompson founded their own company, Tihati, and had a great ‘Polynesian Review; show at Duke Kahanamoku’s when Don Ho was in Las Vegas. Cione said he liked its cultural authenticity.
Wayne Harada called it a “majestic journey to Maori, New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji and other Polynesian ports of call.”
The Waikiki Sands restaurant, on the beach in Waikiki where the police station is now, had a great showroom, Cione said. “It could seat about 300. It was right on the water, which splashed under the building.”
Tavana
“Tavana had an excellent show at the Moana Hotel Banyan Court, called the ‘Polynesian Spectacular,’” Cione recalled.
Tavana Anderson said his return to the Moana was like a homecoming for him. He worked there as a fire walker before he had his own show.
Tavana’s show grossed $3 million to $4 million a year in revenue. It spent $50,000 just on costumes in 1973 and budgeted $750,000 a year on general expenses and salaries.
Dick Jensen
“Dick Jenson was a rock star,” Cione said. “He had a show in 1972 at the Empire Room on the Oceania floating restaurant at Pier 6.” It sat 550 people.
Over 6,000 people a week attended his shows at the Oceania, which paid him about $25,000 a week with a 40-week-a-year guarantee.
People called him “The Giant” due to his height and talent. Few knew that he came from Kalihi and had been a door-to-door Clorox salesman.
“He had something different,” Cione said. “He had charisma. He was magnetic.
“He went on to Las Vegas and also headlined at the Copacabana in New York, the Palmer House in Chicago and the Diplomat in Miami, to name a few.”
Don Ho
“Don Ho and the Aliis had a fabulous show at Duke’s at the International Market Place with long lines to get in. He turned many of Kui Lee’s songs into big hits, like ‘Lahainaluna’ and ‘I’ll Remember You.’”
“People liked his sweetness,” Cione said. “He was a gentleman. He had a great sense of humor. He had the whole package: a great personality. He could sing a little bit, kiss the ladies a little, and he knew how to engage the audience so they really had fun.
“When he went to the mainland, they loved him there, too. Vegas paid him $250,000 a week to perform.”
Don Ho left Duke’s and went to the Pacific Beach Hotel. Cione turned Duke’s into Le Boom Boom Club and launched a show called “Follies Polynesia.” It played for five years, then went on the road to Hong Kong, Singapore and Lake Tahoe.
Cione said there were many other great entertainers: Harrington, Jimmy Borges, Leed, Kaleikini, Emma Veary, Arthur Lyman, Martin Denny, Sterling Mossman, Garner, Nabors, the Brothers Cazimero, the Society of Seven, Charo, Liz Damon, Zulu and many more.
What changed?
Today there are luau with Polynesian shows. Tihati has a dozen of them on four islands at the moment, Cha Thompson told me, and there are many others. They have an emcee or host, but none has a star headlining it.
Locals flocked to these shows in the old days, Thompson said. Now they’re as scarce as free parking in Waikiki.
The Polynesian Cultural Center is still going strong in Laie. You can find magic or tribute shows, dinner cruises and lots of daytime activities.
What do you think has changed? I asked Cione. Did visitors want something different from their parents? More hotel owners are out of state. Did that affect the shows? Did it become too costly or too big a headache for them?
Cione said shows are more and more expensive to put on. When his first lease was up, the Le Boom Boom Club’s rent went up to $50,000 a month from $30,000. Why work so hard just to cover the rent? he said.
He also said more tourists back then came in groups. Buses would pick them up at the airport in the morning and take them to “briefings,” where all the tours would be explained and sold, before taking them to their hotels to check in.
Now more visitors are independent travelers. The briefing system that sold dinner shows and other tours fell apart.
Cione said the tour companies would bus in 200 people or more a night to his club, who paid $16 to $22 for dinner and a show then. The tour company took 10% of that but later wanted 25%.
“One night a bus driver said, ‘You know, Cione, you haven’t given me a tip in a long time.’ He said, ‘I work for tips, you know. I brought 200 people here tonight. I could bring them to Tavana’s show.’
“I said, ‘What would you suggest?’ He recommended a dollar a head.
“If I gave him $200 a night, all the other bus drivers would want the same, so I refused to do it.”
Another factor might be television, Cione said. Visitors can see the headliners on TV for free. Why pay to see their show?
Readers, what do you think has changed? What were your favorite shows and entertainers?
Happy 95th birthday, Jack!
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Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Email your questions, comments or suggestions to Sigall@Yahoo.com.
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