James MacArthur, the actor who played the original Danno on Hawai`i Five-O, passed away at the age of 72 on October 28.  He was the last living of the major players in the original show.

I had not intended to write again about the show or its cast so soon, but Danno deserves an In Memoriam.  The 1960s-70s Hawai`i Five-O was the product of a more genteel time--I'd go so far as to say, a more sophisticated time--and the actors played it that way.  Rather than come to fisticuffs over a disagreement about police procedure, there'd be the attitude in Jack Lord's strong jaw countering James MacArthur's raised eyebrow.

In our current era, we've been advertised at to the point that the only way to get an audience's attention is to enact their startle response.  We have a lot to relearn about subtlety.  James MacArthur's body of work as Danno isn't a bad case study.