Duke Kahanamoku left Hawaii to swim in the Olympics and became a legend

Long before Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Caeleb Dressel, there was Duke Kahanamoku. In the early part of the 20th century, there might not have been a more dynamic and fascinating American Olympian than the swimmer plucked at 21 years old from Honolulu’s Waikiki Beach who, despite only minimal training, won gold medals in the 100-meter freestyle at the 1912 and 1920 Olympics.

Kahanamoku was tall, dark and regal with powerful legs, a bright smile and tousled hair. Sportswriters of the day were charmed by the swimmer who played the ukulele and made his own surfboards. At a time when almost only White athletes were celebrated, Kahanamoku’s photo was on the front pages of magazines and newspapers. When the U.S. team stopped in Paris for a swimming exhibition in the Seine while on the way home from the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, local reporters rushed to see him under the mistaken impression he was Hawaiian royalty.

“A man unlike any other man at his time,” said Eric Carlson, a movie producer who is working with actor Jason Momoa on a full-length feature film about Kahanamoku’s life.

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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 a boisterous, barrel-chested American from Illinois named Johnny Weissmuller. Kahanamoku never swam in the Olympics again.

Weissmuller won four more Olympic gold medals before going on to play Tarzan in a series of films in which he swung from vines and called across the jungles in a yodeling yell. Kahanamoku also tried to be a Hollywood star, only to learn that there were no leading roles for men of color at the time.

Yet a century after that 100-meter race and with the Olympics again in Paris, Weissmuller is the one largely forgotten while Kahanamoku might be as famous now as at the height of his swimming glory. He is often called “The Father of Modern Surfing,” credited for spreading the sport around the world. He popularized Hawaiian print shirts and is still celebrated as an unofficial ambassador of Hawaii, 56 years after his death.

From the Islands to the world

In 1911, a pair of White Honolulu politicians with connections to the national Amateur Athletic Union had an idea. They noticed the young Hawaiians surfing off Waikiki Beach were such natural swimmers that they might be faster than the best White swimmers on the mainland. What if there was a race to see if this was true?

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Kahanamoku, especially, stood out. He rode tall on his surfboard, gliding along the waves like a dancer, and swam through swells with powerful strokes. Though he had never been in an organized swim event, the men urged him to try the open-water AAU-sanctioned race in Honolulu Harbor they had arranged for that August.

He was more than ready for such a test. His hands were cast as hard as rock from clutching his board in raging seas, his legs molded in vines of muscle. He won the 100-meter race that day, and when the judges looked at their stopwatches, they were stunned. The surfer who had never been in a race before had broken the world record.

As word reached the mainland that the 100-meter record had been broken by an unknown Hawaiian surfer swimming in the ocean, there was disbelief, David Davis wrote in his biography of Kahanamoku, “Waterman.” Kahanamoku could never afford to travel to the United States on his own, but local business leaders saw a great marketing opportunity.

He would bring “the most valuable sort of publicity for the Islands,” one told a local newspaper Davis cited.

Money was quickly raised to bring Kahanamoku across the Pacific, where he eventually wound up in an indoor pool and sank in the unfamiliar fresh water. Seeing his potential, coaches agreed to train him, and within weeks, he was swimming fast enough for the AAU to send him to that summer’s Stockholm Olympics.

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Kahanamoku became an instant sensation at those Games, which were dominated by another non-White American, Jim Thorpe. Soon, amazing stories emerged about the mysterious Hawaiian who kept breaking records. Such as how the American team had mixed up the time of the qualifying race and was allowed to swim only thanks to the benevolence of an Australian star swimmer, Cecil Healy, who said winning by disqualification would violate the “Olympic spirit.” Or how Kahanamoku fell asleep before the final and had to be awakened. In the pool, he won the 100 meters and helped the United States to a silver in the 4x200 freestyle relay.

Rich in fame but not in money

He returned to Hawaii a celebrity but struggling for money. Because of the Olympics’ amateurism rules, he couldn’t use his new fame to endorse products or compete professionally. About the only thing he was allowed to do was travel for promotional surfing exhibitions. In 1914, he spent several weeks on Australia’s beaches, drawing huge crowds each day, a visit widely credited for introducing Australians to surfing.

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World War I arrived, and the 1916 Berlin Olympics were canceled. Hoping the war would end before the 1920 Games, Kahanamoku remained an amateur. He gave surfing lessons to tourists in Hawaii. He worked for the U.S. military, got the flu during the 1918 pandemic on a work trip in Washington, D.C., and almost died. When the Olympics finally did come again in 1920, he won gold in the 100 meters and led the United States to a gold in the 4x200 relay.

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After Antwerp, Kahanamoku decided he wanted to try for one more Olympics, which meant four more years without being able to endorse products or compete in sports for money. He was in his early 30s and needed to find a way to make an income without jeopardizing his amateur status. So he went to Hollywood believing his name and looks and Olympic fame would help him become a movie star.

He landed a few insignificant roles before going to Paris for the 1924 Games. After losing to Weissmuller, he went back to Los Angeles and pushed even more for a Hollywood career. He made friends with actors, directors and producers who enjoyed being around the famous swimming star. He spent afternoons on the beach and was invited to parties. He liked being seen.

