Jack Lord

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BIRTHDAY

December 30, 1920

Brooklyn, New York City, NY

DIED

January 21, 1998

RECENT CREDITS

The Counterfeit Killer (FILM) May. 1, 1968

The Name of the Game Is Kill (FILM) Apr. 1, 1968

Dr. No (FILM) May. 8, 1963

Man of the West (FILM) Oct. 1, 1958

God's Little Acre (FILM) May. 1, 1958

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BIOGRAPHY

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Brooklyn-born actor John Joseph Patrick Ryan borrowed his stage name "Jack Lord" from a distant relative. Spending his immediate post-college years as a seafaring man, Lord worked as an engineer in Persia before returning to American shores to manage a Greenwich Village art school and paint original work; he flourished within that sphere (often signing his paintings "John J. Ryan,") and in fact exhibited the tableaux at an array of prestigious institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Modern Museum of Art. Lord switched to acting in the late 1940s, studying under Sanford Meisner at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. In films and television from 1949, Lord (a performer with stark features including deep-set eyes and high cheekbones) played his share of brutish villains and working stiffs before gaining TV fame as star of the critically acclaimed but low-rated rodeo series Stoney Burke (1962).

At around the same time, Lord played CIA agent Felix Leiter in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. From 1968 through 1980, Lord starred on the weekly cop drama Hawaii Five-O; producers cast him as Steve McGarrett, a troubleshooter with the Hawaii State Police who spent his days cruising around the islands, cracking open individual cases, and taking on the movers and shakers in Hawaiian organized crime, particularly gangster Wo Fat (Khigh Dhiegh), who eluded capture until the program's final month on the air. Lord also wrote and directed several episodes. After Hawaii 5-0 folded, Jack Lord attempted another Hawaii-based TV series, but M Station: Hawaii (1980) never got any farther than a pilot film. Lord died of congestive heart failure in his Honolulu beachfront home at the age of 77, in January 1998. He was married to Marie Denarde for 50 years.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Headlines

Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci arrive at the Fox Fall 08 Preview at the Paley Center for Media. Beverly Hills, CA - 09.05.08

New 'Hawaii Five-O' Coming to CBS

Oct. 9, 2009

Hollywood’s most in-demand writing duo is teaming up for an update of 'Hawaii Five-O,' which will return to CBS, the network it aired on from 1968-1980.

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