Hilo Hattie: I only live in memories of all the things I used to do.

Out on the shores at Waikīkī, in the canoe.

I used to sing melody to all the fishes that I knew.

As I went paddling out to sea in the canoe.

I'd give the world to go back where I could be by the seat, and maybe someday I'll find someone who really cares for me.

I only live in memories of all the things I used to do out on the shores at Waikīkī in a canoe.

Marie Kelly: Good evening, I'm Marie Kelly.

Welcome to the new Pau Hana Years.

Born October 28 1901, Hilo Hattie died on December 12 1979.

This evening Pau Hana Years pays our tribute to the Grand Dame of Entertainment by sharing a few memories of her performances on Pau Hana Years such as this one back in 1970.

Hilo Hattie: I'd give the world to go back where I could be by the sea and maybe someday I'll find someone who really cares for me.

I only live in memories of all the things I used to do out on the shores that Waikīkī in a canoe.

One paddle, two paddle, three paddle, four to take me home.

14 on the right 14 on the left take me to Hawaiʻi Nei, no ka best.

I've been away a long time such a long time a long time ago.

Oh, I've seen enough cities to last a lifetime, going away no more.

I want to smell the flowers, sweet, sweet flowers where the trade winds blow.

Oh I've seen enough fences to last a lifetime, going away no more.

Singing one paddle, two paddle, three paddle, four to take me home.

14 on the right, 14 on the left, take me to Hawaiʻi Nei.

No ka best.

Eh boys!

No ka best.

No ka best.

No ka best.

Marie Kelly: In 1975 Hilo Hattie was honored by many at the Coral Ballroom in, A Hilo Hattie Love Affair, which was telecast by Pau Hana Years.

In this next segment program host, Aku of KGMB radio, introduces a longtime friend and associate of Hattie's, Carrie Owens.

Hal Lewis: Earlier this evening, Clara, we were talking about your beginnings in show business and we got up to a point where you join Harry Owens and his group.

Just happens to be here tonight Harry Owens, would you believe it?

Harry please... HH: There he is.

HL: Sweet Leilani, heavenly flower... HH: Papa san!

HO: Hattie san.

HL: Harry, I'm interested in knowing how, the very first contact you had with, with Clara.

How did that come about?

How did you hear about her?

HO: I think I have to go just a little bit ahead of that, may I?

HL: Please do.

HO: Just about a half a minute ahead of that?

On behalf of me and I'm sure on behalf of you and the millions around the world who know Clara, God bless Hilo Hattie.

May she live and laugh and love and be as young as she is tonight, forever.

Bless you.

HL: Harry, before you go.

We didn't talk too much about some of the engagements you played and I'm a newer here than you were.

I've only been here about 30 years.

Did you and Clara work here in Hawaiʻi at all, ever?

HO: Yes, we worked at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for quite a number of years.

That's when I, when I went I stole Hilo Hattie away from Louise Akeo's Royal Hawaiian Girls.

She was up in the front row with this 40 girls.

And she was always breaking up the show doing a little something with her hips.

And I thought this is not, this very serious.

So I said let's put the girl in the back row and get her so that keep this thing you know, just sort of dignified.

We put Hilo Hattie in the back row.

And so all the tables they wanted to sit in the back row so they could see Clara Inter.

She was Clara Inter then so I said well gee, this is too much.

So I stole, stole her away from Louise Akeo and Louise forgave me eventually.

And that's how the whole thing started.

And then we've made Hilo Hattie a single star in her own right.

HL: Well where, where did Hilo Hattie come from, the name?

How did that originate?

HO: Well, it was the song that Don McDiarmid wrote for her, Hilo Hattie, that made this hop thing so famous.

So eventually when we went to the mainland, and all of these little sparrows were around trying to grab my little girl away from me.

I took Hattie into the, into the courts of Los Angeles and legally changed her name to Hilo Hattie.

And that's how the name came along.

HL: I see, I see.

HO: And of course, that was all changed by a violinist of mine who was working with me by the name of Carlyle Nelson, he married my girl, He took her away from me.

But what a nice guy he is, and we're happy that he's here tonight, Carlyle.

God bless.

HL: Now, now in all the traveling and the touring.

I'm sure that Hollywood beckoned at some time.

HH: Well, right from the beginning, when I was attending the university trying to get my degree.