“He was one of the first people in Hollywood who was famous for being famous,” said Sandy Hall, the author of “Duke: A Great Hawaiian” and who is working on another Kahanamoku biography.

He was a three-time Olympian with three gold medals and two silver. His name was recognized around the world, and he was largely responsible for people surfing on beaches from Southern California to Australia’s east coast. He even saved eight people when a boat capsized off the coast of Orange County by paddling to the boat on his board three times to ferry survivors back to shore.

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But his connections and celebrity never resulted in big roles. The movie database IMDb lists 15 film credits, the most famous of which are “Wake of the Red Witch,” “The Rescue” and “Girl of the Port.” None lists him as the lead.

Many who have studied Kahanamoku believe Hollywood was not ready for a dark-skinned leading man.

“He was accepted but as a good friend, never a business partner,” said Jeremy Lemarie, an associate professor at France’s University of Reims Champagne Ardenne who has studied Kahanamoku extensively.

“Today, Duke would have been an action star,” Carlson said. “He’d have been Jason Momoa.”

Hall is more skeptical. She said Kahanamoku didn’t take acting classes while in Hollywood and had what appeared to be “exaggerated hopes of being a matinee idol.”

“I don’t think he was a very good actor,” she said.

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As money grew tight, films cut back on fringe actors. With no work, Kahanamoku went home to Hawaii, where he was given a series of almost demeaning jobs in Honolulu before finally becoming the city’s police chief. The role had extra importance after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 and throughout World War II because Hawaii served as a strategic naval base. But it was also a bit of a ceremonial position, one that he held for 29 years, with his energy waning in the last of his 13 terms.

Two decades after local White business executives sent Kahanamoku off to become the United States’ first swimming superstar, his greatest value to Hawaii was as its greeter, the islands’ biggest celebrity.

Lemarie remains perplexed by Kahanamoku’s willingness to swim for the United States so soon after the country essentially had overthrown the islands’ government.

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“That’s a topic that not so many [Hawaiians] want to hear,” Lemarie said.

He has talked to others who have studied Kahanamoku and Hawaiian history and concluded Kahanamoku must have understood that Hawaii’s kingdom was gone forever.

“Ninety percent of your [Hawaiian] race just went extinct in a matter of a century, and your only way to survive is to be in the system,” Lemarie added. “You accept the system; that’s the way it goes.”

Kahanamoku was born eight years before the United States officially took over, yet his parents appeared to understand how their land was changing. They insisted their children learn to speak English as well as their native language, Olelo Hawaii, which eventually contributed to the comfort Kahanamoku’s benefactors felt spending money to send him to the mainland.

“He was a minority, and he knew how things were,” Hall said. “He had to act differently than the other Olympians.”

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She added that he knew he was often being used by the White establishment in the Olympics and in Hawaii. But he also reasoned that in being exploited, he was creating opportunity for himself.

During his time in Los Angeles, Kahanamoku joined the local Hawaiian society and wore traditional Hawaiian clothes when asked. After returning to Hawaii, he joined the Shriners and had his personal creed of Aloha printed on the back of his Shriners business card.

“In Hawaii we greet friends, loved ones and strangers with Aloha, which means with love,” the card read. “Aloha is the key word to the universal spirit of real hospitality, which makes Hawaii renowned as the world’s center of understanding and fellowship. Try meeting or leaving people with Aloha. You’ll be surprised by their reaction. I believe it, and it is my creed.”

A giant legacy

In 1955, Kahanamoku had a heart attack. Five times that day, Hall said, his doctors thought he had died only to revive him. He had other health issues as well. His once mighty body started to fail. He had ulcers and what Hall described as “the length of a longboard surfboard removed from his gut.” At one point, he began losing his balance, and doctors worried he might be having a stroke.

“He bottled stress in,” Hall added. “He operated in two very different cultures. He operated as an exotic White person; he was well spoken and well dressed and liked going to baseball and football games and knew how to conduct himself with kings and queens. But he also knew when to not tell White people he enjoyed eating raw fish and seaweed — things that would make him a native. He knew how to walk both sides of the street.

“There are a lot of people who couldn’t pull that off. He knew when to do a hula dance, and he knew when to throw a shaka sign.”

Seeking money to leave behind for his wife, he opened a restaurant in Honolulu, hoping it would get the same fame as boxer Jack Dempsey’s place in New York. He let his name be used on a line of leisure wear.

Each venture was another step in the White world, a piece of selling Hawaiian culture to fascinated vacationers. For the first time, he started to make money off his fame, but it was far too late in his life. He died of a heart attack in 1968. Today, his name lives everywhere: on a restaurant chain, lines of surfboards, a foundation for youth sports.

A century after Kahanamoku’s last Olympic race, a nine-foot bronze statue of him towers over Waikiki Beach.

“Waikiki is the [home] of modern surfing, and surfing is Hawaii’s gift to the world,” Lemarie said. “And like every good story, you need one person who symbolized that, and Duke symbolized that. Duke symbolized everything that Hawaii gives to the world. He symbolized the Hawaii spirit [and] the hospitality which is Hawaii’s brand right now.

“You have the perfect definition of it by looking at just one person.”

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