Kahanamoku was a tall, dark, imposing figure with strong legs, a bright smile and tousled hair. Sports reporters of the time were fascinated by the ukulele-playing, home-built surfboard swimmer. His photos graced the front pages of magazines and newspapers at a time when only white athletes were celebrated. When the U.S. team stopped in Paris on its way back from the 1920 Antwerp Olympics to put on a swimming exhibition on the Seine, local reporters rushed to meet him, mistaking him for Hawaiian royalty.
“He was unlike anyone else at that time,” said film producer Eric Karlsson, who is producing a feature film about Kahanamoku's life with actor Jason Momoa.
But four years later, when he returned to Paris for the 1924 Olympics, Kahanamoku's popularity had waned: on the afternoon of July 20, 1924, he finished second in the 100 meters to Johnny Weissmuller, a perky, barrel-chested American from Illinois. Kahanamoku never competed in another Olympic Games.
Weissmuller won four more gold medals at the Olympics and later played Tarzan in a series of films, swinging from vines and yodeling across the jungle. Kahanamoku also tried to become a Hollywood star, but found that there were no leading roles for men of color at the time.
But a century after the 100m, and with the Olympics back in Paris, Weissmuller is all but forgotten, and Kahanamoku may be just as famous as he was at the height of his swimming glory. He's often called the “father of modern surfing,” and is credited with popularizing the sport around the world. He popularized Hawaiian-print shirts, and 56 years after his death, he's still celebrated as an unofficial ambassador for Hawaii.
From the Island to the World
In 1911, two white Honolulu politicians with ties to the Amateur Athletic Union had an idea: They noticed that young Hawaiians surfing off Waikiki Beach were natural swimmers and might be faster than the best white mainland swimmers. What if there was a race to see if this was true?
Kahanamoku stood out: He rode high on his surfboard, glided through the waves like a dancer, and swam through the swells with powerful strokes. Though he had never entered an organized swimming meet, the men encouraged him to try out for an AAU-sanctioned open-water race scheduled for August that year in Honolulu Harbor.
He was well prepared for this challenge: his hands were rock hard and his legs were cramps of muscle from holding on to his surfboard in the raging sea. He won the 100-meter race that day, but the judges looked at their stopwatches and were stunned: a surfer who had never raced before had broken the world record.
When word reached the mainland that the 100-meter record had been broken by an unknown Hawaiian surfer swimming in the ocean, there was a gasp of disbelief, writes David Davis in his biography of Kahanamoku, “Waterman.” Kahanamoku couldn't afford to travel to the United States alone, but local business leaders saw a major marketing opportunity.
One person in a local paper quoted by Davis said he would bring “the most valuable publicity to the Islands.”
Funds were quickly raised to take Kahanamoku across the Pacific, but he ended up in an indoor pool, drowning in the unfamiliar fresh water. The coaches saw potential in him and agreed to train him, and within a few weeks he was swimming fast enough to be sent by AAU to the Stockholm Olympics that summer.
Kahanamoku was an instant sensation at an Olympics dominated by another non-white American, Jim Thorpe. Soon, extraordinary stories emerged about the mysterious Hawaiian who kept breaking records: that the U.S. team had timed their preliminary race wrong and was only able to swim thanks to the mercy of star Australian swimmer Cecil Healy, who said it was against the “Olympic spirit” to win by disqualification; that Kahanamoku had fallen asleep before the final and had to be woken up. In the pool, he won the 100 meters and helped the U.S. win the silver medal in the 4×200 freestyle relay.
Rich in fame but little in money
He returned to Hawaii a celebrity, but struggled financially. Because of the amateur rules of the Olympics, he could not use his newfound fame to promote his products or compete professionally; he was only allowed to promote surfing by exhibiting at surfing exhibitions. In 1914, he spent several weeks on Australian beaches, drawing large crowds each day. The visit is widely credited with introducing surfing to Australians.
The outbreak of World War I caused the cancellation of the 1916 Berlin Olympics. Hoping that the war would be over in time for the 1920 Olympics, Kahanamoku remained an amateur. He gave surfing lessons to tourists in Hawaii. He served in the U.S. Army and nearly died in 1918 from an influenza epidemic while on a business trip to Washington, D.C. When the Olympics finally resumed in 1920, Kahanamoku won gold in the 100 meters and led the United States to a gold medal in the 4×200 relay.
After the Antwerp Games, Kahanamoku decided to compete in another Olympic Games, which meant four more years of not being able to endorse products or take part in sporting events for money. He was in his early 30s and needed to find a way to earn an income without jeopardizing his amateur status, so he headed to Hollywood, believing that his name, looks, and Olympic fame could help him become a movie star.
He landed a few minor roles before going to Paris for the 1924 Olympics. After losing out to Weissmuller, he returned to Los Angeles to further pursue his career in Hollywood. He made friends with actors, directors and producers who enjoyed being in the company of the famous swimming star. He spent afternoons on the beach and was invited to parties. He liked to be the center of attention.