You see, I was an old Territorial Normal School graduate and that was like a high school graduate.

But I had taught and decided, I had to, I had to get advice.

I went to Dean Wist at the Teacher's College and I said, gee, I don't know what to do.

They're criticizing me about entertaining and uh, because I'm a school teacher, and he said, you know, this is in 1940, 1940.

And he said, "I'll tell you what you do take a sabbatical leave."

See, because I was a school teacher a lot of people didn't approve of my performing with, you know, shows around town.

HL: Listen, we have that going on now, Larry Price, the football coach is on television selling commercials.

You know that's the same.

HH: But anyway HO: If I may interrupt for a minute Hattie.

HH: Yeah… HO: Might I suggest that you're still on sabbatical leave?

HH: Well, maybe.

Yeah, anyway, I went back to school, Normal School, and I was just getting ready for my final exams for that year, the junior year.

He telephones me from Los Angeles.

He said, Can you come over for two weeks, two weeks in a two week option.

And we want to do a show at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles.

So I went to the dean, everything's worked out on Decoration Day I left Honolulu went to join him in Los Angeles.

We opened at the Paramount for two weeks, and my option was picked up for two more weeks.

Then another two weeks.

In the meantime, at the Paramount the most important people at 20th Century Fox came in to catch a show and they immediately thought of an island picture.

And that trip lasted six years before I came home.

HL: What, what was the first picture you did?

HH: Song of the Islands.

HL: A Song of the Islands, and then what else?

HH: They still got that on the late, late show.

HO: Still playing.

It was with it was with the late Betty Grable HL: Yeah.

HO: Victor Mature, Thomas Mitchell HH: Oh, yes!

HO: And, and Hilo Hattie we should give her the top billing.

HH: And Jack Oakie.

HO: Jack Oakie.

HH: Yeah.

HO: And I can remember that we were at we were getting and we're having bad times and we were getting a little tired.

We were working too hard.

I had seven songs to write for the show.

And Hattie was saying to me, you're looking tired Papa san.

She said, you got three more songs to write we have two more albums to make.

And we're due to come home to Hawaiʻi to reopen the Royal Hawaiian on New Year's Eve and this is 1941.

So we got everything finished and we work night and day to get things done.

And on December 7, things happened.

Yeah, and on December the eighth I had a wire say don't come back for New Year's Eve.

You're as of this moment out of a job because the Navy has taken over the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for the duration.

And we went on the air that night, coast to coast and they monitored my program on the radio, our program.

On the show on the on the list was Ta-Hu-Wa-Hu-Wai, The Hawaiian War Chant, they said delete it, you must not speak a word of war.

HL: Well, Harry, I think that about winds up this portion of... HO: It's been great HL: ...reminiscing I want to thank you very much.

HO: I'm privileged to be here.

HL: God bless.

Harry Owens ladies and gentlemen.

HO: Thank you so much.

MK: In 1976 on the 1000th program of Pau Hana Years, producer / host Bob Barker was honored with a surprise roast.

Hattie combined the roast with a toast for Bob.

Sterling Mossman: A beautiful senior citizen, The Grand Dame or Queen of Entertainment and the first guest of Pau Hana Years, the one and only, Hilo Hattie.

HH: Thank you Sterling.

SM: See Hawaiians we kiss.

HH: Yeah, kiss, kiss, kiss, all time kiss.

You know when I was invited to take part on this program to roast my dear friend, Bob Barker.

I couldn't come up with anything to rib him about.

I could only picture Bob as a chef with a tall white hat and a number one choice of a big standing rib roast.

From this Bob has always been ready to produce for, for and by senior citizens like me on Pau Hana Years.

Some very delightful tasty choice cuts of entertainment.

Rare, medium, well done.

Or a crisp, crunchy, juicy outside cut.

Even a rib to chew on.

However you like it.

It was always ever so ono.

Bob, Mahalo for all these years that you've spent on our senior citizen shows and just keep cooking with our growing membership of Pau Hana Years senior citizens.

Mahalo.

MK: In 1936, Clara did a hula aboard a ship on the way to a teacher's convention in Oregon.

The song written by Don McDiarmid had been unsuccessful until Hattie danced it as a comedy number.

It immediately became a hit.

In 1974 she appeared on Hawaii Public Television's Mele Hawaii series hosted by Charles K. L. Davis.

The program was telecast twice on National Public Television.

