The original Danno has booked out.
James MacArthur, who played Detective Daniel "Danno" Williams for almost all of the original television series "Hawaii Five-O" and was best known for a line he never spoke, died Thursday in Florida of "natural causes."
MacArthur, adopted son of the famous actress Helen Hayes and her playwright husband Charles MacArthur, grew up among screen and literary stars. Regular guests at the MacArthur home in Nyack included members of the Marx Brothers and the Algonquin Round Table, and his godmother was Lillian Gish.
He dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year to pursue acting and he appeared in hundreds of movie, television and regional stage roles over the years.
He starred in one play on Broadway, opposite Jane Fonda for "Invitation to a March" in 1960.
He was best known, however, for "Book 'em, Danno," the signature line of his "Hawaii Five-O" partner Steve McGarret, played by Jack Lord.
That satisfying directive often closed "Hawaii Five-O" episodes, just before the immortal theme song kicked in.
Steve and Danno became one of television’s all-time best-known cop teams during the remarkably long run of the show, 1968-1980. MacArthur left before the final season, saying the writing had become stale and no longer challenged him as an actor.
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