Kam Fong Chun (born Kam Tong Chun; May 27, 1918 – October 18, 2002) was an American

police officer A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a Warrant (law), warranted law employee of a police, police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. ...

and actor, best known for his role as Chin Ho Kelly, a police

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...

on the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used i ...

Hawaii Five-O Hawaii Five-O or Hawaii Five-0 may refer to: * ''Hawaii Five-0'' (2010 TV series), an American action police procedural television series * ''Hawaii Five-O'' (1968 TV series), an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productio ...

''.

Life

Kam Fong Chun was born in the

Kalihi Kalihi is a neighborhood of Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi, United States. Split by Likelike Highway (Route 63), it is flanked by Liliha, Chinatown, and Downtown Honolulu to the east and Mapunapuna, Moanalua, and Salt Lake t ...

neighborhood of

Honolulu Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. A 1938 graduate of

President William McKinley High School President William McKinley High School, more commonly referred to as McKinley High School, is a comprehensive public high school in the Honolulu District of the Hawaii State Department of Education. It serves grades nine through twelve. McKinl ...

, he worked at

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

shipyard in his 20s as a boiler maker and was a witness to the attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. After the death of his first wife and two eldest children in 1944, he applied for a job as a

at the

Honolulu Police Department The Honolulu Police Department (HPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the Honolulu County, Hawaii, City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, headquartered in the Alapa'i Police Headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu CDP. Officially re ...

. He served there for 16 years. After his retirement from the police force, he worked as a disc jockey and sold real estate in addition to doing community theater. Chun's life was filled with tragedies. His father had an affair, which led to his parents' divorce and the splitting of the family. The two eldest children went with their father and the younger five, including seven-year-old Chun, lived with their mother. The affair also led to Chun's father being forced out of the family business by his paternal grandfather, which left the family in poverty. Chun watched a brother burn to death as he was painting the family home and someone lit a match. On June 8, 1944, Chun lost his family in a freak air disaster that devastated their home in Honolulu. Two B-25 bombers collided over the Chun residence, killing wife Esther, four-year-old daughter Marilyn and two-year-old son Donald. Chun later married Gladys Lindo in 1949. They had two sons,

Dennis Dennis or Denis is a first or last name from the Greco-Roman name Dionysius, via one of the Christian saints named Dionysius. The name came from Dionysus, the Greek god of ecstatic states, particularly those produced by wine, which is some ...

and Dickson, and daughters, Brenda and Valerie.

Stage name

Chun's stage name came from a misunderstanding of his first name by his first teacher, who taught him to write Kam Fong Chun instead of his birth name, Kam Tong Chun. Due to confusion as he got older, he later legalized his name to the former.

asked him to shorten his name to Kam Fong when he was hired for ''Hawaii Five-O''.

Proposed 1997 ''Five-O'' revival

Talk had centered around a remake or a feature film version of the show for years. In 1997, CBS and

Stephen J. Cannell Stephen Joseph Cannell (; February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010) was an American television producer, writer, novelist, actor, and founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and The Cannell Studios. After start ...

(''

The Rockford Files ''The Rockford Files'' is an American detective drama television series starring James Garner, aired on NBC from September 13, 1974, to January 10, 1980. Garner portrays Los Angeles private investigator Jim Rockford, with Noah Beery Jr. in th ...

'', ''

Baretta ''Baretta'' is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a revised and milder version of a 1973–1974 ABC series, '' Toma'', starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police ...

'', ''

The Commish ''The Commish'' is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on ABC in the United States from September 28, 1991, to January 11, 1996. The series focuses on the work and home life of a suburban police commissioner in fictional Eastb ...

'') collaborated on a pilot for a possible new ''Five-O'' series. The pilot would introduce some of the new cast and feature former regulars from the original series, including Fong. According to ''Five-O'' fan and author of a book on the show, Karen Rhodes, Fong was asked to reprise his role and appear in the pilot. Neither Fong nor any of the other regulars told Cannell that Chin Ho had been killed off at the end of the tenth season. This was only discovered after all of Fong's scenes had been shot, and to excise him from the project would have caused delays and overruns in cost. Hoping that CBS executives would not remember the one episode out of hundreds, Cannell screened the pilot. His son

Dennis Chun Dennis Chun (born March 18, 1952) is an American actor. He is the son of ''Hawaii Five-O'' star Kam Fong Chun, and portrayed Sgt. Duke Lukela in the reboot of the series, in which his father was known for playing Chin Ho Kelly from the origi ...

had a recurring role in the 2010 reboot as HPD Sgt. Duke Lukela. Beginning with the 8th season he was promoted to a series regular.

Death

Kam Fong Chun died from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

on October 18, 2002, at the age of 84.'Five-O' actor Kam Fong Chun dead at 84
/ref>

Filmography

*''Ghost of the China Sea'' (1958) — Pvt. Hakashima *'' The Lost Missile'' (1958) — Chinese Officer (uncredited) *''

Cry for Happy ''Cry for Happy'' is a 1961 American CinemaScope comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Glenn Ford and Donald O'Connor. It is a service comedy set in Japan and largely filmed there. The title song is sung during the opening credits ...

'' (1961) — Chin, Sailor (uncredited) *''

Gidget Goes Hawaiian ''Gidget Goes Hawaiian'' is a 1961 American romantic comedy musical film starring James Darren, Michael Callan and Deborah Walley. Released by Columbia Pictures, the film is a sequel to the 1959 Sandra Dee beach film vehicle '' Gidget''. Dee ...

'' (1961) — Hotel Night Clerk (uncredited) *''

Seven Women from Hell ''Seven Women from Hell'' is a 1961 war drama directed by Robert D. Webb and starring Patricia Owens, Denise Darcel (in her final film), Margia Dean, Yvonne Craig and Cesar Romero about women prisoners in a Japanese World War II prison camp, int ...

'' (1961) — Burly Guard (uncredited) *'' Diamond Head'' (1962) — Loe Kim Lee (uncredited) *''

'' (1968–1978) — Det. Chin Ho Kelly *''

Magnum, P.I. ''Magnum, P.I.'' is an American crime drama television series starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator (P.I.) living on Oahu, Hawaii. The series ran from December 11, 1980, to May 1, 1988, during its first-run broadcast on ...

'' (1982–1985) — Kanki / Kam Chung *''Goodbye Paradise'' (1991) — Old man Yung *''Hawaii Five-O'' (1997) — Det. Chin Ho Kelly (final film role)

References

External links

* * * An account of the revival attempt and Kam Fong
The Hawaii Five-O Home Page
Retrieved August 24, 2016 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chun, Kam Fong 20th-century American male actors American male television actors American male actors of Chinese descent Male actors from Honolulu Honolulu Police Department officers Deaths from cancer in Hawaii Deaths from lung cancer in the United States 1918 births 2002 deaths