She performed the song which made her famous, "When Hilo Hattie Does The Hilo Hop."

Charles K.L.

Davis: By 1940, hula dancers became famous the world over.

But of course, the most famous of them all turned out to be Hawaii's classic, comic entertainer, the delightful and incomparable, Hilo Hattie.

HH: Thank you, Charlie.

(When Hilo Hattie does the Hilo hop) When Hilo Hattie does the Hilo hop there is not a bit of use for a traffic cop.

For everything and everybody comes to a stop when Hilo Hattie does the Hilo hop.

All the sugar raises cane, palm trees sigh, the ukuleles fret, and the birds won't fly.

The humuhumunukunukus stop swimming by when Hilo Hattie does the Hilo hop.

Oh that wahine has a opu with a college education.

There's no motion she won't go through.

She doesn't leave a thing to your imagination.

Hattie does the dance no law would allow.

A crater got a look and it's sizzling now.

She'd better watch her step or everything'll be pau when Hilo Hattie does the Hilo hop.

Well, Hattie sailed for California, with the very best intentions, but now she says she'd like to warn you if you want to keep your health don't go to shrine conventions.

Hattie should've died from too much gin but she will never pay for her life of sin.

St Peter's going to take a look and say come on inside kid when Hilo Hattie does the Hilo Hop.

Oh when Hilo Hattie does the Hilo hop.

HH: Hi!

Hi, Fred.

Hui!

Aloha.

Oh, how nice, how nice of you folks.

I see you still got that opu.

Shed Brower, remember our days with the Harry Owens show.

I wish I could reach, reach you.

Can you stand up?

Huh?

Yeah the mustache tickles.

I like it.

Well, Don, you're way up here in the bushes.

Don McDiarmid: Howzit, howzit?

HH: Don McDiarmid.

DM: Thank you, dear.

HH: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the man who wrote, "When Hilo Hattie Does the Hilo Hop."

DM: And you did it for me, dear, you did it.

HH: Yeah, and Mrs. McDiarmid, so nice.

MK: Another song on that same program was the Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai.

Here with us in the studio this evening is the composer and a very dear friend of Hattie's, Mr. Alex Anderson.

Welcome, Mr. Anderson.

We're really happy to have you here today.

Alex Anderson: Thank you.

I am, I'm happy to have a little part in a memorial program to Hilo Hattie.

I keep wanting to say Clara because I’d known her so many years before she became Hilo Hattie as Clara Inter first.

And I've always called her Clara.

MK: And then she became famous with her famous comedy number.

Tell me a little bit about how you got the song, The Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai.

Where did that begin?

AA: Well I, not many people remember Warner Baxter, who in the 1930s was at the height of his movie career.

And he was one of the greats.

And a local man, Mr. Fagan invited him to Molokaʻi to Kaunakakai to put on a luau.

And entertain him and give him a big wooden key and call him the mayor.

And he invited me to come over and he said why don't you write a song?

So the whole thing, the word Kaunakakai, the alliteration got me.

Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai.

And the suggested, what's in the song was what was suggested is what they were going to do have a parade of broken down old horses, schoolchildren with leis and at the end of the one block long street they'd give him a wooden key and make him the mayor and then have a luau.

So I did this.

I wrote the song.

And they performed it.

I wasn't there.

I wasn't able to go.

And it became a hit.

And I think right, right after that.

I think that Hilo took it up.

She liked it.

And it suited her perfectly, her brand of humor.

MK: It certainly made her famous.

AA: And she did it ever since.

MK: Yes.

It certainly made her famous.

Tell me a little bit you mentioned, you refer to Hilo Hattie as Clara.

Tell me some of the special thoughts that you have about her personal things perhaps as a very special friend.

AA: Well going back into the early 30s was the time that the Royal Hawaiian opened 1927.

Sunday night shows they put on were at Waialae where the Waialae golf course is today.

And Clara was always one of the principal artists in those shows and knew her very well.

Then too, those days, we used to have a lot of parties where we'd have Hawaiian music and have entertainers and at many of those parties Clara was there entertaining.

And Peggy, my wife and I knew her very well all through those times.

And then when she began doing my song, I particularly knew her and followed her.

For instance, she was for quite a while up at the St. Francis in San Francisco.

And we caught her there in her show and was always old home week whenever we catch up with her.

I can't ever remember her without a smile on her face.

