Jack Lord

Jack Lord, born John Joseph Patrick Ryan on December 30, 1920, in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York, was an American actor, director, and producer who worked in television, film, and on Broadway. The son of Irish-American parents, his father William Lawrence Ryan was a steamship company executive. Lord grew up in Richmond Hill, Queens, and as a child developed equestrian skills on his mother's fruit farm in the Hudson River Valley. He attended St. Benedict Joseph Labre School and John Adams High School in Ozone Park, Queens, before enrolling at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, then located at Fort Trumbull in New London, Connecticut, where he graduated as an Ensign with a Third Mate's License. He subsequently attended New York University on a football scholarship, earning a degree in Fine Arts. During those years at NYU, Lord and his brother Bill opened the Village Academy of Arts. His first professional sale as an artist came in 1941, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased two of his linoleum cuts, entitled Vermont and Fishing Shacks, Block Island.

Lord spent the first year of American involvement in World War II with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, building bridges in Persia. He returned to the Merchant Marine as an able seaman before re-enrolling in the deck officer course at Fort Trumbull. It was while making maritime training films that Lord became interested in acting. He received theatrical training from Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, working as a car salesman to fund his studies, and later trained at the Actors Studio.

His Broadway career spanned 1954 to 1955. He made his stage debut as Slim Murphy in Horton Foote's The Traveling Lady, opposite Kim Stanley, in 1954. The production ran for 30 performances, and Lord received the Theatre World Award in 1955 for his work in the role. He subsequently joined the cast of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as a replacement for Ben Gazzara in the role of Brick during the 1955–1956 production.

Lord's screen career began with the propaganda film Project X, and he rose to associate producer on Cry Murder. In 1957, he starred in Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot, a film that has screened daily at Colonial Williamsburg since its release. The following year he co-starred in God's Little Acre, the film adaptation of Erskine Caldwell's 1933 novel. In 1962, Lord became the first actor to portray Felix Leiter in the James Bond film series, appearing in Dr. No. His demands for co-star billing, a larger role, and increased pay led to his departure from the franchise, after which Guy Hamilton cast Cec Linder in the part, and Leiter was played by a different actor in each subsequent film until David Hedison returned to the role in Licence to Kill.

Also in 1962, Lord starred in the television series Stoney Burke, playing a rodeo cowboy from Mission Ridge, South Dakota, a character modeled on real-life champion rodeo rider Casey Tibbs. The series featured Warren Oates and Bruce Dern in recurring supporting roles, and Lord cited Gary Cooper as his on-screen role model for the characterization. He had previously been considered for the role of Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, a part that ultimately went to Robert Stack, though Lord did appear in the Season One episode "The Jake Lingle Killing." According to William Shatner, Gene Roddenberry offered Lord the role of Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek in 1966, but Lord's request for 50 percent ownership of the show led Roddenberry to offer the role to Shatner instead.

Lord is best known for starring as Detective Steve McGarrett in the CBS television series Hawaii Five-O, which ran for 12 seasons from 1968 to 1980. McGarrett was appointed by the governor to head a fictional State Police criminal investigation department in Honolulu, Hawaii. The series opening sequence includes a shot of Lord standing on a penthouse balcony of the Ilikai hotel, and his character's catchphrase "Book 'em, Danno!" became a widely recognized part of popular culture. Lord was instrumental in casting native Hawaiians rather than mainland actors in the production. He insisted his character drive Ford vehicles; McGarrett drove a 1967 Mercury Park Lane in the pilot, a 1968 Park Lane from 1968 to 1974, and a 1974 Mercury Marquis for the remainder of the series. When series creator Leonard Freeman died in 1974, ownership of the show was shared among Lord, CBS, and Freeman's estate under a contract that designated Lord as executive producer and granted him complete control over content. Lord's final television appearance was in the 1980 CBS pilot M Station: Hawaii, which he also directed and which had been filmed in early 1979 immediately before production of Hawaii Five-O's final season.

In his personal life, Lord married his first wife, Ann Willard, in 1942; they divorced in 1947. Their son died on August 24, 1955, at the age of 12, following a brief illness from hepatitis. Lord met his second wife while house hunting in upstate New York, and on January 17, 1949, he married fashion designer Marie de Narde (1905–2005), who gave up her career to devote her time to him and his work. The couple lived near the Lescaze House on East 48th Street in New York until 1957, when they relocated to California.

Following the conclusion of Hawaii Five-O in 1980, Lord maintained a low public profile. He suffered from Alzheimer's disease for at least seven years before his death, with some accounts suggesting the illness may have begun as early as the final season of the series. Lord died of congestive heart failure at his home in Honolulu on January 21, 1998, at the age of 77. His estate, valued at $40 million, was directed to Hawaiian charities upon his wife's death in 2005. A bronze bust by Hawaii sculptor Lynn Weiler Liverton was unveiled at the Kahala Mall on June 19, 2004, funded by the nonprofit Jack Lord Memorial Fund, co-chaired by Esperanza Isaac and Lord's co-star Doug Mossman.