For about five years in the mid-1970s James MacArthur was part of Hawaiian Adventure, a travel company offering package tours of Hawaii with a few extra twists. One of the special highlights was a dinner for the entire tour group held in a private room at one of Honolulu’s top-notch restaurants. Whenever these were scheduled, James MacArthur would finish the day’s filming and then drop by to personally greet each member of the tour group (as the popularity of Hawaiian Adventure grew, there were often as many as 200 people in attendance; sometimes there were even two or three concurrent dinners being held at different locations). One memorable evening shooting on Five-O ran late. Fearing the guest of honor would be unable to fulfill his obligation to greet the visiting tourists, partner Cal Lui phoned MacArthur’s home, where his visiting mother (Helen Hayes) answered the phone. When she learned the situation, Miss Hayes gallantly volunteered to take over her son’s duties, providing that evening’s group with a delightful and thrilling surprise. In addition to giving tourists an opportunity to meet and greet one of the island’s most popular and well-known actors, MacArthur also travelled to tourism bureaus across the planet, making presentations and using his “star power” to extol Hawaii’s virtues while, not incidentally, gaining additional business for Hawaiian Adventure.

The flyer pictured at right was donated by Linda Malitz (pictured with James MacArthur in the photos at bottom right from November 1970 and April 2005), to whom we are deeply indebted for her permission to reprint the flyer images and the photos here.