She was the cheeriest person.

Even you know, when she was offstage.

She's always was a happy looking person, and it's such a great loss that she's gone from us now.

She contributed so much.

MK: Yes, she certainly was a great contribution, I should say.

What about her wonderful sense of humor?

You mentioned she always had a smile on her face, but here were many, many funny things that she did.

AA: That went with a sense of humor and of course, her interpretation of the Cockeyed Mayor was another manifestation and When Hilo Hattie did the Hilo Hop, from which she got her Hilo Hattie name.

She just sparkled in those numbers.

And others Manuela Boy and a comic things mostly, although a time she did serious songs, I mean, she could she used to sing the more serious songs and dance hula to them.

I remember mostly those, those early times at Waialae and as I say again, up San Francisco, and then always when she was here for so long.

MK: I should say.

AA: Doing her thing.

MK: I should say.

Probably, probably one of the only great female comics in Hawaii.

AA: Yes.

Quite a number tried to imitate her.

MK: Yes.

AA: And it never quite came off.

MK: She'll long be endeared.

You brought with you today a book.

Hilo Hattie, A Legend in Our Time, by Millie Singletary.

I understand Millie has done a great deal of research and was a good friend of Hilo Hattie's tell us a little bit about the book.

AA: Well, I just received it from Carlyle Nelson, her husband, and mentioning Millie she called on me Oh, a year ago, I guess when she was writing the book and wanted to get some of the information about the Cockeyed Mayor to... MK: I see, which is in here also.

AA: From my point.

And it's a fascinating book, and it just brings her to life.

It starts right at the beginning of her life and goes through her teaching days.

And then how she got started in music with the Kodak hula show.

And just brings back so many memories as I read it.

MK: It's a wonderful tribute to her.

AA: She was such a person, a comic, a lovable person at the same time.

MK: And a lot of philosophy, her philosophy of life and wonderful things that she did.

Besides being a comic, she was a wonderful gourmet cook.

I understand in the contents.

AA: She was there's a chapter on her cooking, and she prided herself on that.

MK: Really?

A gardener.

Well, a wonderful woman and a wonderful tribute to a lady.

It is available in bookstores right now.

AA: It is.

Yes.

MK: Well, I really appreciate you coming by today.

Thank you for being with us.

And now in conclusion of this portion of the show.

Hilo Hattie does the Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai from the Mele Hawaii series.

HH: Oh, oh.

Oh he wore a malo and a coconut hat.

One was for this and the other for that.

All the people shouted as he went by.

He was the cockeyed mayor of Kaunakakai.

He was just a lazy malihini haole boy.

But all the girls were crazy.

To share his fish and poi.

Oh, he wore a lei, he wore a smile.

He drank a gallon of oke to make life worthwhile.

He made 'em laugh 'til he made 'em cry.

He was the cockeyed mayor of Kaunakakai.

The horse he rode was so skinny.

A broken down old female.

So he placed one green pānini (that’s cactus) right under the horse's tail.

He made her buck and he made her fly all over the island of Molokaʻi.

You could hear the kanes and wahines cheer as they gave him a lei of kīkānia.

And now you've heard my story about the mayor of Kaunakakai.

In all his fame and glory on the island of Molokaʻi.

Oh, he wore a malo, a coconut hat.

One was for this and the other for that.

All the people shouted as he went by.

He was the cockeyed mayor of Kaunakakai.

(The cockeyed mayor) He was the cockeyed mayor.

(The cockeyed mayor) He was the cockeyed mayor (The cockeyed mayor) of Kaunakakai.

The cockeyed mayor of Kauanakakai.

HH: Thank you, mahalo.

Hui!

MK: That’s our tribute to the clown princess of entertainment, Hilo Hattie.

We’ll miss you, aloha.

HH: Way down in Honolulu, just at the close of day, I heard a sailor sing to a dusky maid as his ship sailed away.

Don’t say aloha when I go because I’m coming back you know.

Don’t say aloha though I cry, this parting does not mean goodbye.

I’ll dream of you at Waikīkī.

That’s where I’ll always long to be.

So smile and say you’ll miss me so.

Don’t say aloha when I go.

I’ll dream of you at Waikīkī.

That’s where I’ll always long to be.

So smile and say you’ll miss me so.

Don’t say aloha when I go.

Don’t say aloha when I go.