The Governor is dead! The governor of Hawaii Five-O, that is Richard Denning, who played on the well-known television series for 12 years, lost his life to emphysema.
The handsome, clean-cut character actor of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s starred in Cecil B. DeMille’s classic Westerns, Union Pacific (1939) with Joel McCrea, and North West Mounted Police (1940) with Gary Cooper. He also had a stint in the original Geronimo the same year. While Denning appeared in a handful of Westerns including The Gun That Won the West (1955), Buckskin Lady (1956), and TV’s Cheyenne (as a guest star), his acting career was diverse.
The sentimental might remember him for his role in the romantic drama, An Affair to Remember (1957). Maybe the light-hearted will recall his performance in the Billy Wilder comedy, Some Like it Hot (1959).
Although Denning’s career peaked in the late ’50s, it’s hard to forget those low-budget classics he starred in, mainly Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), The Black Scorpion (1957), and the two Roger Corman quickies, Day the World Ended (1955) and The Oklahoma Woman (1956).