“He was one of the first people to have that celebrity-dominance in Hollywood,” said Sandy Hall, author of “Duke: The Great Hawaiian” and who is writing another biography of Kahanamoku.
He competed in three Olympic Games, winning three gold medals and two silver medals. His name is known around the world, and he has made a huge impact on surfing on beaches from Southern California to the East Coast of Australia. He once saved eight people from a capsized boat off the coast of Orange County by rowing three times to the boat and carrying survivors to shore.
But his connections and celebrity status didn't translate into any big roles: he has 15 film credits listed on the movie database IMDb, most notably “Wake of the Red Witch,” “The Rescue” and “Girl of the Port,” none of which list him in a leading role.
Many who have studied Kahanamoku believe that Hollywood was not ready for a darker-skinned leading actor.
“He was accepted, but as a good friend, never as a business partner,” said Jeremy Lemarie, an associate professor at the University of Reims-Champagne-Ardenne in France, who has studied Kahanamoku extensively.
“Duke would be an action star today,” Carlson says. “He would be Jason Momoa.”
Hall was more skeptical. She said Kahanamoku took no acting classes during his time in Hollywood and seemed to have “overly high expectations of being a matinee idol.”
“I don't think he was a very good actor,” she said.
As money got tighter, the movie industry cut back on supporting actors. Out of work, Kahanamoku returned home to Hawaii, where he took a degrading job in Honolulu before finally becoming the city's police chief, a position that became especially important after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 and Hawaii was a strategic naval base during World War II. But it was also a ceremonial position, and he held it for 29 years, waning in energy toward the end of his 13th term.
Twenty years after local white business executives launched Kahanamoku into becoming America's first swimming superstar, his greatest achievement in Hawaii was as the islands' biggest celebrity and guide.
Lumarie remains puzzled by Kahanamoku's willingness to swim for the US so soon after the US effectively overthrew the islands' government.
“This is a little-known topic. [Hawaiians] “I want to hear it,” said Rumaly.
He spoke with others who had studied Kahanamoku and Hawaiian history and concluded that Kahanamoku must have understood that the Hawaiian kingdom was gone forever.
“90% of you [Hawaiian] “The race will be wiped out in just a century and the only way to survive is to be in the system,” LeMarie added. “Embrace the system. That's the way.”
Though Kahanamoku was born eight years before the United States formally took possession of the territory, his parents seemed to understand how their land was changing: They urged their children to learn English as well as their native Hawaiian, which ultimately helped Kahanamoku's supporters feel comfortable raising the funds to send him to the mainland.
“He was in the minority and he knew how things were,” Hall said. “He had to act differently than other Olympians.”
She added that he knew he was often taken advantage of by the white establishment at the Olympics and in Hawaii, but he also saw it as an opportunity for him to be taken advantage of.
During his time in Los Angeles, Kahanamoku joined the local Hawaiian Association and would dress in traditional Hawaiian dress when asked. After returning to Hawaii, he joined the Shriners and had his Aloha Creed printed on the back of his Shriners business card.
“In Hawaii, we greet friends, loved ones and strangers with aloha, or love,” the card read. “Aloha is the key word that describes the universal spirit of true hospitality and why Hawaii is renowned as the world's center of understanding and fellowship. Try meeting and leaving people with aloha in your heart and you'll be amazed at their reaction. I believe this and it's my creed.”
A huge legacy
In 1955, Kahanamoku suffered a heart attack five times that day, Hall said, and doctors thought he was dead, but then resuscitated him. He had other health problems, too. His once-strong body began to deteriorate. He developed ulcers and, in Hall's words, “the length of a longboard surfboard had been removed from his abdomen.” At one point he began to lose his balance, and doctors worried he might be having a stroke.
“He kept his stress to himself,” Hall added. “He was operating in two very different cultures. He was operating as the exotic white man. He was well-spoken and well-dressed, he liked to go to baseball and football games, and he knew how to behave with kings and queens. But he also knew not to tell white people that he liked to eat raw fish and seaweed so he could act like a native. He knew how to walk on both sides of the road.”
“A lot of people can't do that. He knew when to do the hula, when to do the shaka sign.”
Seeking money to leave his wife, he opened a restaurant in Honolulu that he hoped would become as famous as boxer Jack Dempsey's in New York, and he allowed his name to be used for a leisurewear line.
Each business venture was another step into the white world, part of marketing Hawaiian culture to enamoured vacationers. He first began to make money from fame, but it was too late in his life: He died of a heart attack in 1968. Today, his name is omnipresent: a restaurant chain, a surfboard line, a youth sports foundation.
A century has passed since Kahanamoku last raced in the Olympics, and a nine-foot bronze statue of him stands on Waikiki Beach.
“Waikiki is [home] “Surfing is the driving force behind modern surfing, surfing is Hawaii's gift to the world,” Lemaire said. “And like every good story, you need someone to represent it, and Duke represented it. Duke represented everything Hawaii gives to the world. He represented the spirit of Hawaii.” [and] Hawaii's current brand of hospitality.
“You only need to look at one person to see the perfect definition.”
